Maybe she was told she was bad with money, or that she just wasn't good at math. Maybe her stomach and chest tighten at the thought of looking at her numbers, and maybe she feels a wave of anxiety every time she checks her bank balance. Maybe, underneath all of it, she is afraid of what she might see and of what it might say about her.

And yet she knows better. She knows she "should" be looking, but she feels embarrassed that she may not even know what she is looking at, and somewhere along the way she decided she should have figured this out by now. So the login goes unused, the report never gets pulled, and the quiet story that she is the only one who feels this way grows louder each month.

What makes this so confusing is that she is not struggling anywhere else. She has built something real, with clients who trust her, offers that work, and often a team that looks to her for direction. She makes hard decisions all day long, speaks with confidence in her area of expertise, and is the person others call when they need an answer. Then the conversation turns to profit, or someone asks how the business is really doing, or the thought crosses her mind that she ought to know where things stand, and the woman who leads so capably everywhere else suddenly wants to change the subject.

I want to say something clearly, because it matters. This is not laziness, and it is not a lack of intelligence. Avoidance is protection. When looking at her financial information has come to mean the possibility of being judged, even by herself, the body does what bodies do and steers her away from whatever feels threatening. The tightness in the chest, the racing thoughts, and the sudden urge to check email instead are signs of a nervous system doing its job, just in a situation where the threat is not real. A number on a screen cannot say anything about her worth, but she has been carrying stories that make it feel as though it could.

Even financial professionals like me, who have worked with numbers for decades, have these moments too, believe it or not, and that is exactly why I understand this so well. There was a year in my own business when I was investing heavily in my growth, changing the way my business worked, and putting money into travel, marketing, and publishing my book. I have spent my entire career reading Profit and Loss statements, and I still felt my chest tighten when it came time to open mine. For the first time I understood from the inside what my clients had been describing to me for years, that looking at the numbers felt less like gathering information and more like waiting for a verdict. If it can happen to someone who has done this work for decades, it can happen to anyone, which is why I never see it as a flaw in the woman sitting in front of me.

What I have learned, in my own experience and with the women I work with, is that the way forward is not to open the spreadsheet and push through. The first step, and the first pillar of financial confidence, is not to look at all, but simply to notice. Notice what feelings come up when you think about your financial information, how you feel about it, and whether there is a meaning or a judgment attached to what you are feeling. Then notice what thoughts or beliefs are running underneath. Try finishing this sentence without editing it: "The thing I am most afraid my numbers will say about me is ______." The belief that is often hiding in our subconscious is one of these: "I'm not good enough," "I'm not good with money," "I'm not smart enough," or "I'm not capable enough." If yours is something different, that is just as useful, because the goal is only to name it. These thoughts are so familiar that most of us mistake them for facts, when they are really beliefs we picked up somewhere along the way, and we get to change them.

I talk with women every day who are right here, and it usually takes a moment of desperation for them to take the next step. Sometimes it is the realization that she is bringing in the revenue, yet her bank account does not reflect it because just as much is going out, and she is struggling to pay her team, or herself, what she deserves. Or an unexpected tax bill arrives. In that moment she finally decides she is ready to start looking, to start learning, and to start understanding. The good news is that she does not have to wait for that moment. She can begin much earlier, and much more gently, by recognizing the why behind the avoidance and starting to let go of the thought or belief that has been keeping her away.

That looks like coming to it with curiosity rather than judgment, and with compassion instead of shame. Curiosity asks, "I wonder why this feels so hard for me?" while judgment asks, "What is wrong with me?" The two questions lead to entirely different places, and only one of them makes it possible to move forward. Compassion gives her room to say, "Of course I feel this way, given what I was taught and what I have believed," and that permission is often what allows the tightness to soften enough for her to take the next step.

All of this is possible because it is really just information. Information that can be empowering instead of disempowering when you look at it through the right lens. What we often do not realize is that the money stories and beliefs we bring with us into our businesses will also come up here, in our own financial confidence. The story that money is hard, that she is not a numbers person, or that women like her do not get to feel this comfortable with money does not stay behind. It follows her around, into her pricing, her spending, her reluctance to pull the report, to look at it, and eventually into how far she allows her business to grow.

That is why the goal of the first pillar is not to dive into your numbers head first. It is simply to understand why you are not, and to get curious about the thoughts and beliefs that are keeping you from doing it. When she can name a belief, she has already taken a step, because a belief she can see is one she can begin to change, and a woman who is no longer afraid of what her numbers might say about her is finally free to hear what they actually say about her business.

This is the first of six pillars of financial confidence, and each one builds on the last, so there is no need to rush past this one. If you would like a gentle way to begin noticing, I created a free seven minute guided meditation called You Are Safe With Your Numbers, made for the woman who feels fear, anxiety, or shame around looking at her financial information. It helps settle your nervous system and reminds you that your numbers are information, not a judgment, so that when you are ready to look, you can do it from a calmer place.

You can find it here: https://www.audreyfaustconsulting.com/meditation

Choose to Be Financially Powerful.