Overcoming Financial Trauma: How to Break Free from Guilt, Build Wealth, and Redefine Success

by Rahkim Sabree

An invaluable, hands-on guide to understanding your financial past while building a secure financial future

In Overcoming Financial How to Break Free from Guilt, Build Wealth, and Redefine Success, award-winning financial therapist Rahkim Sabree delivers a deeply honest and supportive discussion of how to get to the root of your financial trauma. The author helps you identify triggers for nervous system dysregulation that result in financial anxiety and financial stress, demonstrating the importance of financial psychology and behavioral finance, as well as financial therapy as an effective solution.

This book introduces Rahkim's 3 E framework for overcoming financial trauma as a healing reframe for everyone who has been primed to view their financial failures through a lens of personal shortcomings. You'll learn how to navigate the guilt, shame, and fear that naturally arise from this old mindset. You'll also

Introductions to effective financial education, along with an acknowledgement of systemic barriers to financial success and social commentary Exercises utilizing mindfulness and personal audits Culturally relevant personal anecdotes and real-life stories of overcoming formidable obstacles A powerful new resource for human resource professionals, first-generation high-income earners, and anyone else doing their best to make their financial way in a market that's increasingly challenging to navigate, Overcoming Financial Trauma is filled with actionable strategies and a liberating new way of understanding your financial choices and situation.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published November 18, 2025

Reviews

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

whether you're someone trying to be better with money or a practitioner, you NEED to read this book. It's incredibly personal and relatable. It may be uncomfortable at first, but it's worth it.

[Sarah C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was honored to read an early copy of “Overcoming Financial Trauma”. It is crafted so beautifully. Rahkim has a gift for articulating complex concepts in an accessible, grounded way. He doesn’t shy away from naming the systems and the oppression that underlie so much financial harm. Anyone who reads this will gain a new lens for understanding what has shaped their own relationship with money. And while awareness and insight are powerful on their own, Rahkim goes further, offering tools and resources to reclaim autonomy and agency with money, all without shame.

[Severine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read!!

Overcoming Financial Trauma is the kind of book that makes you pause and think, but in a good way. It’s not a one-and-done read. You’ll likely come back to it and notice new things each time, especially as your own relationship with money changes.

What makes this book stand out is how it explains something many of us feel but can’t quite put into words: money is emotional. Our habits, fears, and choices around money are shaped by our past, what we lived through, what we were taught (or not taught), and even what our families believed about money. Financial trauma doesn’t always stem from a single, major event. Sometimes it shows up as constant stress, quiet shame, or feeling “bad with money” without knowing why.

Rahkim writes with honesty and kindness. He doesn’t blame or lecture. Instead, he helps you see that many money struggles are survival skills we picked up along the way, not personal failures. By mixing real-life stories with research, he helps readers understand themselves better and shows them how healing is possible.

This book also reminds us that we don’t have to do this work alone. Healing your relationship with money is about more than budgets and spreadsheets; it’s about self-compassion, support, and growth.

Overcoming Financial Trauma isn’t just a book you read once and put on a shelf. It’s a guide you can return to whenever you need clarity, comfort, or a reminder that change is possible.