Women being financially independent is a fairly new concept!

It's only in the last 50 years that women have been ALLOWED to have our own bank accounts and it was only brought into law in the mid 80's that women were ALLOWED to buy their own alcohol in a pub.

I know in my lifetime it was still very normal to assume that I would stay at home to raise my 3 children and my husband would go to work, which is what I did for 25 years, while doing bits and pieces around the kids. Not only was it assumed, it was encouraged.

Now I'm not judging this, if it feels good for you then enjoy every moment of it, but for me it felt suffocating, controlling and left me, 25 years later when the marriage ended, financially vulnerable, pissed off and scared.

In my family the men have had a high degree of success, most are entrepreneurial and have done well for themselves. The women have focused on raising kids or had good jobs but not had the same financial opportunities and success as the men.

It made me start to question why? Was it just a case of upbringing, conditioning, societal conditioning - well yes but it was also more than that.

It was a belief system, one that was actually sabotaging my own financial success.

Even though I love being an empowered, independent woman and have shared with my own, now grown daughters, the importance of this, I still had unconscious programming around 'needing' a man to support me financially. Logically it wasn't true but I found that when I was in a relationship I would 'give up' my own work and business to look after them and the children, even if those children weren't biologically mine.

I watched my own business and finances dwindle as I put EVERYTHING into being a home maker and raising children.

Again, there is nothing wrong with that unless it is causing suffering and it was - the loss of my own financial independence.

That was where I started to delve into the wisdom of money. How to cultivate it, why I and many other women struggle with receiving and then holding on to it.

I have a group called The Holistic Business Circle with over 800 women in business and a lot of them were struggling - could it have anything to do with unconscious programming and beliefs similar to my own?

I believe so!

It's why I started to run the Fun Money Challenge sharing what I have learnt to date about money alchemy and manifestation. Learning about money energetically as well as in the physical.

It is an honour to see women look at their money stories and sabotaging beliefs and programmes and start to shift them!!

One of the biggest industries of women in business is holistic and it's one of the biggest industries that hasn't had a lot of financial growth. Things like the beauty industry have seen prices going up for getting your nails done and other treatments but holistic and energetic treatments prices have stayed the same for at least a decade - I am currently doing some research into that too and the results as to why holistic businesses are struggling are fascinating and something I'll be writing more about soon!!

Today's invitation is to look at your own money story, what belief systems do you have that are outdated and not serving where you want to be in your life?

I would love to hear them!!

Feel free to get in touch if this blog has resonated and if you would like to learn more about the fun money challenge just drop me a wee message!!

Much love and abundance to you!!

Stephanie C Starla
Your Guide to Sovereignty