I'm actually pretty good with money.

• I don’t overspend.
• I save.
• I have an Excel spreadsheet that would make your accountant weep with joy.

By most measures, I have my financial act together. And then tax season hits. And I freeze. Every. Single. Year.

Here is what I have come to realize about people like us, helping professionals, coaches, therapists, the people who spend their days holding space for everyone else. We are often great at values-based stuff. We are intentional. We are thoughtful. We pour ourselves into our work because the work means something to us. But that same depth of meaning can make looking at the financial side of what we do feel like a measure on whether the work we are doing is worth anything at all. Our income becomes a scorecard we never agreed to be graded on.

And so a lot of us just…do not look.

Here is the truth I had to get really honest with myself about: I do not want to see how much I did not make. I do not want to feel bad. I do not want to feel devalued.

Looking at those numbers feels like a verdict on my worth as a professional, like the spreadsheet is going to look back at me and say, “See? Not enough.” And so I just…do not look.

Now, I know better. I can coach myself out of those thoughts. I know the steps. But knowing the steps and actually doing them when your feelings are running the show are two very different things. And for a long time, I was letting those feelings decide how I showed up around money.

Not my values.

Not my goals.

My feelings.

The problem is, avoiding it does not make it better. We all know, it makes it worse. Every year I end up in the same place: frustrated, scrambling, and somewhere in the back of my mind quietly hoping I win the lottery or that someone calls me out of nowhere and offers me a million dollars for my services. The ultimate dream. Not the most reliable financial strategy, but I am absolutely not ruling it out.

The cycle has to stop. Not because the feelings are wrong, they are allowed to exist. I can have my mini tantrum. I can feel all of it. But I cannot let those feelings be the reason I never look at the numbers, never make a realistic plan, and never actually grow. That is the version of this story that gets worse every year, not better.

So. Big girl panties on. We are doing the thing.

The shift that actually helped me.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled onto something that finally started to crack this open for me. I started treating my finances the way I treat my meditation practice.

When I meditate, I don't try to stop my thoughts or shut down my emotions. I notice them. I watch them rise and fall. I get curious about them without reacting to them, and then I let them go. There is just observation.

I realized I needed to bring the exact same energy to my bank account and tax season.

When I sit down to look at my numbers now, I notice what comes up. The dread. The shame. The little voice that says “you should have made more.” I note it (“Oh, there’s that feeling again”) and I do not let it make any decisions. I do not react. I get curious instead. And then I look at the numbers anyway.

Here is the thing about that practice that took me a while to understand. In meditation, you are not trying to get rid of the thought. You are learning that the thought is not you. You are the one watching it. The same is true with money. The shame that comes up when you open your bank account is not the truth about you. It is just a thought that showed up. You are the one watching it. And once you can separate yourself from it, even for a second, you can actually look at the information in front of you and so something useful with it.

I started calling it the Money Flinch. That moment when you are about to open the spreadsheet or log into your account and something in you just…recoils. The flinch is real. It is not a weakness. It's just information. And like any thought that comes up in meditation, it does not have to run the show.

What I want you to do this month

Angie and I built a tool around this whole experience: a self audit for your actual relationship with money. Not a budgeting worksheet. Not a lecture about what you are doing wrong. It starts with what you already do well, because knowing what is working means you know what you do not have to worry about. You deserve to cross those things off the list. And then there are three more steps after that. They get more interesting. And a little uncomfortable. In the best way.

We are testing it in the community this month inside the membership.