Debt-free and The Steel-toed Boot

Someone the other day walked up to me and said: "What is the one word that best describes the benefits someone gains by talking your sessions?"

I thought about it for about 2 seconds and answered: "choice". I knew this without hesitation because I had asked myself the same question a few years ago.
I show people that they have more power, more options than they currently use. This is not rocket science BUT, it is every bit as elusive as science when you don't have a clue on how to shift from being angry, shameful about your debts,and fearful, to being calm, quietly assertive, and feeling in control. Trying to become debt-free is a great exercise in personal empowerment.

I always use the metaphor to my clients of a steel-toed boot; that image pressing down on my neck is how I have felt many times when I was living the life that was prescribed to me by my survival mode. The 'shoulds' ran my life. Mr and Mrs Should moved in and took up residency when I was about 5 years old, and they have made most of the decisions in my life.

Until recently.
When my life imploded 3 years ago, and I scrambled to hold onto something, the only people who extended their hands were friends who had traveled that road already and were wise, grounded and joyful. In everything that I was reading and hearing, CHOICE kept cropping up. Choice is power. Choice is taking control. Healthy choices keep us intact; choices made out of fear put us in peril.

As I struggled to manage the debts my then husband and I had accumulated, paying them off always felt like the boot was on my neck. I was angry and resentful at both myself and him, and some of the people who I allowed to take advantage of my good nature.

But, in the months and years that I have healed, making the choice to pay something early or do something for myself that is joyful, fills me with pleasure; I don't feel the negative metaphor of the boot on my neck; conversely, I feel free and bountiful, and clean that I am making choices to take care of myself in a assertive, calm, loving fashion.

Every time you make a choice to really nurture yourself, you are being loving to yourself. Compassion and patience are always waiting in the wings for you.

Financial Intimacy

Teaching Financial Education is not working. The government and other entities are spending tons of money trying to 'teach' money; it does not work that way.

Showing someone HOW to budget is one thing, getting them to understand the underlying reasons WHY they have so much debt is very different.

Financial Literacy as it being taught today, skims the surface of debt advice, how to get out of debt, how to manage your money. What people, and especially women, need to do is dig DEEPER into the reasons WHY; Which for all of you who understand my program, is the starting place to identify the monsters in your 'closet'; the people who were toxic in your childhood. Putting a name and a face to those protagonists, gives you tools so you can then heal, and THEN later learn budgeting.

Financial Intimacy, as I call it, is really being connected your real inner truths about the shame you might be feeling, the anger you might be carrying around, the fears that hold onto about money.

Money is just a metaphor. It's really about your RELATIONSHIP to.........whatever, you fill in the blank; could be your spouse, child, brother, boss; it's a person first and then the material world second. So, if you have problems with food...eating too much or too little,for example, your problem originates with a primary relationship with a person in your past.
Examining your early childhood, and understanding the family dynamics is the key to unlocking those secrets.

I have a client who's husband one day turned to her and said: "If you really loved me, you would ____________(I forgot the request)"
She was shocked that he connected love with a request to do something for him.
We talked about it later,and I told her...: "kids are copycats...they repeat everything they hear". Four days went by,and she then heard her Mother-in-law say the exact thing to her 10 year old grandson......BINGO ! That's where her husband learned such an absurd comment. Is no wonder that how learned how to communicate started at birth.

But, now as an adult, someone can break that code of forgotten comments and move forth to a more authentic and intimate way of not only communicating but of a deeper understanding of how different parts of their interactions as children impacted their sense of self, which totally controlled their self-esteem.

And, you are asking..how does this relate to finances?

Your self-esteem is the engine for all of your relationships, whether they are people, pets, pizza, or pesos...heal your self-esteem and the money will follow.

A Self-Governing Individual

Sometimes I feel as my clients must feel; this roller coaster of emotions affected less by the lunar positions, immune from the glaring sun, dispatched from the softness of joy.
"What is this really all about?" I asked myself the other day..."what is really our purpose here, and why am I having a bad time?" Who can I complain to?

I truly believe what happens, happens for a reason...but, some days, I just would like a vacation from school, a break from being practical ALL the time, relief from duty.

I am whining...I am feeling sorry for myself and allowing the bunny inside of me to scamper all over the beautiful garden and not take one nibble from any beckoning rutabaga, seductive tomato or lyrical fiddlehead fern.

I started re-reading one of my favorite books: Eat, Pray, Love...the passage about India specifically. The reason why this book must have been so popular was that some of her feelings are universal to all women; they resonate in a way that not only breaks our isolation and validates our feelings but tracks her passage from the darkness to the light, without any apologies.

I like that.

And, I for once, totally changed how I start my day....I gave myself permission to sit in bed and read, journal while drinking tea ( I gave up coffee after 40 years..).
and when it starts to get light out, I am ready to go downstairs and feed my dog, feed myself and open my computer. It feels amazing!

I am giving myself permission to step away from the moving vehicle and breathe in a way I have never before breathed. As much as I thought I was in control of my life and making choices that were in my best interest...the spiritual piece of my life was/is incomplete.

In my wildest dreams I never thought I would be ever actually write a letter to GOD...and mail it. I never was one who counted on anyone for anything, except out of fear. I have always been a big proponent of writing by hand, whether they be thank-you notes or journaling, so writing a letter by itself did not seem odd; who it was addressed to, did. But, now that I am ramping up (or is it letting go...) my spiritual journey, I figured this would be okay.

So far, this has been a great couple of days. I feel different...softer, lighter more open.

Understandably. There's a new sheriff in town, and she making new choices and allowing the space to be fearless and full of trust and full of adventure.

Why Change Sometimes Makes us feel Schizophrenic

It sometimes amazes me that the first 5 years of our lives determines how we move through the world; and that we can then spend the next 85 years trying to heal those wounds. Somehow, that doesn't seem fair.

As we embark on a journey of self-discovery, the road at times feels as if we are walking on broken glass. The slivers and jagged edges is so painful we question will it ever end. When will the pain stop. But, from my experience, I never looked back and wished I had not asked "WHY", never regretted breaking free from the falsehoods.

The further we move down the road away from that inauthentic life that we were on some level forced to lead, we look back and ask: WHO WAS THAT PERSON? I know for myself, I am almost embarrassed when I am face to face with my "old" self, like talking to my ex-husband today. How in the world did I marry him? I ask myself: did I have that much damaged self-esteem that I settled for someone who was such a poor fit.

But, this is where compassion comes in. Without it, we cannot forgive anyone, anywhere.
Without it, we can not move forward.

But, this is where the Schizophrenic feeling starts to bubble up. Two opposing feelings, two opposing thoughts having a tug-o-war in my head. The Bunny and the Wolf.
Fear verses strength. And that battle can take on a life and death intensity.
I talked about this in September's blog.
Why am I bringing this up again, you might be asking....

I came across something I wrote 3 years ago, and it was about becoming non-negotiable, trusting one's self, finally. And clarity of one's boundaries. I was at the beginning of my evolution of becoming my own person, leaving behind that collage of feelings, behaviors and haunting feelings that something was always 'off'. Talk about going through life feeling slightly schizophrenic...

Looking back at my young adult years, up to 3 years ago, I can see how we all change in layers...much like ascending a spiral staircase and looking down; the perspective changes as we go up, and the problem gets smaller as we heal.

And frankly,for me, it was not a road filled with compassion. Quite the opposite. But, I did finally learn the purpose and benefit of compassion, which helped me gain patience, another kind word absent from my formative years.

Change is never easy. It takes raw honesty,discipline and commitment...and, patience.