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

162 | The Real Reason You Avoid Taxes and What Actually Makes Tax Prep Easier

• Erin Gray | Wealth Coach, Former CFP and CFO

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In this episode, we cover:

  • Reframing taxes as neutral 
  • Using somatic tools to create safety before tackling numbers
  • Expanding the window of tolerance with micro-actions
  • Embodying new beliefs through consistent, aligned steps
  • Working with CPAs while keeping your power
  • Seeing numbers as feedback rather than judgment


Resources mentioned in this episode:

Ep. 161 Stop Dreading Tax Season: Nervous System Tools and YE Tax Prep for Female Entrepreneurs

Ep. 160 Simple YE Money Rituals for a Calm Tax Season


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Come learn with me in my monthly workshops

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From my soul to yours,

Erin

Erin Gray:

This is the third episode in the series that I have done on taxes. So if you haven't listened to the last two episodes, I believe that's episode 160 and 161, go back, listen to those for more of the nuts and bolts about taxes and tax planning, like what I would do to prep and prepare, and also emotional-wise. This one is going to be more so about like what your money story actually reveals about taxes. So this is going to be more definitely emotional based than specific 3D tax planning stuff. You know, for many of us that aren't regulated, right? When it comes to taxes, tax season has a way of stirring those things up that are already within us. You know, we have these feelings of stress and avoidance and shame, not because it's tax season. Like tax season is just like money. It just is. It's neutral. But what we are experiencing is our perception, our beliefs, what is the emotions that are stored in our body. That is why we feel not safe and not at ease when it comes to taxes. So in this episode, I'm going to be talking about how your money story actually shapes your experience with taxes and why healing your relationship with money and taxes and everything that involves around money and taxes and all of the stuff changes how you are going to move through every financial season in your life and also in your business. So let's dive in. I want to give just a quick announcement. I am going to be having and begin having monthly workshops via Zoom. I believe I'm going to start them in December. They're going to be intuitively led, just like this podcast. I come up with ideas based on either what I have experienced in my own life, what I am coaching clients through, and what we have talked about. And so whatever download that I get for that month of what I want to talk about, then that is what I'm going to decide how to have these workshops. So there will be a link in the show notes that you can register for. That's not up yet at the time of this release, but there will be a landing page. I'm working with my VA to get all of that prepped and ready for you. But you can be able to go to the landing page. You can see what the workshop is going to be about this month. And I think for December, what I'm going to start with is talking, being able to talk to your spouse around money, because that has been, and you know, when I asked in my Facebook group, they all said they wanted to learn more about how to speak to your spouse with money. Actual physical workshop that I did here in Boise, a lot of them had questions and we really spent a lot of time on speaking to your spouse and how do you energetically approach money with your spouse. So I think that's what I'm going to have for that first workshop in December. And then moving forward, like I mentioned, it'll be whatever download I get, whatever I'm sensing that, you know, the collective needs to hear in regards to money. That's what I will have the workshop on. So stay tuned for that. Keep an eye out in the show notes. That way you can just click the link and then you can register and then come to the to the workshop. And it is going to be online and it will be Zoom. So let's talk about how so many of us have been taught or we have absorbed messages, or this can also be, you know, generationally passed down around maybe not being good with math, maybe that we aren't numbers people, or you know, that someone else knows better than we do about our business or money or taxes. And so we outsource our power and we outsource our decision making to them. And I just want to say this is all BS. Like, I don't believe anybody is bad with math. It is a thought, it is a belief. I know a lot of us might have been taught that growing up. And I do really think that that shapes how we think and feel about ourselves and our self-esteem and our self-concept. I'm going to be the first to defend you because we are not taught finances in school. In college, you're not, it's not a requirement. Like I took, I think six to eight classes specifically for my CFP, my certified financial planning degree. That was above and beyond the financial, like I got a BA in finance. So I had to take financial classes and then I had to take very specific financial planning classes. And I think out of all of those classes, so think about, you know, what's 15 hours a semester for four semesters, basically your upper upper level, you know, like your junior and senior year. So if I had 60 hours plus another six or eight in financial planning, I think I had like one class on personal finance. Thankfully, the teacher was so fun. She was like a realtor from Wisconsin, and she made that class so fun. A lot of it I already knew because I had, you know, like I've mentioned, grown up around my dad. He helped me do a lot of understanding with personal finance and balancing checkbooks and things like that. But it really pays to have good teachers, fun teachers, and also, you know, this is just not stuff that is taught in schools. And if you have been here for a while, you know my views on school systems. This is done on purpose. This is done to keep the masses feeling disempowered, to have them feeling not aware or not knowledgeable about money because money is another way that we can control people if you don't know about money in money systems. And so this is not, I say all that to say this is not your fault. This is done by more, how do I want to use this word, elite people that know exactly what they're doing. So give yourself a little bit of a break, give yourself some grace and recognize that a lot of women and men don't necessarily know about money and we aren't being taught, and that is done on purpose. So when you throw all the messages, you know, when you when you throw in what we have been taught culturally or societally, you know, and how we have been kept from knowing about money on purpose, you take that, and then you throw in all those messages that we have received. At least I'm talking more US, but I know from some of my research this this expands beyond. This is a global thing as well. You know, you take that in addition to taxes, right? And the fear-mongering that has occurred with belief systems around the IRS and attorneys and CPAs. You know, it's no wonder that so many of us are terrified of taxes and tax season. And when you think about it, when you have this story, when you have these feelings in your body, when you have these patterns that are in your body, what might look like procrastination from the outside might actually be flight in your nervous system. It might be the flight, you know, when I talk about fight, flight, freeze, like procrastination, avoidance is more of like a flight in your nervous system. What looks like not opening the mail or calling your CPA, that might be a flight or a freeze response. So I just want you to be aware that think about what your actions are, think of them as symptoms from an empowered place of like, oh, okay, so if every time I sit down or I say I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna look at this and I don't, maybe it's not willpower. Maybe it's not actually anything to do with my mindset. Maybe, and it could be maybe a little bit of mindset, but maybe there's actually something deeper here in my body that my body is holding on to that is trying to keep me safe and it has a story and it has a pattern and it has emotions in my body that are protecting me that are not wanting me to look at taxes. So I want you to look at it from that view versus why can't I just sit down and look at my taxes? Why can't I just call my CPA? Why can't I just take care of this? Like so often women say these phrases to me. And I'm like, listen, like, first of all, where's the where's the calm and the and the sweetness that you need in this moment, right? Like asking yourself that isn't coming from curiosity. It's almost like beating yourself up. So give yourself a little bit of grace, a little bit of space, and recognize like maybe there are that this goes deeper than just the mindset stuff here. And I also want to say as well that there's maybe one or two that come to mind, but most of the CPAs that I've worked with, bookkeepers, they aren't emotionally aware that this is actually what's going on. Like when I bring it to their attention, they say, Oh, wow, Erin, yes, that is true. That is how my clients experience this. That is how they act, but they aren't connecting the dots that clients not looking at their books, clients not keeping their appointments with me. Oh, this is something deeper than just taking the action. This is an emotional thing here. They're not making that connection. And so I just want you to be aware that, you know, that is also what we're working with here. Like you're we aren't yet, yet, I say yet on purpose, because I do believe we are changing as a collective, as a society. But I would say right now, where we are in 2025 at Q4 2025, a large majority of CPAs and bookkeepers are not aware that this is actually what's happening. And so they can't guide you and provide you the support that you need because they aren't aware that this is actually the root cause of what's going on. That this is like your actions are a symptom, and there's the root causes really coming back to like money beliefs, money stories, what does your body feel safe or not safe with? So this isn't about your ability. This is not about being smart or not being smart or having the knowledge or not having the knowledge. Like all of that is a byproduct of feeling safe first. And so I want to encourage you, if this is you, this is some of the work that I do with my clients. Yes, we do get into the nitty-gritty of the actual money, but it's the emotional part that we have to take care of first. And then the nitty-gritty, you know, is comes so much more easily. So if that is something that you are interested in, curious of how I can support you, click the link in the show notes, schedule a call with me, and we can talk about how I can be of service to you. So when you think about safety, think about if something that really scared you, because I think we look at safety and we're like, money, safety, no, that's not really, yes, it is. It's another thing, right? So think about another area of your life where you don't feel safe with. You probably, your body, you know, like if you have been in a car accident, there was, you may not feel as safe to get in a car with someone else because that is your body's way of protecting you. So just recognize that money, all of these different circumstances that we have, money is just another circumstance where our bodies may not feel safe. And if we don't feel safe, then we cannot create an environment to feel knowledgeable, smart, able, and capable. Like safety has to come first. So I want you to think about taxes as just being like the trigger or the catalyst that activates what is already inside of you. So, like I already mentioned, taxes are just neutral. But if you are avoiding things, if you are, you know, running from theoretically speaking, then that is an opportunity for you to see like, oh, this is deeper than just, you know, I'm not looking at my taxes. It's showing you where you are currently with your money, your money relationship, your money story, and your body. Like the body has to feel safe first and foremost before we can move forward, you know, and we can only go as quickly as we feel safe to do so. So I talk about in previous episodes about like your window of tolerance and think about your nervous system like a rubber band. So if right now expanding your nervous system, like think about expanding that rubber band, if pulling your fingers apart all the way feels like too much, then you have to be aware of that. You have to be mindful and you have to do the somatic work so that you can expand your nervous system and your window of tolerance. But going from zero to a hundred isn't necessarily kind to your nervous system. Zero to one might be what you can handle today, right? And so it's this constant effort of working towards it and releasing as well as creating new beliefs alongside of it. So just notice what your first reaction is when you think about taxes. Think about what your body does. Does it tense up? Like I told you in the previous episode about my experience with taxes and how I used to freeze when I would see an IRS letter, even if it was just to change my address. So just recognize what are you feeling in your body? You probably might be, I'm not a you know, therapist or psychologist, but you probably are in your fight, flight, freeze response. And this takes slowing down. This takes noticing what is going on in your nervous system. I think so often it's like we don't like the feeling, so we just want to get away from it. It's like, oh, I see an IRS or I see taxes that I need to do taxes. I'm just not gonna do it. I'm gonna go shop. I'm gonna go watch TV, I'm gonna go have a drink, I'm gonna go wind down and, you know, watch TV or whatever it might be, versus hang on a second, what's going on here? I'm here for you, body. I love you. You know, talking to yourself kindly and lovingly and being like, okay, what are you feeling in this moment? Like, what does that little five, 10-year-old, 12-year-old little girl need in this moment? That is the work that we need to be doing, not just like, oh, I feel this, I don't want to feel this. Okay, I'm gonna go do something else. So I would ask myself, like to get clear and clarity, like whose voice is this? Like a question I always ask myself is, is this energy even mine? And I hear my intuition. And so what I hear sometimes is yes, and sometimes I hear no. Like some of this is generational, some of this is societal, some of this is how we just as a society with women and with money, you know, some of this is cultural. It could be from your parents, it could be from your teachers. Like there's so much that it could you have picked up, you know, money and taxes with yourself. So just recognizing and asking yourself and naming like, is this energy mine? Is this because of my beliefs? And it can be a little bit of yours, but I think I read somewhere like 97, 98, 99 of our thoughts. I don't know exactly, but like 90, let's just say 97% of our thoughts, they're not even ours. Meaning it's not ones that we thought up ourselves, it's it's ones that we have received from and absorbed in our environment. So just recognizing that you might have beliefs around taxes that you may not even be aware of because you haven't given yourself the opportunity to sit down and just listen and journal on what your beliefs are and where you picked up these beliefs. I always go back to somatic work. Like, what somatic work do you want to do to support yourself? Some clients can just notice when they feel that energy and then they can like pay attention to the energy and shift it. Some, like I mentioned, I like emotional release therapy. Maybe you like breath work or tapping or culmination of all of these or none of these, and something else works for you. But you've got to practice and play with what somatic practices. How are you gonna get into the body and embody a different way of being with taxes? And sometimes that means letting go, sometimes that means letting go and creating new beliefs, sometimes it's just creating new beliefs. But like, how are you going to take care of yourself and your body during this time when you are noticing some of this stuff come up? And then obviously it's choosing a new perspective, a new way of being, a new self-concept. And I would spend a lot of my time here as well. Like, I don't want to say one's more important than the other, they're all important, but how you think about yourself, what you action you are taking from that place, like I have a mentor that says every act is an act of self-def definition, meaning that every opportunity, every circumstance is an opportunity for you to define who you are in this moment. So if you are someone who is deciding that they want to be confident and calm with taxes, and every time that opportunity presents to you, you don't look at it, you don't do the somatic work, you don't do the things that you need to do to feel calm and confident. You're not embodying someone who is wanting to feel calm and confident with their taxes and their money. So we have opportunities day in and day out to define who we are, our new state of being. And so asking yourself, am I acting from that place? You know, what would you love to believe? What would serve you and your business best? Like really getting clear on what are those some of those deep core beliefs that you need to embody and embodying those. So when I say embody, what does that actually mean? It means thinking a new belief and then taking action from that place. Taxes are neutral, money is neutral, business is neutral, but you deciding how do I want to think and feel about my taxes and my butt money and my business, that is what you have control over. So some things that I had to go from is like I had to go from where I was to just neutrality. Like I just had to start saying like taxes are neutral, just like the sun is neutral, just like the ocean is neutral, so are taxes. I had to say things like I'm a human that's running a business, and millions of other humans run a business as well. And if they can do it, I can do it because we all came from the same source. You know, like just think about it's you're gonna have to play with this, but like whatever new perspective and stories you want to create for you that are supportive, that's what you're gonna have to think about and then decide on and then embody, you know, make sure that they're empowering and helping you build the business and the life that you want. Over time, tax season is going to become less of a threat, more of a reflection, more neutral. And ultimately, I would love to get it to a place of like more fun. Like, how fun would it be if we all got to connect during tax season and talk about how much money we were paying in taxes because of all the money that we paid in, or how much money that our CPA has been able to help us save in taxes, because there's different ways that they could help us do that because of all the money we made. Like that's the that's the fun stuff that I want us to be talking about. That is where I want us to get to to that place. So thinking about that, all of that is going to change, not because taxes have changed, not because tax season changes, but because you changed, because your perception changed, because the way you viewed yourself and your self-concept and you as a business owner has changed. It becomes, I always look at all of these little moments, is every single moment is an opportunity for me to practice safety and noticing what my nervous system is doing and how calibrated I am and what frequency I am on. And just think of it like a training partner, you know, it's it's an opportunity for you to see and check in where you are with your nervous system, how calm you feel, what is, you know, maybe still triggering you, or maybe not as much, but it still is, but that's progress too. So just think about and play with like, how can these circumstances be opportunities for me to check in and see like how far I have come, how much work I have done on myself, and how that has actually shifted because of that. Okay, I think I'm done with the tax series. If you have anything else on taxes that you want me to talk about or teach on, I'd be happy to do that. Send me an email at it's not at. So it's just support at generate a life well lived. And I can do other tax episodes for you. But I think that the three that I've got that feels pretty good in terms of the emotional side, the actual nitty gritty of like what are the actual tasks you need to do for taxes and then also your money story. Okay, as always, I'm rooting for you. I'm looking forward to seeing some of you on workshops that I'll be hosting starting in December. And I thank you for listening and tuning in every week. And I'll see you in the next episode.