Your Money, Your Rules | Money Mindset, Money Management, Abundance Mindset, Budgeting, Spirituality

143 | Overthinking Your Money Decisions? How to Cultivate Your Intuition and Build Self-Trust

• Erin Gray | Wealth Coach, Former CFP and CFO

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Do you find yourself exhausted from second-guessing every financial decision? That cycle of overthinking doesn’t just drain your energy, I believe it quietly erodes your self-trust and keeps you handing your power over to others.

In this episode, I’m sharing how to break that cycle by learning to trust your intuition.  Your body carries wisdom that your logical mind can’t access. When you pause and notice how a decision feels, whether it is expansive or contracted, calm or rushed, you’ll begin to see whether you’re acting from your intuition (heart) or your mind (ego).


What you’ll learn in this episode:

  • Why second-guessing erodes self-trust and keeps you stuck
  • How to pause and tune into your body before making a choice
  • The difference between fear-based decisions and intuitive nudges
  • Questions that reveal whether your decision comes from scarcity or abundance (your intuition or your ego)
  • Practices to calm your nervous system so you can receive your intuition more clearly
  • Why building self-trust with small decisions leads to confidence in bigger ones


Resources mentioned in this episode:

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From my soul to yours,

Erin

Erin Gray:

If you are like how I used to be, you might find yourself second guessing a lot of financial decisions or just decisions in your life in general, and it might feel exhausting. And what I always say is this really keeps us in our head and it keeps us in circles, and ultimately what it does is it erodes our self-trust and it creates this habit of us not trusting ourselves and then us outsourcing our power to other people. And so today, what I want to do is I want to share how I make money decisions, or actually every decision in my life, using my intuition, and I want to say that I'm not perfect at this and I've gotten a lot better than what I used to be. So this is a practice, it is a skill set, and the more that you do it, the more that you will fine tune it and it will get easier with time. I wanted to offer that I do have a free four part workshop series that I will link in the show notes about how each of us are wired to make decisions. You know, ultimately it really boils down to using your intuition, tapping into your body and listening to that, and before I got there, what I had to do was use some training wheels, and I use that to really start to tap into my body and to get familiar with what it felt like to make a decision from my intuition versus my head. And so if you are new to listening to your intuition and playing with this, I would recommend that you start with the workshop series. That way you can understand, like how you're meant to make decisions Kind of like I use human design very loosely, but that way it will give you an idea of like how you are meant to make decisions and then you can really start leaning on your own intuition and playing with this yourself.

Erin Gray:

I always say, you know, start small. You know, at the beginning I didn't make like life-changing decisions. I just made decisions like where I wanted to go for dinner or what I wanted to dress or wear. So start small, practice with this and then the more that you do it just like anything, the better you'll get Okay. So first and foremost, I always start with pausing and checking in with my body. You know, before any decision, not just financial I know this podcast is about money, but really it's about all areas of our life I was talking to a client the other day and he said basically, money for you is just the portal into helping people change every area of their life, and that's what I believe to be true. People come to me with money I'm air quoting money problems but we talk about so much more than money, right, because what it's really about is developing your self-trust, developing unconditional or I should say returning to unconditional love for yourself and really trusting yourself and your intuition.

Erin Gray:

So what I do is I always tap into my body, I stop, I notice how am I feeling in my body? Does my body feel expansive? Does it feel relaxed? Do I feel excited? Or does it feel tight or anxious, or like almost like FOMO, like I'm going to, like I need to hurry up and make this decision. And so your body, I believe, is our, our first signal. If I am in that energy of lack or scarcity, like that FOMO, like having to hurry and rush and make a decision, I don't make any decision. I have made too many decisions from rushed FOMO and I have such a long evidence list of what actually happened when I made it from that place, and so I really stop and I don't make a decision, because no decision that we make from lack is going to come out on the other side, abundant and expansive, like it's the energy. It just doesn't work like that. So I first and foremost shift my energy and tap back into my body.

Erin Gray:

So take a moment right now. If you want to, you can pause the episode. Take a breath Like how often do we actually check in with our bodies in the day? How often are we actually checking in with our breath? I mean, if you are like me, how I was, you know, several years ago, I don't even know if I even thought about my body during the day. So, first and foremost is really tap back into your body, take a breath, notice what your body is feeling, notice when you ask yourself do I want to do this? What does your body feel? How does it feel when you think about that financial choice that you are wanting to make? And then the second step that I always do is just notice the difference of where my mind is trying to run the show and when.

Erin Gray:

It's my intuition. You know our minds. They want to calculate, they want to justify and rationalize. You know my mind always wants to, like, build a pros and cons list or look at the numbers. When I say possibilities, I don't mean from an expansive place, I mean the pros and cons, what would it look like, and looking at risks, things like that. But intuition, it is quiet, it is still, it is. Go here, do that, check this, call this person, try this. It's so subtle. I hear my intuition through my right ear. Other clients, they tell me that they feel it in their gut, or they just feel this urge or this nudge, and so the only way that you're going to know how your intuition shows up for you is if you actually play with this and you practice it. Like the more that you practice, the more you play with this, the better that you will get at it. So I'll give you an example.

Erin Gray:

When we were planning to move to Hawaii you know, because there are no rabies on the island, it's this extensive process that you have to go under to ship your animal over, that you have to go under to ship your animal over, and our dog had a microchip which they require every dog or animal to have, and so, after I had taken him to the vet to verify everything, I'd picked up the paperwork. I got in the car and I looked at the paperwork and I just felt this urge to go back in and to verify that the microchip number that was on the piece of paper was actually what they had in their system. Well, coming to find out it wasn't. So that is just one simple way. Like it wasn't this overarching like, go check this, do this. It wasn't loud, it was just almost like for me. I was remember sitting in the front seat and looking at the paperwork and being like I need to check this, and so I just went and did it and the more that I think you trust yourself, the more you lean in and you just act on that, which is so simple. It wasn't like go go check this right now because this is, you know, it wasn't this, this, this is catastrophe. Or you know, in my head it was just like go check this.

Erin Gray:

It was so subtle and the more that we tap in and we listen to that, the more that we create evidence and see that, when we listen to our intuition, what happens? So I always like to, you know, take a step back and ask yourself like and myself, you know, are we making this choice from a fear, from a habit, from some type of social expectation or conditioning, or are we making this? To me, intuition, heart's desire just feels like I want to. This just feels good. There isn't a reason behind it, it's just I want this. I would love that. That feels really good. So really just check in and see like, are you in your mind or are you in your body? Aka what I call your intuition.

Erin Gray:

So I do use human design loosely and to help clients tap back into their intuition. So if you're familiar with human design, great, you can, you know, dive in. If you're not, that's okay too. Like I, I don't. I don't subscribe to any somewhat system because I think systems still keep us in the box. But I do use it in a way to empower us to slow down and to really tap into our bodies.

Erin Gray:

And I believe, the more that I lean into my intuition, nothing needs to be decided right now. I know we're taught, especially in business, we need to make quick decisions. But quick is so relative. Quick can be within a week, quick can be within a couple of hours, quick can be a day, quick can be a month, like it's all relative to what someone else has done or relative to what you have done. So I would just be really mindful of when people say you know like we need to make quick decisions. It's like what does that even mean? You know, I just know that I tap into my body and I know that I need to ride my wave and I need to get to a neutral point. And I know that I need to ride my wave and I need to get to a neutral point and I know what that feels like in my body now. And for most decisions I mean, unless they're pretty like really life changing ones for most decisions it's a week or two, and I'm not talking about like going out to eat, but like hiring someone or making a change in my business it takes a couple of weeks for me to settle in and feel solid and neutral about that.

Erin Gray:

So questions you can ask yourself like does this feel expansive in my body? Does this feel like a heart's desire, one that I always use to tap in and like completely bypasses the mind, is if I had a hundred million dollars, would I do this? And that for me, is so easy to just get a yes or a no answer. Does this support my soul's work? You know, am I doing this to prove something? And then am I doing this or making this decision from a fear of missing out. And so you will know, when you ask yourself these questions, how you feel in your body, if it's an intuitive place or if it's more of a head. You know, notice how your body responds. If there's tension, if there's resistance, if there's contraction, you know that's a signal for you to pause, to check in and to go deeper and to shift that energy.

Erin Gray:

Because if you are acting from a fear-based place, it's ultimately acting, you know, from a lack place. So don't make a decision from that place. Give yourself the time. I don't think a lot of us have given ourselves enough time to make decisions and recognizing that no decision that we make from a place of fear or lack comes out. I haven't found it yet. It comes out like oh, that was amazing. I can think of probably two or three examples off the top of my head where I was making it from a rush place. It didn't end. I always think everything happens for us and also didn't end the way that I thought it would. So really just tap into your body.

Erin Gray:

And I think that the way that we develop our intuition is we actually have to practice right. It is a skillset. So many of us have turned off that intuition because maybe when we were younger we were told like we wanted. We were asked like, where's the evidence? Or we were told that we were for lack of a better word crazy. So it's really turning on, tuning back in and bringing that part of us back online. You know your nervous system. It needs to feel safe before you can I don't want to say before you can hear your intuition, before you can, I don't want to say before you can hear your intuition.

Erin Gray:

But if we're in this constant go, go, fight, flight, rushing, survival mentality, it's hard to tap into our intuition because our bodies don't feel safe. And when our bodies don't feel safe, we are in survival. We're not thinking about creativeness. We're not thinking about what are all the possibilities. We're not thinking about how to, like you know, expand and grow our business. We're just like in the day to day.

Erin Gray:

So really start to practice things, somatic techniques that can really tap into your body and create safety for your body to trust that it is okay to. You know, slow down. You know if we're always on the go, if we're always consuming all the time. You know if you're always listening to podcasts, if you're always listening to me, if you're always, you know, on YouTube or listening to music, you're not giving yourself the space to listen to you, and that is the most important voice. So I always recommend stillness, being bored, grounding, breath work, journaling. I talked about releasing emotions in the previous episode with the Emotion Code book by Dr Bradley Nelson sound bath healings, walking outside, being in nature what are the ways that your body feels relaxed and calm and reconnected to yourself and your soul Like? That's the somatic practices that I would encourage you to implement on a consistent basis so that you can really start to tap into your body and your intuition.

Erin Gray:

And then the final piece is really just to act on it. Right is really just to act on it right. It's to start seeing and building up this list that we have that when I act on my intuition, how does it turn out? I had someone ask me on a podcast the other day well, how often do I make decisions in my business from intuition? And I said all the time, and the face that he gave me was quite interesting. He was surprised.

Erin Gray:

But I think that there's a difference of intuition and instinct. Instinct, I think, can come from fear at times, but intuition it takes some trust and some courage in the beginning to start making decisions from our intuition. And the more that we do it, the better we get at it, the more self-trust we will develop in ourselves, right? So you know, think about. And I always say start small, right. Start with just asking yourself which way to go home, ask yourself which shirt you want to wear that day, ask yourself what do you want to make for dinner, or just something small, so that you can see that there's not what I call high stakes, right? It's not like what change are you going to make in your business, or are you going to move across the continent? Or you know the country, you know what are some smaller things that you can do, so that you can kind of get some evidence in your back pocket that you can refer to that when the mind wants to take over. You can see like, look, this is when I acted on my intuition and look how well that worked out for me.

Erin Gray:

So really, just start to practice it and think about just one money decision or one decision in your life that you are thinking about or facing. Pause and feel what you are feeling in your body when you think about one way or the other way and really get connected to how you feel in your body, ask those questions that I mentioned above and notice what your initial response is. Remember that money it just is. It's a tool for us to use. Right. We notice that money is a tool, it's something for us to use and direct how we want to circulate it right. It's neutral, so it is meant to serve us, not control us.

Erin Gray:

And when we make decisions from our intuition, I really believe that we reclaim our power, our sovereignty, our confidence, our self-trust in ourselves, and I think we short circuit a lot of heartache when we use our intuition over our mind. So if you are ready to learn how to trust yourself more, to trust your intuition, not just with money, but just in every area of your life, you know, feel more calm and confident in who you are and what you want, and you know to stop allowing the mind to have all of the say. I think sometimes we can be so in our heads that we overthink and we get into this fear spiral. Right, really start to tap back into your intuition. I would love to support you. You can schedule a clarity call with me just by clicking the link in the show notes and we can see if we are a good fit for each other. Okay, as always, I'm rooting for you, I am here for you and I'll see you in the next episode.