PR for People® Book Reviews August 2016

Mindfulness and Money

The Art of Money: A Life-Changing Guide to Financial Happiness – Bari Tessler

Parallax Press – 296 pp - $22.95

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need a good idea, the guts to develop it into a sustainable business, and the financing to make it happen. Often, it’s that third leg of the stool that presents the biggest problem. But “The Art of Money,” a new book from financial therapist Bari Tessler, may provide you with the confidence you need to move forward.

Published by Parallax Press, a nonprofit founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, this book encompasses more than market-based economic advice. Tessler trained as a somatic psychotherapist and worked in the mental health and hospice field for more than a decade before developing an integrative approach toward deep healing and money management.

Today she writes and speaks on this topic, and runs a year-long money school for creative entrepreneurs and others.

Calling money the perennial “elephant in the room,” Tessler proposes a holistic new way of looking at it – not just as a resource that we never seem to have enough of, but as a gateway to self-awareness. She advises on tools and strategies for learning how to build a mindful relationship with money, and for assessing one’s personal financial reality in a way that encompasses much more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

Some of Tessler’s suggestions seem to be mere semantics – working with one client on developing a budget, she advises her to rename the line item titled “credit card debt” to the more evocative “My Italian Experience” to honor what the money had bought. 

In addition to this values-based bookkeeping, you’ll read about body check-ins, money-healing rituals, money dates and money maps. For some, this may seem too woo-woo, but Tessler incorporates the nitty-gritty details of tracking systems, credit scores, and wealth management into practices that are intended to be creative, compassionate and aligned with your deepest purpose.