One post took me a minimum of one hour to write. Published daily that’s 30 hours a week, 120 hours a month, and at 60 paid subscribers giving me $10 each, I was taking home $600 a month for work that required me to be vulnerable, creative, consistent, and frankly very good at what I do.

Less than minimum wage in most countries. For writing that people actually wanted to read.

Then I started managing other people’s Substacks. One publication takes me two hours a week to manage. I currently manage four, which is eight hours a week and 32 hours a month, at $60 an hour. That’s $1,920 a month, for words I didn’t have to pull out of my own chest.

I’m not telling you this to complain. I’m telling you because it’s the kind of number that forces a decision. One that explains why you’ve seen less of me here lately.

When the economics of a thing stop making sense, inspiration doesn’t disappear overnight — it just quietly stops showing up.

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My Substack publication, originally called The Art of Intimacy, started in November 2023. The name attracted the wrong crowd (people who read the word intimacy and thought it was a euphemism for sex) so I rebranded to Intimate, which is about vulnerability, connection with self and others, modern dating, the real dynamics between men and women.

Over three years I built it to 1,400+ subscribers.

For a while I was approaching the bestselling badge. I had 60 paid subscribers. I was writing daily and I was proud of what I was building, and I was also being paid $5 an hour to do it.

Then I started managing other people’s Substacks and I'm paid 60$ an hour.

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What I learned in the process of managing other people’s Substacks is that the people really making money on Substack are almost never the best writers.

They’re the ones who arrived with an existing Instagram audience of 100k, 500k, a million followers, and essentially transferred that trust onto a new platform.

Or they’re business coaches selling you on how to make money while they make their money from telling you how to make money, a model that works and requires zero original thought.

Or they’re affiliate link aggregators calling themselves curators, inserting commission links into every post and earning on volume.

None of these are writing. None of these are what I came to Substack to do.

I came here because Medium collapsed and took its writer revenue program with it. I wanted a platform where I owned my readership, where no editor could tell me to soften my voice or follow rules that had nothing to do with good writing, and where people would pay to read me — Hakima — not a filtered version of me that passed someone else's approval.

What I found is that writing for the sake of writing, even good writing, even writing 1,431 people actively chose to follow, does not monetize well unless you’re already an influencer people want to follow into any room.

I am not that. Not yet.

On top of all of this, I have a copywriting business that has always been my main source of income and I have been building a tarot reading brand that excites me in a way no project has in a long time. My life outside of writing got richer, fuller, and more demanding all at once. And since recently, I started managing other people’s Substacks.

Writing less here turned out to be a symptom of living more, which I refuse to feel bad about. Something had to give, and the thing that gave was posting here for $5 an hour.

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Here is what nobody tells you about Substack: if you have no products to sell, no affiliate strategy relevant to what you write about, and no existing audience on Instagram or TikTok that already trusts you enough to follow you anywhere, paid subscriptions alone will not save you.

You can be a really good writer with 1,400 people who chose to follow you and still be earning $5 an hour. I know because I was.

Today, I know more about Substack than almost anyone who started when I did. That knowledge sitting inside my publication, posted into the void, was worth $5 an hour. That same knowledge, sold as a service, is worth $60.

What changed wasn’t the knowledge. What changed was the container I put it in.

I will keep writing on Substack, just more sporadically than before. Intimate hasn't changed: modern dating, male and female behavior, how people emotionally respond to each other. That’s still what this is. So don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere, I’m just no longer posting daily to earn $5 an hour.

In the meantime, if you’ve been thinking about starting or relaunching your own Substack, I now help people do exactly that, using everything three years on this platform taught me. If that’s you, message me directly. And if you know someone sitting on a Substack idea they haven’t acted on yet, send them this way.

A few weeks ago, I woke up with that old, quiet panic whispering under my skin. There was no big emergency. No obvious trigger. But my body remembered something my mind didn’t: fear.

I opened my banking app, and the numbers were the same. Still, something felt off. I hadn’t felt this kind of fear in a long time—especially not since I’d tuned into the energy of abundance. I’d been doing the work: nervous system, beliefs, receiving, trusting. I thought I’d moved through all that.

But when I went to bed that night, I whispered a quiet prayer anyway: Let me feel safe in this expansion. Let me stay in trust.

The next morning, I opened my inbox.

“We have frozen your funds.”

Just like that, a French bank account I had just started using again after years with zero in it was emptied. Apparently, a bureaucratic error from 2018 I had completely forgotten—back when I was still registered as a French tax resident—had resurfaced, and the government had reclaimed the money in my account. A lot of money.

I read the email again, and instead of panicking… I laughed because I knew exactly what was happening on an energetic level.

Here are the 7 reframes that helped me stay calm, appreciate the experience, and even find joy in the situation — instead of spiraling into panic.

1. losing money isn’t always a loss. sometimes, it’s an upgrade.

That morning when I saw my bank account empty was a quiet but unmistakable reminder that when you raise your wealth frequency, the first thing that happens is not always expansion — it’s exposure. When you shift how much you are available to receive, everything that was built on old fear, old control, or old dependence begins to crack.

But it is always a clearing.

What left my life that day wasn’t just money — it was a past relationship to money that had been rooted in irresponsibility. And so it left because I’m now a responsible adult.

Not as punishment. Not as betrayal. But as part of a new identity shift. It left to make room for a new version of you more aligned to who you are today.

2. hoarding is not the same as holding.

I thought I was being smart with that French account. Since it’s a bank account I didn’t open for years, I told myself I was being responsible, by tucking money away here, out of my sight and out of my mind so that I don't spend it.

But when I looked honestly, I could see the truth: I wasn’t holding that money — I was hoarding it. I wasn’t in relationship with it. I wasn’t appreciating it, engaging with it, or allowing it to circulate with intention. I had removed myself from the intimacy of stewardship, and money does not thrive in isolation.

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We were talking about how I finally created an intimate, grounded, and even joyful relationship with money. And they asked me:

“What made you actually start looking at it? What changed for you?”

I didn’t even hesitate.

“Shame,” I said.

They looked surprised. “Really? But you shouldn’t feel shame about money. Who cares what people think about how much you earn?”

But that’s just it, my shame wasn’t about other people.

It was about me.

It wasn’t shame because I didn’t have what someone else had. It wasn’t the kind born from comparison or envy.

It was the shame of knowing I was not living like a responsible adult. Of seeing my own brilliance, my creativity, my potential and realizing how disconnected it was from my actual reality.

Sure, the way my ex looked at me sometimes, the way he held my finances in judgment… that stung. But it didn’t create the shame. It just mirrored it. Reflected the thing I was trying so hard to suppress.

Because deep down, I already felt it. I knew I was capable of more. I wanted more. And I didn’t have it. Not because I wasn’t smart enough, or gifted enough, or deserving, but because I wasn’t attending to my relationship with money. And shame was the first feeling that made me stop, look, and ask:

What if I could finally choose something different?

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There’s a lot of pop-psychology advice out there that says you should never feel shame. That it’s toxic. That it’s useless. That if you do feel it, something’s wrong. But here’s the truth no one tells you:

Shame can be one of the most powerful catalysts for change.

Not the kind of shame that says “you’re unworthy.” Not the shame that comes from cultural scripts or comparison traps. I’m talking about the shame that arises when you see the gap between who you are and who you know you could be.

That shame? It’s not your enemy. It’s your signal. And it changed everything for me.

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One of the biggest shifts I made thanks to money shame was starting to look.

I built spreadsheets. I tracked my income and expenses. I gave every dollar a job. I stopped floating through the month hoping it would work out, and started actually building a relationship with money. And the funny thing? I found so much pleasure in it.

But not everyone saw it that way.

One day, I was joyfully updating my tracker — tea in hand, music playing — when a friend looked over and said, “You know, this looks like control. Fear. That’s not very abundance mindset of you.”

I smiled. Because what she saw as control… was actually intimacy. And I told her:

“Listen, the way I used to live? I didn’t look. I avoided. I hoped. And that’s what kept me broke. But this? This is how I show up. This is how I tend to something I care about. Like a garden. Or a partner. Or my own future.”

The discomfort she felt wasn’t mine. Because for me, these money dates were grounding. Fun. Empowering. Orgasmic. They were proof: I’m the kind of woman who takes care of herself.

5 Grown-Ass Takeaways About Money Shame (That Nobody Else Is Saying)

If you’ve ever felt shame about money, you don’t need to get rid of it right away. You just need to listen to it. Here are five ways to do that, and let it become the fuel…for your transformation:

1. Name it without justifying it

Most people either avoid their shame or try to rationalize it away. “I just had a tough year” or “Capitalism is rigged anyway.” And yes, both might be true. But if you’re not able to say, “I’m ashamed because I feel like I’m failing myself,” then you’re not actually in relationship with your shame — you’re still running from it.

Sit with it. Let it be real. Don’t explain it away. Let the truth sting. That’s the doorway.

2. Shame is a sign that you still believe something better is possible

If you feel shame about money, it doesn’t mean you’re broken, it means some part of you knows this isn’t the full truth of who you are. That more is available. That a richer, more aligned life is not only possible… it’s deserved.

Shame shows up when there’s a gap between where you are and where you know you could be. That gap hurts — not because you’ve failed — but because you haven’t abandoned the possibility.

Plenty of people never feel shame about money because they’ve already decided their situation is fixed. They blame capitalism, luck, their upbringing, the system. And while yes, those factors are real — they’re also not the whole story. But people who don't experience shame will never get rich.

Shame, on the other hand, is uncomfortable because it’s intimate. It says, “I have a part to play here… and I want something better.” And that? That’s power. That's fuel for wealth.

3. Don’t try to heal your shame…

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Sit with that for a moment.

We’re taught how to communicate. How to flirt. How to set boundaries. How to heal relationships, repair trust, reconnect with our bodies. Some of us have even learned how to be intimate with our turn-on, our pleasure, our emotions.

But intimacy with money? No one teaches that.

Meanwhile, I know wealthy people who treat money like a damn lover. They sleep with cash under their pillow. They whisper to their wallet. They stroke a bill the way you’d trace a partner’s spine. One of them literally washes their money — which, yes, is technically money laundering, but spiritually? It tracks.

For a long time, I thought they were eccentric. Now I understand: They weren’t being weird. They were being in relationship.

With money.

With security.

With abundance.

With themselves.

Earlier this year, I was broke. Financially broke. Emotionally tight. Nervous-system fried. Terrified of opening my banking app. I wasn’t just avoiding money —I was avoiding myself.

And everything changed on a completely ordinary afternoon. I was doom-scrolling Instagram, half-dissociated, when a friend posted a question that hit me harder than any money book, budgeting strategy, or manifestation ritual ever had. She wrote:

“What could be a simple daily ritual around money that you could do?”

And underneath, she added playful, intimate examples:

• taking a bill and talking to it like it’s your boyfriend

• painting or drawing with money

• reading one single page about money

• doing a money mantra

• making art with money

• listening to an abundance affirmation

• holding money in your hands like it’s alive

Something in me cracked open. I felt it in my chest — that soft, quiet click that happens right before a breakthrough. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t shame. It wasn’t “oh god, I need to get my shit together.” It was recognition.

This wasn’t about money at all. It was about intimacy. It was about relationship. It was about nervous system safety. The same thing I guide men through in my coaching — where the real issue isn’t the erection, but the emotional, relational, physical, and mental engines underneath it.

Money works the same way.

And here’s the truth: My entire financial life changed because I did one thing: I answered that prompt. And I implemented it. Every single day.

That was the doorway from broke to abundant.

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The very next morning, I grabbed a 2000 Vietnamese Dong bill (less than one dollar USD) and held it. Not analyzing it. Not judging myself. Not spiraling. Just holding.

Then I asked the first question from the prompt:

“Where did you come from, and who did you support before me?”

I didn’t try to answer. I just let the question breathe. Then I whispered:

“You’re safe with me.”

My whole body exhaled. My shoulders softened. Something inside me — something tight, braced, ashamed — melted a little.

This was the first intimacy I’d ever had with money.

Not manifestation. Not mindset. Not “raising my vibration.” Just presence. Just relationship. Just me, finally not abandoning myself.

I didn’t expect grief to come. But it did — rushing in like a tide.

Grief for how long I’d felt alone in my finances. Grief for the version of me who survived on stress. Grief for the identity I’d built around “figuring it out.” Grief for the years I white-knuckled my way through life.

It reminded me of the moment men realize their first erection loss isn’t just a body glitch —it’s the loss of an unspoken privilege, a crack in identity. And no one tells them: you might have to grieve this.

Money was the same for me. I wasn’t just broke. I was grieving. And grief wasn’t the enemy. Grief was the doorway. Once I allowed myself to feel it, something inside me softened enough to change.

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My 30 daily money rituals (the practice that changed everything)

I committed to one thing: Do one ritual a day. Just one. Keep it small, keep it tender, keep it doable.

Here are the rituals I used — the same ones you can start today:

Talking to money

1. “Where did you come from, and who did you support before me?”

2. “You’re safe with me.”

3. Thank the money I spent yesterday.

4. “How do you like to circulate through my life?”

5. Write a love note to money.

Art & expression

6. Draw money abstractly.

7. Paint while thinking about abundance.

8. Collage images of security (not wealth).

9. Write “money” in 10 styles.

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But what I want to share today is something that feels almost too good to keep to myself. Because 10 months later, I’m in a completely different place. I have savings in the bank. I’m nearly debt-free. I’m traveling across Australia, writing, thriving and all of this started with one simple shift.

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