Mortgage agent and yoga instructor Jacqueline Richards strikes a pose at LiveWell Family Health Centre.
For those trying to balance their budget, paying off a mortgage or their credit card debt can leave them feeling stretched for cash.
But Jacqueline Richards’ financial philosophy maintains that some kinds of stretching can be good for finances.
The mortgage agent, yoga teacher and self-proclaimed “financial wellness coach” is teaching an approach to money influenced by the principles of yoga.
Richards’ concept started when her yoga students started asking for financial advice.
“If they’re bursting into tears talking about a mortgage, then we’re talking about more than just money here,” she says. “Money has such an impact on their personal life.”
Richards says yoga, with its emphasis on reaching mental calm through physical postures, values balance – and not only the kind found by standing on one foot.
“Balance could be your credit score or your bank balance or it could be your chakra energy,” she says, referring to the yogic concept of life force. The point, she adds, is that your physical and mental health can affect your financial health, and vice versa.
So when Richards teaches workshops on mortgage payments or credit – often at Centretown’s James Street Wellness Centre – she interrupts her speech with demonstrations of yoga poses.
“If we can strengthen the body and the mind, then maybe we’ll be in a better place to strengthen our approach to money,” she says.
Her clients are often more comfortable standing in tree pose than grappling with total debt service ratio, so Richards brings in yogic analogies to help. For example, she associates the ability to budget responsibly with a type of chakra linked to groundedness.
In her book, Yoga for your Personal Finance, budgeting worksheets appear beside specific poses for re-balancing energy.
Looking at finances from the yoga mat might be unusual, but Michael Moreau, an Ottawa-based financial planner, says the idea is practical from a business standpoint.
“There’s nothing new with that approach,” he says. “You’ve got to market yourself in a way that makes sense to your clients.”
Moreau himself uses exercise analogies to break down financial jargon.
“You want to optimize your financial fitness,” he says. “I think people can relate to that.”
The majority of Richards’ clients are women (“More women do yoga,” she says), and Moreau thinks that female clients are after a wider, more interconnected method to managing money.
“I’ve noticed that throughout my career – I’ve been doing this for 22 years – that women want a broader, more experiential approach. It affects all parts of their life,” he says.
Michael Kelly is not Richards’ typical client. The Ottawa entrepreneur prefers hockey to yoga, and admits he’s outnumbered by women when he attends Richards’ workshops, but he appreciates her approach because it’s “tangible.”
“I like the kinetic part,” he says. “Sometimes she’ll show a yoga move, which may seem crazy, but it connects with what she’s talking about.”
The movement in her workshops also keeps people from dozing off, which can be a hazard in finance education seminars, he says.
For Kelly, Richards’ style offers a connection to the material that is missing from more traditional approaches.
“Kinesthetic learning – it’s a formal learning technique that helps a lot of people,” he says.
On Richards’ voicemail recording, she tells the listener, “You are absolutely wealthier than you think.” That notion may not apply to everyone, but Ottawans seem willing to flex their financial muscles inside the yoga studio.
Richards says interest “continues to rise, because people want to have a different conversation about money.”