When people feel whakamā, it can be because they’re comparing themselves to others and “comparison is the thief of joy,” Hartmann said, quoting former US president Theodore Roosevelt. “It robs us of our happiness, unfortunately,” he added.
“It’s easy to compare, but many people end up shielding what their true situation is, in order to appear a certain way to others,” Hartmann said.
“That can manifest in many ways. People buy stuff or live a lifestyle they can’t afford, because their friends are, or they feel their children are missing out.
They can roll into a metaphorical ball and do nothing, failing to take steps that would help such as making debt repayments. Their mental and physical health can suffer.”
Once you can name an emotion that is holding you back, it’s easier to move forward, said Hartmann.
“When you can name something, maybe say, ‘I’m actually feeling a bit ashamed about my financial situation’ or a particular part of it, that’s the first step.”
Whakamā doesn’t single out individual ethnicities, said Hartmann. Rather it hits lower-income earners hardest.
“What ends up happening is [the effects of having a] lower income can drive up that sense of shame, that feeling of inadequacy that we should have done better,” he said. “People may then turn to debt in order to cover up some of those perceived inadequacies and inequalities.”
MoneyTalks team lead Ange Smart, said she has never met a culture that is happy to talk about money. “Whakamā is usually based on your family relationship growing up, whether you talked about money or not. Every culture has some sort of shame.
“We’d just rather put our heads in the sand, which is absolutely frustrating. We don’t want our neighbours to [see us] sell our fancy car. Even though that debt would clear the next three months’ worth of expenses, we’re too afraid [of] what they are going to say.”
MoneyTalks is seeing more and more middle-income people suffering whakamā as they struggle with mortgage repayments thanks to the doubling and trebling of interest rates in recent years.
Most don’t want others to know. “They’re absolutely mortified about having to call their bank to say that they might need to apply for hardship. There’s devastation and feeling like I’ve never been here, I shouldn’t have been here, what have I done wrong?”
Once people recognise the whakamā and their reactions and are kinder to themselves, it is possible to overcome it to varying degrees and move ahead. Opening up is a huge hurdle. Talking to a MoneyTalks mentor, talking to friends or family is a good first step, said Smart.
“Once you know that you’re not alone, it gives you that seed of hope.
“Realistically, every second person in New Zealand right now absolutely is going through something similar to a varying degree.”
Part of the bigger problem when it comes to whakamā is people don’t talk. MoneyTalks offers a free financial helpline on 0800 345 123 and a kōrero mai chat on its website MoneyTalks.co.nz.
Coincidentally, MoneyTalks is about to launch an advertising campaign to counter the problem of whakamā.
“Our advertising campaign is literally around breaking the whakamā talking about pūtea [finance],” said Smart. She said we need as a society to normalise talking about money, about pay transparency and other financial issues.
Just like it’s okay to talk about mental health it should be okay to talk about money, Financial ombudsman Susan Taylor of Financial Services Complaints Limited said on the subject of whakamā at the Te Ara Ahunga Retirement Commission conference.
“It starts with family as a whānau, having those conversations around the dinner table after school.” Or in the words of Warren Ngan Woo, Westpac’s financial wellbeing programme manager it should be “cool to pūtea as well as “cool to kōrero”.
