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Have you ever noticed how awful the word “debt” can make you feel? When you have some form of bad debt, like money owed on a credit card or a debt consolidation loan, there can be a feeling about it that come out in your mind and creates negative emotions like a dark cloud. Some even describe that feeling as “agony,” because it’s always there, always negative. And the more you think about any debt you have, the worse you usually feel! That’s why people tend to avoid thinking about it.
“Creditors have better memories than debtors.” ~Benjamin Franklin
Good Debt & Bad Debt
There are two main kinds of debt—good and bad. Good debt includes assets and investments that grow in value and/or are leveraged to create income. A home mortgage is an example of good debt since your payments create an asset you’ll own instead of just paying the rent with no equity from it. Although good debt does mean a bill to pay, it doesn’t create the same negative feelings as bad debt. It’s actually quite the opposite since good debt shows that you’ve invested well and are building and leveraging your money wisely.
It’s important to understand where bad debt comes from, or how it was created because its source will greatly affect how you feel about it. Most credit card debt comes from purchasing things that get used up or decrease in value, like clothes, dinners, or stuff bought spontaneously. Debt loans can result from consolidating credit cards or something worse. It can be caused by financial trauma like medical bills after an illness or accident, or from a business that went south, or a personal betrayal.
Bad debt can cause panic or the feeling of being overwhelmed. Having bad debt is like a black hole that pulls your good intentions about creating wealth down into a spiral of negativity. Thoughts about debt invade your mind, keeping some level of panic in your present reality. That causes worry about the future and thoughts of everything you won’t get to do. You may wonder how you’ll pay it off, or whether it will get worse, or waking during the night in a panic. Debt triggers the stress response for millions of people multiple times every day.
Negative Emotions Leads to More Debt
Financial debt causes a pile of negative emotions—anger, frustration, hopelessness, helplessness, and/or guilt directed at yourself, the world, creditors, the government, your partner, and so on. Most people who feel tremendous guilt and embarrassment about their debt also believe they deserve to feel that way since they created it. It can lead to feeling like a victim. No good comes from both having all these negative emotions and believing that you deserve it as a sort of punishment for your debt. That just makes you feel lower about yourself, your abilities, and your potential. Carrying around those feelings robs you of the very energy, vision, and creativity needed to get out of debt.
Since thoughts of your debt can replay over and over, you can experience extremely negative emotions often. It can be agony, often leading people to a favorite way to neutralize emotional pain—spending more money! We jokingly call it “retail therapy.” It can help you feel good for a short time but escalates the debt that causes the pain. Buying new, pretty, fun things gives you a mini-boost and escape. But it worsens debt problems when the bills come. And there are many other unhealthy therapies to drown the pain of debt, like overeating, overdrinking, and overpartying. All these drain money and leave you feeling worse after the rush fades.
Identifying How Debt Makes You Feel
If you focus on reducing and eliminating all of the negative reactions to debt, you can free yourself from old beliefs and emotions that keep you in debt. Even if you currently don’t owe any money, try it anyway and see how you feel. Oftentimes, people without any debt have a lot of fear and worry about going into debt in the future. Here’s an exercise to test your emotions concerning debt:
Exercise for Feelings about Debt
On a piece of paper, write down the total amount of your debt in very large numerals with a big currency sign in front of the number. Some people use a red marker since visually it triggers more emotions. Be brutally honest with yourself and add up everything you owe from credit cards to personal loans or car loans. You may feel like you always struggle to make ends meet, even if you’re earning a decent income. This can mean you’ve been lying to yourself and living beyond your means, which only increases debt levels.
Facing this debt number is hard for most people, but it will give you a new sense of power and bolster your determination to eliminate that debt. Look at that number and say the following out loud with your number inserted: “I have five thousand dollars/euros/rupees in debt,” “I have fifty thousand dollars/euros/rupees in debt.” As you say it, pay attention to feelings and raw sensations that arise when you speak that number.
Your emotions will typically appear very quickly when you think about, talk about, and tune in to your debt. These are emotions that you’re programmed from childhood to experience when you deal with or think about money. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the emotion you feel first when looking at your debt is the primary one that drives how you operate in relation to money. If anxiety and fear come up, which is common, recognize that and take a moment to absorb it to give yourself personal clarity and consciousness: “I am programmed to operate in fear around money. I am programmed to operate in panic around money.”
“If you buy things you don’t need, you will soon sell things you need.” – Warren Buffett
Transition from Debt to Wealth
#1 Identify and clear away the negative emotions you’ve been programmed to feel around money. Whether you have debt or your feelings about money come from other sources, uncover those emotions and clear them. When you clear these feelings, you’ll notice a big shift in several monetary areas.
#2 Seriously decide to change your money management activities. Examine how you act in regards to money, and work to meet goals you set in order to transform debt into wealth. Then take conscious action that leads to true progress. Visualizing more money doesn’t count as action. Change how you actually handle money on a day-to-day basis. Handle actual money in your hands.
#3 Increase your income. The fastest way to grow your income is to take a big step up in your mission, your personal power, and the way that you give your gifts to the world. Leave yourself open to all the possibilities for increasing your bottom line. Once you take the other steps, you’ll be much more open to money opportunities. (Excerpt is from ‘Tapping Into Wealth’ by Margaret M. Lynch).
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