Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Freedom, Money Management, Scarcity Mindset, Budgeting, Financial Planning

114 | 3 Ways to Separate Your Net Worth from Your Self-Worth

• Erin Gray | Financial Coach, Former Certified Financial Planner and CFO

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When was the last time you thought, “When I hit my financial goal, then I'll feel .....? In this episode, we explore how to break the deep-rooted connection between your self-worth and your net worth—and why disconnecting them is the key to true financial freedom.

In this episode, we cover:

  • Why your worth is inherent and never tied to a dollar amount
  • How nervous system dysregulation feeds money guilt and avoidance
  • 3 practical ways to separate your identity from your finances
  • The importance of celebrating progress before reaching big goals
  • How to shift from “not enough” to sufficiency—and beyond

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Step 3: Ready to transform your relationship with money and build true financial confidence?

Let’s create a strategy that feels aligned, intentional, and empowering—just for you.

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Money doesn't have to feel overwhelming. Let's create a strategy that feels nurturing and custom to you.

From my soul to yours,

Erin

Erin Gray:

You ever catch yourself measuring your value by how much money you have or don't have, or maybe the revenue of your business. This can be especially tricky for us female entrepreneurs, because I believe that a lot of us were taught that our value and our self-worth is to be measured by something external, outside of us, and today's episode is all about breaking free from that belief that your money defines your worth. I'm going to share how to separate your financial situation from your self-esteem and your worth so that you can build a thriving business with confidence, not from a place of financial validation. Do you want to create a system to stop avoiding your money? Maybe you're feeling guilt and shame when it comes to your finances. Welcome to your Money, your Rules.

Erin Gray:

I'm Erin, a former certified financial planner and CFO, and yet I used to avoid my money and had fear, no matter how much we had. I can't wait to teach you how I overcame my money avoidance and started consistently managing my finances in a really simple way. It's time to get comfortable with money. If you're ready to untangle your relationship with money, not just on paper the deep in your body and your spirit. I want you to know that you don't have to do this alone. You know, so many of us carry stories about our worth, our worthiness, that get wrapped up in our bank accounts, in our income or how good we are or aren't with our money, and I want you to know that your value has never been defined by a number, nor will it ever be. It is inherent. Your worthiness, your lovability and your deservedness is just who you are. In our one-on-one money sessions, we will gently separate your financial story from your personal worth. You know, together we're going to create a clear, grounded plan that helps you feel safe, that you feel empowered and you feel aligned with your money and yourself. And if that feels like something that you have been craving, I would love for you to book a session. You can head over to my website, generatealifewelllivedcom, and I would be honored to walk this path with you. So if you are like many entrepreneurs, especially women, those are primarily the people that I help. I have helped some men, but obviously I market to women. You may have learned people that I help. I have helped some men, but obviously I market to women.

Erin Gray:

You know you may have learned to tie your self-worth directly to how much money you make or what you do or the value that you provide. And I want you to know that your money is simply a tool to build your life and your business. It is not a reflection of your inherent value, of your lovability, of your deservedness. Those things are completely separate.

Erin Gray:

You know, if you're like many of the women that I help, you may have learned to tie your self-worth, your lovability, your deservedness to something outside of you, right To an external thing like conditional and, in this specific example, right To how much money you make or maybe the amount of money that you have. And I want you to know that your money is simply a tool to build your life and your business. It is not a reflection of your inherent value. And the reason why that this is problematic when we put our worth, our deservedness, our lovability in something outside of us. Because when it is tied to some external thing, like your bank balance or how much money you have in an account, you are going you could I don't want to say you're going to but right what happens is we fall into these cycles of self-criticism because when we put our worth on something external of us, it a lot of times we feel afraid to charge what our perceived value is because, deep down, we feel like our worth isn't enough unless we hit some type of financial milestone. And if you're like me and most of my clients, you're going to constantly be moving this, this goalpost, right Versus knowing right that who you are, knowing your self-worth, knowing your lovability and deservedness, is who you are. And this can create this unhealthy relationship with money. And I always like to ask, like, does it actually serve you? When you put your worth outside of yourself and those numbers change, do you make them mean something about you? You know, and if you are, is that actually serving you? Does that actually feel empowered?

Erin Gray:

You know, the first step is always awareness. We don't have to go down the rabbit hole and sometimes you can easily identify, like I know that mine came from my upbringing, right, and I'm sure it also came from society. I mean, think about how much, like report cards, if you were a straight A student, you got treated differently. If you never missed a day of school, you got treated differently. Like all of this praise comes from this external like. How often are we taught to praise ourselves and celebrate ourselves just because of who we are? Most of the time, we're taught it comes from some external thing, right. So really identifying, you know, if it feels good to you, like where did this belief come from? And we, once we know, like we can let it go, and if you don't want to, you know, search or figure it out. And I don't even want to say search, like if you don't want to ponder this, that's okay too, like we can just release this, you know.

Erin Gray:

Two is really like, on a soul level, really starting to separate your value as a human from your finances. And the reason why we know that this is not factual is because there are people that have way more money than you that feel really good about themselves, and there are people that have way more money than you that feel really bad about themselves, right, right. And so we know that it cannot be because of money. Money does not make us feel any certain way. That has to come from within. So you are worthy because you exist, because you are a once in a lifetime beautiful event, not because of what you can offer the world, not because of the zeros in your bank account, not because of you know bank account, not because of you know how much money you've made this this month. You are worthy because you are here.

Erin Gray:

And the third step that I would recommend is start to use money as a tool to reflect your values, not to define who you are. Because I will say this if you are attached or you believe that your money is who you are determines your worth, you know this because you can think back on when you didn't have as much money as you have now. You're going to just amplify those feelings the more money that you have. So it's really important to start breaking down and breaking apart. Your identity has nothing to do with your money. You are whole and worthy and lovable and loving and deserving because you are here. So when you start to break apart, you know who you are as a person versus you know the money that you generate. Making money becomes less about that validation and more about creating impact. You get to see that the more money that you make is because you've served more people, not because you're more valuable, right? Not because you finally get to say, okay, now I can appreciate myself.

Erin Gray:

You know, I was having this conversation with a client the other day and I said how often are you celebrating yourself? And she was like not very. I mean, I only will celebrate, you know, once I hit my goal, I'm like why? Why would you ever withhold the fun, the love, the nourishment, the celebration from yourself until you hit that goal? Like, you get to have fun and you get to enjoy and you get to celebrate yourself because of who you are, not because of some goal that you're reaching.

Erin Gray:

But I also understand that this is the world that we live in. This is how most of us were brought up right. Most of our parents weren't like. I am so proud of you because you exist on this planet. You know, most of us don't have those parents that were conscious enough and aware. And I love you, mom, if you're listening and you know what. You know how they learned that? Because their parents did the same thing to them and their parents did the same thing to them. Right, but we get to do it differently. We get to do it differently for ourselves and we get to do it differently for our children. So, you know, you get to say you know what I'm so proud of you? Just because you, you were here today. I love you. I love you just as you are and everything else that you do is just. You know, an add on it is. It is not who you are.

Erin Gray:

So, celebrating your progress you know learning how to shift or or you know change your identity is start becoming the person or just decide, be the person that celebrates your progress, instead of looking at how far you need to go Like so often we think about how far we have yet to go versus how far we've come like celebrate everything. And in the beginning this might be really hard for you. I know when I was starting this journey I literally would take my journal and it would. I would just sit there for minutes and be like what do I actually want to celebrate? Because I was so hard on myself, and so this is a skill set and this is a practice that you get better at the more you do. So you know celebrating every win along the way, no matter how small, and this is what I want to say.

Erin Gray:

There is no right or wrong here, but it feels so good in the body, it feels so good to say I am so proud of you. I am like I'll cry right now saying it. I am so proud of how far you have come. Like that feels good, like that is the love that we are wanting, that our soul and our body. This vessel is wanting, like why are we withholding that from ourselves? Give that to ourselves. You know, looking at your self-worth separately, so cultivating practices that help you connect with your inherent worth, right? This can be through affirmations that feel good and true to your body. This can be through mindfulness. This can be through working with a coach. You know, if you resonate with me, come schedule a one-on-one session and like let's start working on this together. Like this is some of the best work that we will ever do.

Erin Gray:

You know, I say that we do money work and we do, you know, in the 3D we do do money work, but what we really do is soul work. We do the loving ourselves work. We do that deep soul connection, appreciation work that we have withheld from ourselves. You know, really, starting to, one question I love to ask is at what point, what age was there? And sometimes the answer is like I never felt this way.

Erin Gray:

But like when did you start to feel like you had to earn your worth? Like, for me, it was probably in this. This doesn't necessarily mean that this is what our parents told us, right? This is just what we perceived to be what we had to earn. You know, a lot of times around the age of 10, 12, 14, like our parents want to teach us, you know, to start generating money, to to learn the value of a dollar, to learn how to manage our money. But sometimes it gets kind of murky or cloudy because it kind of was like, well, you need to earn your keep right, almost as if like just living and being, you know, living underneath the house wasn't enough. It's like you have to earn it versus no.

Erin Gray:

Like what I tell our daughter now is like you know you are whole and worthy just for who. You are Right, and it's important that you learn that how money is created. Money is created based on the value that we provide to someone. So it's important that you learn that how money is created. Money is created based on the value that we provide to someone. So it's important that you start to understand and learn how money works. I'm not saying she needs to earn her keep and you know she's not worth it if she's not making money. That's not what I'm saying. I'm trying to teach her that you know generating money is an empowering thing, and why would we want to generate money? But from that place of we are whole and we are worthy and we are lovable just as we are right now.

Erin Gray:

And I think that in a world where we're talking about abundance, sometimes that might be too far of a jump for our nervous system. But I really think, getting to the place of sufficiency. Because when we can get to the place of sufficiency, of having enough, of being enough right, then we can start to be like okay, you know more, we want more. Or, and we want to have more, but not from the place of not enough, we want more because what are we capable of? And so when we can really embrace sufficiency, embracing where we are right now, like there's the identity of, like who we are loving, who we are, and also externally, like what are the things that we are so grateful for right now? And then, from there, wanting more, but not from a place of lack, from a place of sufficiency. So, if you take anything away from today's episode, what I want you to really start to ponder is an understand and like there's one thing to know it intellectually, there is another for you to embody it to you, for you to feel it in your soul. Right, you are worthy right now because you are here, because God's spirit source decided that you needed to be on this planet.

Erin Gray:

You know your money, your revenue, the amount in your accounts. They do not define you how you want to use your money as a tool that's going to reflect your values, the life that you're building. You know your purpose, how you want to circulate your money. That is something we're celebrating. But who you are as a person has has nothing to do with any external factor or any external thing, because as long as we put our worth in something external, it's always going to change Right and and we are disempowering ourselves by putting our worth and our lovability and something, anything, outside of us.

Erin Gray:

So if you are tired of constantly measuring your worth to your bank balance and feeling you know not enough or inadequate and you're really ready to connect your you know with your true value, I am here to help you and to support you and to guide you along your journey.

Erin Gray:

Like this is some of the my most favorite work to do with clients, because even though we are working through your money, we are really starting to work through and get to the heart of like really empowering you to come back home to yourself, to remember who you are, to remember that you are an amazing individual just because you exist, that you deserve to be celebrated, and that when we feel whole, when we remember right I always liked it's like we're not going out and finding or creating right, like we are remembering who we are, when we remember that we are whole, that we are worthy, that we are deserving of having everything that we want in this one precious life, that we are complete just as we are and that we can have things because we want them, not because we need them to feel any way about ourselves Like everything shifts to schedule a session. You can head over to my website generate a life well, livecom and click on the link work with me and schedule a session. You deserve to feel whole and worthy and deserving just because you exist. I'm looking forward to working with you and until next time, I would love it If you would leave a review for this podcast.

Erin Gray:

It helps the show grow and I love hearing from you. And if this episode resonated with you and you have a business bestie who is also avoiding her money, will you share this episode with her? My mission is to help more female entrepreneurs feel safe and empowered with their money. Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.