Love your Debt - Insanity or the Path to Financial Freedom?
Author: Barbara Voss

Have you heard that new age maxim “If you want to be free of something you must first learn to love it”?

That sounded like pure insanity when I first heard of it – It was an Oprah Winfrey show – and I remember her response -“You mean I have to LOVE these hips? (Something like that – and I agreed with her entirely.)

Since then I’ve used that philosophy on things like excess fat and a job that didn’t give me the creativity and freedom I longed for.

I learned that we attract what we focus on. So if we feel anxiety, guilt, shame or unhappiness with our lives what happens? The energy of those strong emotions – the attention or focus we give it - will keep attracting (holding onto) the very situation we want to be free of – that’s what we call “being stuck.”

So what if we applied that to financial indebtedness? Can loving debt help you get out of debt? And – is it possible to LOVE being deeply in debt?

And to love those greedy, grasping companies that gouge me with enormous interest rates and excessive charges? What could I be thinking – loving THEM?

Worse yet, just thinking about all the loans and credit charges filled me with guilt and shame. I condemned myself for irresponsibility and impulsiveness. But couldn't that be my problem? Maybe those draining, self-condemning emotions held me in this situation I wanted to be free from. They certainly did not inspire me to focus on finances. It felt too helpless, and thinking about it made me angry about myself.

Do you ever feel that way? Then stay with me.

Wouldn’t positive thinking create the change I was looking for? I can’t condemn positive thinking, many people don’t seem to need anything else. But let me tell you what my situation was like:

I had already created a financial vision for my future. You won’t be surprised to learn that it included the dissolution of all the credit card and loan balances.

The problem was every time I sat down to pay debts I saw such a large gap between reality and my vision – and I felt all over again the shame guilt and worry for having so much debt. Maybe I didn’t have enough faith, but positive thinking in that situation seemed to require insanity.

My focus and energy were securely locked onto my debt and all the feelings of failure that I associated with it. If our lives ARE a reflection of our focus (attention) and the energy we invest (action) this situation would doom me to more of the same. To move my life I needed to turn ME around.

I started with our largest debt – the mortgage. How to love a mortgage that will take another 20+ years to pay off? I remembered back to when we got that loan. My husband worked on a farm, I had a pension but no work, it really was a leap of faith for the lenders to extend us the mortgage. And now we’ve had eight wonderful years in that house. If we’d had to save up to buy the house outright we simply wouldn’t have it. Understanding this, made it easy to feel gratitude that they extended us the opportunity to live in this home we love.

I went to next largest debt – a nice sedan we got almost two years ago. We picked out just the car we wanted with the features that we needed. And that car has taken me to and from work for 40,000 miles, and taken us on nice vacations. How wonderful that we got to choose the car we wanted and use it while we pay for it. Again, I found it easy to be grateful for the loan that made it possible for us to have that car.

I continued down the list from the highest to the lowest balances we have – it took a long time. I thought of everything we bought or every experience we enjoyed that we are now paying for. The loans that got the computer I needed to establish my home-based business, our camper we took on great family trips, our polytunnel that produces all our vegetables, the meals we ate out and groceries and petrol we’ve bought – everything I could think of. It was easy after all, to feel grateful for being able to have or do all those things.

By looking at my experience with more appreciation and understanding, I was able to reframe my relationship with my creditors. No longer could I see them as greedy, grasping, gouging moneylenders - they have been funding partners in my admittedly comfortable, enjoyable lifestyle.

So what about me – and all that guilt, shame, self condemnation? If I’m to become free of the debt I have to release those feelings, right? That was the hard bit - to be honest. So much of financial wisdom centres upon saving rather than borrowing.

Fact is, I haven’t been living according to that wisdom, and my task now is to fully accept me just as I am. I needed to find a way to reframe my experience with my track record with money so that I could accept it lovingly – yes, love me with all my debt.

Truth is, my family has enjoyed a lifestyle and I have built opportunities I might never have dreamt of because companies out there had faith in our future and lent us money towards it. It isn’t important, at this point, whether we might have done this differently or more wisely. Our life experience has been rich and our experiences have created possibilities that have led to greater growth and larger visions.

What has this exercise done for me? It’s got me unstuck from the destructive emotions that kept me from financial freedom. It has freed me to focus my energy and attention on creating those creative opportunities for wealth to enter.

But what you really want to know is, how am I doing financially? I have to report that my financial vision hasn’t fully materialised yet, but I’m not stuck either. So, do I think I will create it? Oprah got rid of those hips, didn’t she?








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Barbara Voss is a coach and training consultant with Successful State (www.successfulstate.com). She has served as coach and mentor in the HR training and development industry in the UK, Germany and the USA. Over a thirty year period she has designed and delivered workshops focused on personal development and success achievement for UK and US businesses and government agencies. Her approach is welcoming and inclusive for people of all races, religions, cultures, physical ability and sexual identity.

Educational achievement includes a Master's level Diploma in Training, Development and Evaluation, Corporate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, CIPD and Member of the International Coach Federation.

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