July 17, 2025 • 13 mins
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Your financial software is designed to track your past — not create your future. In this episode, we explore how tools like Monarch Money, QuickBooks, and your banking apps reflect where you've been, not where you're going.
When you let old numbers dictate what’s possible, you unconsciously keep recreating the same financial story. True transformation starts by shifting your self-concept and making decisions from who you want to become, not who you’ve been.
We dive into:
- How past financial data reflects old beliefs, comfort zones, and identity
- Why relying on your history puts an invisible ceiling on your growth
- The power of making decisions based on your desired future — even when it feels uncomfortable
- How your nervous system resists new financial patterns, and why that’s normal
- Ways to repurpose your financial software: celebrate what you’ve already created, then play with new “what ifs”
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➡️ Join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/941450038160915
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Curious what your Human Design chart reveals about how you're uniquely designed to make aligned financial decisions?
➡️ Get your chart here: https://generatealifewelllived.com/receive-your-human-design-chart
Step 3: Ready to transform your relationship with money and build true financial confidence?
Let’s create a plan that feels aligned, intentional, and empowering—just for you.
➡️ Schedule your free clarity call here (https://tidycal.com/eringray/45-min-call-with-erin)
Money doesn't have to feel overwhelming. Let's create a plan that feels nurturing and custom to you.
From my soul to yours,
Erin
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever noticed that your financial software is
designed to show you exactlywhere you are right now and when
you've been?
It's built to track your pasthabits, which came from your old
way of thinking, your beliefsystems and your identity.
But if you want to createsomething new financially, you
have to start focusing on whereyou are going, and in today's
(00:22):
episode, I'm going to bebreaking down for you how this
simple shift can changeeverything.
Welcome to your Money, yourRules podcast with me, your host
, erin Gray.
I'm grateful that you are hereand let's dive into the
awareness that I had the otherday as I was looking at our own
financial software.
So on a couple of podcasts back, I talked about the new
(00:45):
financial software that I'musing, which is called Monarch
Money, and although I think that, like anything QuickBooks or
Monarch Money or whatever you'reusing in your personal life and
in your business they arenecessary to see how you want to
allocate your money and whereyou did allocate it for the past
(01:05):
months, but that is the thingabout these softwares, about
taxes, about everything.
It is about looking back towhere you have been, not where
you're going.
So your financial software isvery much so backward, looking
by design.
You know, like I said,quickbooks, sage, empower,
(01:26):
monarch, your bank apps they areall tracking tools and they
tell you what you have spent,what you have received and what
your current balances are.
And this is I would say it'svaluable for your awareness and
for your stewardship of money.
And those numbers are areflection of your past
(01:48):
decisions and past decisions.
They are driven from yourprevious beliefs, from where you
might feel comfortable in yourwindow of tolerance or your
comfort zone in your nervoussystem.
So, or think about, like yournervous system capacity, right?
So as you evolve and grow andchange your identity and you
(02:14):
desire more, your expenses aregoing to grow.
Like that's one of the thingsthat I had to realize, because I
was taught to keep yourexpenses low.
But if I want to live in abigger house, if I wanna take
different vacations, if I wantmy business to grow, I'm going
to have higher expenses, or Icall them receipts of
appreciation, right?
So we have to take that intoconsideration.
(02:36):
So I wanna talk about why thisactually keeps us creating more
of the same if we aren't awareof what we are actually looking
at with our financial tools orsoftware programs.
So, if you only ever look atyour current cash flow or your
historical spending.
Your brain this is when we aredoing this.
Unconsciously and alsosubconsciously.
(02:58):
Your brain is going to use thatdata to decide what's possible
for the next right, versusintentionally deciding what it
is that you want to manifest Ourfuture.
It is determined by our currentthinking, our belief systems,
basically our identity.
Who we believe we are right nowis what's going to create
(03:18):
tomorrow and a month from now.
So when I work with clients, wefocus so heavily on their
self-concept where they want togo, not where they have been.
Yes, it is important, when youare processing your emotions and
when you're feeling things, toallow those stories to come up.
(03:39):
But what we don't want to do iscontinue to rehash all of those
stories because replanting themin our mind and in our
subconscious.
So if you want support to peelback you know that onion of who
you think you have been andtransform your relationship with
yourself and money, I wouldlove to support you.
If you want to schedule aclarity call, all you have to do
(04:02):
is go in the show notes, clickon the link and schedule a time
that is going to work well foryou and for us to connect.
Let's see if we're a good fitfor each other.
So how do you actually start tofocus on where you are going?
First and foremost, what Ialways say about everything, it
is awareness and it is practice.
(04:23):
You have to start makingdecisions around spending,
saving, investing, pricing basedon the future that you are
building, not the who you havebeen, not on the past, not on
your past decisions, not onwhat's currently in your bank
account, because that is allbased on your previous thinking.
So what this looks like isstarting to question who am I?
(04:48):
And I say who am I?
Not, who am I becoming?
Because becoming, I think, eventalking about like the future
self that keeps it in somefuture state.
But who am I right now?
Now, sometimes we do have to usewhat I call bridge thoughts or
language that helps us, ourminds, because if our body
(05:13):
rejects, if you say I'm amultimillionaire, but your
body's like, no, you're not,okay, you're going to reject
that, right, the subconscious isgoing to reject that.
But if you use language like Iam in the process of being a
multimillionaire, that might bemore acceptable to your body and
(05:34):
believable.
So use language like that, sofocusing on your self-concept,
your identity, of who you are,who you believe yourself to be,
what you believe you are capableof having and receiving.
That is important work that Ido with clients, because we can
(05:54):
only receive to the capacity ofwhat we believe we are worthy of
having and who we are.
So think about what do you feelon a daily basis?
What action are you taking thatis different from what you are
currently doing?
Because when you thinkdifferently, empowering thoughts
(06:16):
, when you feel gratitude forthe money that you have and for
the money that is coming to you,when you feel gratitude for the
money that you have and for themoney that is coming to you,
when you feel love with yourmoney, when you feel empowered
and confident, that is verydifferent energy that you show
up in and that you take actionfrom.
So I always like to tie it backin and bring in the nervous
(06:37):
system, because I think that youknow we can talk a lot about
and we can write down ouraffirmations and we can say all
of these things to ourselves,but if we haven't taught the
body how to feel safe and how tobe at ease with it, then it's
going to do a couple of things.
It's going to take longer, andor it doesn't actually happen
(06:59):
because your body doesn'tbelieve it.
So when you think about tyingthis back to your nervous system
, this is why some of this workfeels uncomfortable, Because
your body wants to stay anchoredinto what it knows, even if
that isn't what you want, butfeels familiar in the body.
(07:20):
So what we have to do is makeit feel familiar and natural to
the new state of being.
So when you start operatingfrom future possibilities like
raising your prices or investingyour money in bigger ways, it
might feel in the body unsafe,but it just what I think of it
(07:43):
when I the language that I liketo use is it just isn't familiar
yet.
That's all that's happening.
It's not unsafe.
It's nothing's gone wrong.
It's just something that Ihaven't practiced a lot yet.
So it doesn't feel natural tothe body, and so it doesn't mean
that it's not correct for you.
It just means you haven'tpracticed it enough.
(08:06):
So the goal is to practice it alot.
You know your work, our work.
I think you know a lot of ushave grown up like you have to
work hard for money.
I don't think that's true.
I think what we have to putforth a lot of effort in is into
our mindset, is into ournervous system.
Regulation is in.
When our minds say that thatcan't be done, we immediately
(08:27):
correct that thought and wethink another thought we are
practicing being more at easeand in flow than we are
restricted or tightened up orfeeling stress in our bodies,
like that's what I think, andI'm air quoting.
The hard work is so it'sbuilding up this new tolerance
for these new levels.
So you might be thinking like,okay, well, erin, how do I do
(08:51):
both?
How do I still use my financialsoftware wisely and to help me
move forward down my path, butalso not look at it from.
This is where I am and this iswhere I'm going.
So I think, first and foremostwith this is to use it to
celebrate what you have createdup until this point.
You know, look at your totalassets and your net worth and
(09:15):
the amount of money that you'vecirculated and find and feel
gratitude in your body for whatyou have done.
Yeah, I don't think a lot of uscelebrate.
I think we withhold that fromourselves until we think, you
know, we get to our end goal,versus celebrating Like every
time you get to sit down withyour money is an opportunity for
you to celebrate and thencreate some future focus plans,
(09:39):
setting goals, playing with whatifs living in your imagination
and what I call the 5D.
That's how we actually bring itinto the 3D observed world.
So play with.
What do you want?
What would you love?
You know how much money wouldyou actually want to start
(10:01):
circulating?
If you're circulating 10 to15,000 a month?
What would it feel like tocirculate 30,000 a month?
And I always say and encourage,and what I want to do for you,
for each of you, and for myclients, is to empower you right
.
So, maintaining and standing inyour power, letting the software
(10:22):
that you're using be a tool.
It is not the crystal ball, itis not something that you know.
Our past does not get todictate what our next chapter is
, where we are going, yourself-concept, your imagination
and the feelings and the actionsthat you are taking.
You know what that screenshotis is what you've done in the
(10:43):
past, which I've always found sofascinating, like with gap
rules and taxes and even withmedical charts.
It's like it's all based on ourpast, but that's not how we
create our future.
So it's like what does thateven have to do with where I'm
going.
Nothing actually.
So, looking at things from avery not holding or gripping
(11:05):
tightly to that, I think a lotof us look at oh well, maybe we
had debt because we started ourbusiness, or you know our month
last month.
It's just data and information.
We don't have to becomeattached to it and make it mean
anything about us.
So, to recap is I want you tolook at your financial software
(11:28):
as to show you what you havecreated and what your belief
systems were in the past.
So, if you aren't aware, youare going to be looking at the
observed world, meaning.
You're going to be looking atyour reports and you're going to
make meaning from those reportsand from those meanings and
from those thoughts and thosefeelings.
(11:50):
You're going to create more ofthe same, instead of looking at
it and just seeing, oh, what wasI thinking that created that?
Or just celebrating what youdid create.
And then, what do I want tocreate next month or over the
next six months or in the nextfive years?
Like thinking from your firstand foremost, your imagined
(12:13):
state, and what would you loveto create?
True, I think, true financialand personal growth comes from
making decisions on where youare going, not where you have
been, and I think this is wherewe also get to be really kind to
ourselves and to our nervoussystem.
Like your nervous system needstime to acclimate to this new
(12:37):
vision, and I think and I alwaysencourage clients where we are
expanding, you know, think aboutyour window of tolerance like a
rubber band as you expand andyou are growing.
What doesn't feel very kind orloving to the nervous system is
to just go so far outside thecomfort zone that you almost
(12:57):
have a retraction.
So what would be a little bitoutside your comfort zone?
Maybe it's not going from$15,000 to $30,000 in you know
expenses a month, but what issomething that maybe you can
start investing in yourself,that maybe you've been saying no
to.
You know what's that next goalthat feels maybe a little
(13:18):
uncomfortable in your body butthat is requiring you to have
more faith and belief inyourself.
And what kind of feelings wouldyou have once you've
accomplished that?
And what action?
What different feelings wouldyou have once you've
accomplished that?
And what action?
What different action would yoube taking?
So, starting to play with, Ialways say like, keep it fun,
keep it light, and what kind ofthoughts and beliefs do you want
(13:39):
to play with to allow for youto expand?
Okay, thank you for tuning intoday and, and if you found this
episode helpful, it would meana lot to me if you left a review
.
I appreciate you and I'll seeyou in the next episode.
Have you ever noticed that your financial software is
designed to show you exactlywhere you are right now and when
you've been?
It's built to track your pasthabits, which came from your old
way of thinking, your beliefsystems and your identity.
But if you want to createsomething new financially, you
have to start focusing on whereyou are going, and in today's
(00:22):
episode, I'm going to bebreaking down for you how this
simple shift can changeeverything.
Welcome to your Money, yourRules podcast with me, your host
, erin Gray.
I'm grateful that you are hereand let's dive into the
awareness that I had the otherday as I was looking at our own
financial software.
So on a couple of podcasts back, I talked about the new
(00:45):
financial software that I'musing, which is called Monarch
Money, and although I think that, like anything QuickBooks or
Monarch Money or whatever you'reusing in your personal life and
in your business they arenecessary to see how you want to
allocate your money and whereyou did allocate it for the past
(01:05):
months, but that is the thingabout these softwares, about
taxes, about everything.
It is about looking back towhere you have been, not where
you're going.
So your financial software isvery much so backward, looking
by design.
You know, like I said,quickbooks, sage, empower,
(01:26):
monarch, your bank apps they areall tracking tools and they
tell you what you have spent,what you have received and what
your current balances are.
And this is I would say it'svaluable for your awareness and
for your stewardship of money.
And those numbers are areflection of your past
(01:48):
decisions and past decisions.
They are driven from yourprevious beliefs, from where you
might feel comfortable in yourwindow of tolerance or your
comfort zone in your nervoussystem.
So, or think about, like yournervous system capacity, right?
So as you evolve and grow andchange your identity and you
(02:14):
desire more, your expenses aregoing to grow.
Like that's one of the thingsthat I had to realize, because I
was taught to keep yourexpenses low.
But if I want to live in abigger house, if I wanna take
different vacations, if I wantmy business to grow, I'm going
to have higher expenses, or Icall them receipts of
appreciation, right?
So we have to take that intoconsideration.
(02:36):
So I wanna talk about why thisactually keeps us creating more
of the same if we aren't awareof what we are actually looking
at with our financial tools orsoftware programs.
So, if you only ever look atyour current cash flow or your
historical spending.
Your brain this is when we aredoing this.
Unconsciously and alsosubconsciously.
(02:58):
Your brain is going to use thatdata to decide what's possible
for the next right, versusintentionally deciding what it
is that you want to manifest Ourfuture.
It is determined by our currentthinking, our belief systems,
basically our identity.
Who we believe we are right nowis what's going to create
(03:18):
tomorrow and a month from now.
So when I work with clients, wefocus so heavily on their
self-concept where they want togo, not where they have been.
Yes, it is important, when youare processing your emotions and
when you're feeling things, toallow those stories to come up.
(03:39):
But what we don't want to do iscontinue to rehash all of those
stories because replanting themin our mind and in our
subconscious.
So if you want support to peelback you know that onion of who
you think you have been andtransform your relationship with
yourself and money, I wouldlove to support you.
If you want to schedule aclarity call, all you have to do
(04:02):
is go in the show notes, clickon the link and schedule a time
that is going to work well foryou and for us to connect.
Let's see if we're a good fitfor each other.
So how do you actually start tofocus on where you are going?
First and foremost, what Ialways say about everything, it
is awareness and it is practice.
(04:23):
You have to start makingdecisions around spending,
saving, investing, pricing basedon the future that you are
building, not the who you havebeen, not on the past, not on
your past decisions, not onwhat's currently in your bank
account, because that is allbased on your previous thinking.
So what this looks like isstarting to question who am I?
(04:48):
And I say who am I?
Not, who am I becoming?
Because becoming, I think, eventalking about like the future
self that keeps it in somefuture state.
But who am I right now?
Now, sometimes we do have to usewhat I call bridge thoughts or
language that helps us, ourminds, because if our body
(05:13):
rejects, if you say I'm amultimillionaire, but your
body's like, no, you're not,okay, you're going to reject
that, right, the subconscious isgoing to reject that.
But if you use language like Iam in the process of being a
multimillionaire, that might bemore acceptable to your body and
(05:34):
believable.
So use language like that, sofocusing on your self-concept,
your identity, of who you are,who you believe yourself to be,
what you believe you are capableof having and receiving.
That is important work that Ido with clients, because we can
(05:54):
only receive to the capacity ofwhat we believe we are worthy of
having and who we are.
So think about what do you feelon a daily basis?
What action are you taking thatis different from what you are
currently doing?
Because when you thinkdifferently, empowering thoughts
(06:16):
, when you feel gratitude forthe money that you have and for
the money that is coming to you,when you feel gratitude for the
money that you have and for themoney that is coming to you,
when you feel love with yourmoney, when you feel empowered
and confident, that is verydifferent energy that you show
up in and that you take actionfrom.
So I always like to tie it backin and bring in the nervous
(06:37):
system, because I think that youknow we can talk a lot about
and we can write down ouraffirmations and we can say all
of these things to ourselves,but if we haven't taught the
body how to feel safe and how tobe at ease with it, then it's
going to do a couple of things.
It's going to take longer, andor it doesn't actually happen
(06:59):
because your body doesn'tbelieve it.
So when you think about tyingthis back to your nervous system
, this is why some of this workfeels uncomfortable, Because
your body wants to stay anchoredinto what it knows, even if
that isn't what you want, butfeels familiar in the body.
(07:20):
So what we have to do is makeit feel familiar and natural to
the new state of being.
So when you start operatingfrom future possibilities like
raising your prices or investingyour money in bigger ways, it
might feel in the body unsafe,but it just what I think of it
(07:43):
when I the language that I liketo use is it just isn't familiar
yet.
That's all that's happening.
It's not unsafe.
It's nothing's gone wrong.
It's just something that Ihaven't practiced a lot yet.
So it doesn't feel natural tothe body, and so it doesn't mean
that it's not correct for you.
It just means you haven'tpracticed it enough.
(08:06):
So the goal is to practice it alot.
You know your work, our work.
I think you know a lot of ushave grown up like you have to
work hard for money.
I don't think that's true.
I think what we have to putforth a lot of effort in is into
our mindset, is into ournervous system.
Regulation is in.
When our minds say that thatcan't be done, we immediately
(08:27):
correct that thought and wethink another thought we are
practicing being more at easeand in flow than we are
restricted or tightened up orfeeling stress in our bodies,
like that's what I think, andI'm air quoting.
The hard work is so it'sbuilding up this new tolerance
for these new levels.
So you might be thinking like,okay, well, erin, how do I do
(08:51):
both?
How do I still use my financialsoftware wisely and to help me
move forward down my path, butalso not look at it from.
This is where I am and this iswhere I'm going.
So I think, first and foremostwith this is to use it to
celebrate what you have createdup until this point.
You know, look at your totalassets and your net worth and
(09:15):
the amount of money that you'vecirculated and find and feel
gratitude in your body for whatyou have done.
Yeah, I don't think a lot of uscelebrate.
I think we withhold that fromourselves until we think, you
know, we get to our end goal,versus celebrating Like every
time you get to sit down withyour money is an opportunity for
you to celebrate and thencreate some future focus plans,
(09:39):
setting goals, playing with whatifs living in your imagination
and what I call the 5D.
That's how we actually bring itinto the 3D observed world.
So play with.
What do you want?
What would you love?
You know how much money wouldyou actually want to start
(10:01):
circulating?
If you're circulating 10 to15,000 a month?
What would it feel like tocirculate 30,000 a month?
And I always say and encourage,and what I want to do for you,
for each of you, and for myclients, is to empower you right
.
So, maintaining and standing inyour power, letting the software
(10:22):
that you're using be a tool.
It is not the crystal ball, itis not something that you know.
Our past does not get todictate what our next chapter is
, where we are going, yourself-concept, your imagination
and the feelings and the actionsthat you are taking.
You know what that screenshotis is what you've done in the
(10:43):
past, which I've always found sofascinating, like with gap
rules and taxes and even withmedical charts.
It's like it's all based on ourpast, but that's not how we
create our future.
So it's like what does thateven have to do with where I'm
going.
Nothing actually.
So, looking at things from avery not holding or gripping
(11:05):
tightly to that, I think a lotof us look at oh well, maybe we
had debt because we started ourbusiness, or you know our month
last month.
It's just data and information.
We don't have to becomeattached to it and make it mean
anything about us.
So, to recap is I want you tolook at your financial software
(11:28):
as to show you what you havecreated and what your belief
systems were in the past.
So, if you aren't aware, youare going to be looking at the
observed world, meaning.
You're going to be looking atyour reports and you're going to
make meaning from those reportsand from those meanings and
from those thoughts and thosefeelings.
(11:50):
You're going to create more ofthe same, instead of looking at
it and just seeing, oh, what wasI thinking that created that?
Or just celebrating what youdid create.
And then, what do I want tocreate next month or over the
next six months or in the nextfive years?
Like thinking from your firstand foremost, your imagined
(12:13):
state, and what would you loveto create?
True, I think, true financialand personal growth comes from
making decisions on where youare going, not where you have
been, and I think this is wherewe also get to be really kind to
ourselves and to our nervoussystem.
Like your nervous system needstime to acclimate to this new
(12:37):
vision, and I think and I alwaysencourage clients where we are
expanding, you know, think aboutyour window of tolerance like a
rubber band as you expand andyou are growing.
What doesn't feel very kind orloving to the nervous system is
to just go so far outside thecomfort zone that you almost
(12:57):
have a retraction.
So what would be a little bitoutside your comfort zone?
Maybe it's not going from$15,000 to $30,000 in you know
expenses a month, but what issomething that maybe you can
start investing in yourself,that maybe you've been saying no
to.
You know what's that next goalthat feels maybe a little
(13:18):
uncomfortable in your body butthat is requiring you to have
more faith and belief inyourself.
And what kind of feelings wouldyou have once you've
accomplished that?
And what action?
What different feelings wouldyou have once you've
accomplished that?
And what action?
What different action would yoube taking?
So, starting to play with, Ialways say like, keep it fun,
keep it light, and what kind ofthoughts and beliefs do you want
(13:39):
to play with to allow for youto expand?
Okay, thank you for tuning intoday and, and if you found this
episode helpful, it would meana lot to me if you left a review
.
I appreciate you and I'll seeyou in the next episode.
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