Episode 1: Bari Tessler, Author of The Art of Money

B”H

The past month has been a whirlwind of amazing things, many of which had me put this audio interview on hold, even though every single day I craved getting to work on it. Bari Tessler is both beautiful inside and outside, and interviewing her has been one of the most enlightening and profound experiences of my work as a blogger in the Jewish lifestyle space. Bari is a remarkable Jewish woman, whose work The Art of Money (both a book and a year long course) is outstanding. In this interview Bari and I connect and discuss her work in the area of financial therapy, but in addition, as we explore her journey and her life’s work, we go back to her Jewish roots and see how her Jewish soul has found expression through her work. I could not be prouder of Bari Tessler and I am so happy and blessed to have had the merit to do this touching and profound interview with such a special woman.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Email | RSS

Here are some of the things Bari and I explore in the interview:

4:35 Bari’s journey which led her to financial therapy, including a detour to Israel (5:43) – a journey to find herself as Jewish woman, which also led her to begin her work in somatic therapy
8:13 Bari’s wake-up call to Money!
8:52 The point in which Bari realizes there’s an obvious missing piece in her exhaustive training as a therapist and what she decided to do about it (8:55)
10:00 What Bari calls “bridging heaven and earth” through her work and unique methodology
12:08 The back story to the wonderful and totally appropriate tag line of her book The Art of Money, A life-changing guide to financial happiness
13:33 Bari and I start getting mystical and pointing out how through her work, unbeknownst to her, she’s teaching us to work on the chetzonius (external) as well as the pnimius (internal) areas of our relationship to money.
16:00 We discuss what is money healing
19:12 Bari teaches us about what she has coined the “body check-in”
22:25 Bari talks to us about money practices or the routines and practical elements we need to build around taking care of our money
25:10 Bari tells us why we must learn a bookkeeping system
27:25 We bring Jewish mysticism back into Bari’s work by identifying that her methodology is a perfect example of the Jewish concepts of chesed (kindness) and gevura (severity) and the fusion of both.
29:57 We talk values and how identifying those plays a key component to our work around money
31:10 Bari teaches us about re-naming our spending and our saving according to our values and we are able to co-relate this practice, which she so adamantly teaches her students, to Judasim’s take on words and the power of speech, as well as her early Jewish education.
38:47 We discuss how as women we have an intuitive way of knowing how to practice the “body check-in”, yet we have to tune into it and put into practice.
40:03 Bari and I get into parenting and money and not surprisingly, we agree the work starts with us, the parents/couple, first!
52:02 Bari tells us of two incredible Hasgacha Pratit (Divine Providence) moments which have been pivotal in her path and where she is today… one of them, happened twenty years ago in Israel!
54:51 Beautiful JLP fill in the blanks in which Bari takes us to her favorite mitzvah, her fondest Jewish memory, the way she likes to practice tzedakah and more…

Thank you for tuning in to this most wonderful interview and thank you Bari for the honor and pleasure. Please leave me comments and questions on the comments below and I will be sure to answer. You can find Bari here, purchase her book The Art of Money here, and follow her on Facebook here.

xoxo,

Yael