What if the biggest obstacles in your financial life aren’t really about numbers?
In this episode of How to Trust Yourself, Anna talks with trauma-informed financial wellness coach Katy Chen Mazzara about the emotional stories, childhood experiences, and nervous-system patterns that shape our relationships with money.
Before becoming a coach, Katy spent more than 15 years as a freelance television producer and development executive, experiencing firsthand the feast-or-famine cycle that is so common in creative careers. Her own desire to understand how to create financial stability eventually led her to study financial planning at UC Berkeley and become certified in trauma-informed somatic coaching.
Today, Katy brings those worlds together, helping creatives, freelancers, and entrepreneurs understand both the practical and emotional sides of money.
Anna and Katy explore why simply knowing what we “should” do financially often isn’t enough to change our behavior. They talk about the money beliefs we absorb in childhood, the cultural mythology of the “starving artist,” and why shame, fear, and self-punishment can actually make financial change harder.
They also explore what it means to feel safe enough to receive more, advocate for yourself, raise your rates, invest, or pursue opportunities—and why releasing attachment doesn’t mean releasing responsibility or effort.
In this episode, Anna and Katy discuss:
• How childhood experiences shape our unconscious beliefs about money
• Why financial problems aren’t always solved by spreadsheets or better information
• The “starving artist” story and the ways it can keep creatives small
• The connection between self-worth, advocacy, and earning
• Why shame and self-punishment can perpetuate financial struggles
• How trauma-informed and somatic work can help shift entrenched money patterns
• The difference between releasing attachment and giving up effort
• Why play, ease, and nervous-system safety can sometimes help us move forward
• Money as part of an interpersonal and energetic exchange
• How greater emotional freedom can ripple into work, relationships, creativity, and finances
• Why it’s never too late to create a different relationship with money
Katy’s work offers a compassionate alternative to the idea that financial change requires being harder on ourselves. Instead, she invites us to become curious about where our beliefs came from, create enough safety to examine them, and begin making more conscious choices about what we want to carry forward.
Connect with Katy Chen Mazzara
Website: https://www.katychenmazzara.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katychenmazzara/
Connect with Anna Holtzman
Website: www.annaholtzman.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anna_holtzman/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-holtzman/
