The Questions We’re Afraid to Ask

“The Questions We’re Afraid to Ask"

The Questions We’re Afraid to Ask

Over the years, I’ve noticed that the hardest questions aren’t the dramatic ones — they’re the quiet ones people hesitate to ask. The questions that come wrapped in apologies. The ones we carry privately, unsure if they’re too much, too selfish, too vulnerable, or too human.

This series, The Questions We’re Afraid to Ask, is an invitation to bring those questions into the light gently and without judgment. Each piece explores one of these tender places — money, grief, wanting more, staying or leaving, love as it changes — not to offer quick answers, but to create a safe space where curiosity can replace shame, and honesty can breathe.
Tarot has always met people there, and this series is an extension of that same listening.

Part One
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Money Is Allowed Here
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Money is often spoken about in hushed tones, especially in spaces devoted to meaning, healing, or spiritual growth. Over years of sitting with people at the tarot table, I’ve come to recognize how heavy that silence can feel.

Someone sits down. We exchange a few gentle words. And when I ask, “What would you like to look at today?” there is often a long pause — not because they don’t know, but because they are afraid of how it will sound once they say it out loud.

They soften their voice. They apologize before they begin.

“I know there are more important things than money.”
“I feel selfish even asking this.”
“I should be grateful for what I have.”
“Is it okay to ask about this?”
“Please don’t judge me for asking.”
“What if this says something bad about me?”

What they are really trying to say is simpler, and far more human: they are tired of being afraid. Tired of the tightness that settles into their chest when money comes up.
Tired of lying awake at night calculating, re-calculating, and wondering what it means about them that this feels so hard.

There is nothing shallow in this.

Money is not a reflection of someone’s worth, depth, or goodness. But when money is unstable or scarce, it touches nearly everything — how safe a person feels in their body, how much rest they allow themselves, how freely they can imagine a future. When resources feel uncertain, the nervous system stays on alert.
Joy becomes cautious. Creativity narrows. Even beauty can feel distant, as though it belongs to someone else’s life.

This is not a personal failing. It is a human response to lack.

Many people carry what is often called “poverty consciousness,” but what I see beneath that phrase is something far more tender: self-blame. The quiet belief that not having enough means not being enough. That needing more support means having failed some invisible test of character, strength, or spirituality.

This is where the real harm lives — not in the desire for money, but in the way people turn that desire inward and let it become self-disdain.

In tarot, questions about money live in the suit of Pentacles — earth energy.
The Suit of Pentacles reflects the physical and external level of consciousness: health, finances, work, creativity, and the structures that support daily life. It shows how we shape our outer world — how we build it, care for it, and try to grow within it.

On a deeper level, Pentacles also speak to self-esteem and self-image. To how safe you feel in your body. How supported you feel by your surroundings. How much space you believe you are allowed to take up in the world.

The pentacle itself holds this meaning. Its five points represent Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit — thought, emotion, effort, physical matter, and soul — all meeting within a single form. The surrounding circle acts as a container, symbolizing wholeness, protection, and continuity. Nothing is meant to exist in isolation. Everything is meant to be held.

This is why Pentacles are never only about money. They are about balance. About generosity and care when resources are flowing, and about fear, contraction, or self-protection when they are not. When money is working in a healthy way, it often brings stability, freedom, and spaciousness — room to breathe, to give, to rest, to choose thoughtfully.
When it isn’t, it can become tight, overwhelming, or controlling, mirroring the strain placed on the nervous system.

The gold coins in the Pentacles do not represent greed. They represent care. They represent the resources that make emotional regulation, creativity, and connection possible. They represent the very human need for ground beneath one’s feet.

Caring about money is not the opposite of appreciating beauty. In fact, when fear around money softens, people often become more able to notice beauty — the warmth of a cup in their hands, light through a window, the steadiness of breath, the quiet dignity of showing up for another day.

Relieving poverty consciousness is not about forcing positivity or pretending that lack doesn’t hurt. It is about gently untangling self-worth from circumstance. About learning to say, “This is affecting me,” without adding, “and therefore I am bad, broken, or failing.”

Money, at its healthiest, is not something we chase or fear. It is something we relate to — like breath, like water, like shelter — with respect and honesty. It is allowed to matter without defining us.

So when someone comes to tarot wanting to talk about money, I don’t hear greed. I hear a person trying to care for their life. Trying to understand how to stand more steadily in the world.
Trying to meet their material needs without losing their sense of beauty, dignity, or self-trust.

There is deep compassion here — for the fear, for the exhaustion, for the quiet ways people blame themselves for circumstances that are often far beyond personal control.
Wanting to feel safe enough to breathe, to rest without guilt, to imagine a future without panic is not unspiritual. It is elemental. It is the body asking for steadiness so the soul can remain present.

Money was never meant to measure a soul.

Money is a human-made structure — a system of exchange created to move energy from one form to another. Time for labor. Skill for compensation. Service for support. It is a way humans translate effort into sustenance, contribution into continuity. Nothing more, and nothing less.

The danger comes when we confuse the structure with the meaning.

The soul is not measured by transactions. It is not defined by income, productivity, or accumulation. And yet, the soul does live inside a physical life — one that requires movement, exchange, and support in order to remain stable enough to breathe, rest, and choose.

This is the paradox people feel but struggle to name: money does not create worth — but the absence of stability around money can erode a person’s sense of worth.

When the soul is unseen or unvalued internally, money begins to carry too much weight. It becomes a stand-in for safety, dignity, and self-trust. But when the soul is recognized — when a person knows their inherent value — money returns to its rightful size. It becomes a tool. An item. A means of exchange rather than a measure of meaning.

Money does not create kindness.
It does not generate love.
It does not bestow goodness or depth.

But when fear around money softens, the nervous system settles — and it becomes easier to access the qualities that already live within a person: generosity, creativity, care, presence.
Understanding supports a life.
Self-recognition supports a life.
A stable exchange system simply gives those things room to exist without constant threat.

When money is allowed to return to its rightful place — as structure rather than verdict — it becomes a container rather than a definition.
Something that holds life steady enough for care, choice, and presence to be possible.

And when money is held in that place — neither worshipped nor denied — it can move through a life quietly, without defining it.


Jennifer Belanger is an intuitive practitioner based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
She offers in-person, virtual, and emailed tarot readings rooted in reflection, clarity,
and compassionate inquiry.
Sessions can be booked directly through her website-
www.energytouchintuition.com