Personal development has changed my life. I express gratitude on a daily basis for my wonderful life with its abundance of love, friendships, my own business, fulfilling work, my health and my close and loving family.
The one area that has lurked in the background, that I spent years imagining I had a handle on when I didn’t, was my debt situation. I have been in credit card debt, with an ever-growing balance, for 23 years and with a vice like stranglehold, that debt was slowly bringing me to my knees.
I didn’t appreciate at the time quite how debilitating it was, until I started to shine a spot-light on that corner of my life and I saw how I was allowing it to completely diminish my capacity to experience joy.
I didn’t realise quite how exhausted I was and how burdened I was by my debt until I started to scratch beneath the surface and see what was really going on. I was emotionally spent and spinning my wheels believing I was doomed to a life of debt and dependency.
I had tried so many debt reduction strategies and repayment processes over the years. I’d get so far and then somehow wind up even deeper in debt than I was before. It was bewildering!
I didn’t realise that I was stuck in a holding pattern of negative thoughts and beliefs – a persistent and insidious pattern that was building up and creating a burden that was weighing heavier and heavier with each passing year.
At my turning point I didn’t even know the amount of debt I had accumulated because I was too scared to face it. I was in state of denial – I knew it was bad but up to then I just felt too weak to face the reality of it.
I honestly thought that if I knew the full extent, I would find it too overwhelming and so I stuck my head in the sand.
I was deeply ashamed and every negative meaning that could ever be applied to credit cards and debt was dominant in my beliefs.
What felt even more devastating was how my debt situation was impacting my coaching business.
It wasn’t until I started this journey that I appreciated just how much my debt was affecting my ability to grow my business. As much as I believed I was ‘showing up’ and being authentic, truth was, there was huge part of me that remained in hiding! I had actually been playing so small!!
I felt ashamed, and out of integrity, because as a business and sales coach I was helping my clients make money and yet here I was deep in debt. I believed that I didn’t have my shit together and so I constantly felt like a fraud.
Despite the amazing results my clients were getting, I held back and hid so much of myself because I allowed my financial situation to define me.
As a result, I was sabotaging my best efforts, and I felt helpless to stop it.
The fortunate turning point came and I realised that nothing was going to change unless I changed. I had to take my power back. I had to take full responsibility for myself and my situation. I had to face up to some home-truths and dive deep into the root causes. I made a commitment to myself that day that enough was enough.
And that day was the day I decided that I was going to learn how to become debt-free forever.
I decided to chronicle the journey, to track my highs and lows and record my progress with a desire to help others. I knew of so many entrepreneurs who were crippled by their debts and as a result were unable to fully ‘show up’ in their businesses. I thought if I could break my own 23 year love hate relationship with debt and change my circumstances, then surely this would serve others. I was excited by this prospect.
I felt like I was under the microscope for this endeavour, like I was the subject of an experiment. I logged, scrutinised and analysed my thoughts, feelings, behaviour and results every day.
What I didn’t know, when I started this process was how much of an emotional and spiritual journey I was embarking on.
I used to believe I needed smarter strategies and budgeting, but that’s not the case. I had to look within – deeper than I’d ever done before.
The first step to becoming debt free is to become emotionally free from the anxiety and stress, to gain mastery over your thoughts and emotions when it comes to money and debt. I worked on overcoming the toxic nature of my relationship with money and the old patterns and beliefs that were perpetuating the debt.
I had to overcome my lack mindset and my reliance on credit as a fall back.
When you are emotionally free, and the old negative patterns have been broken, then you can implement the strategies.
It’s said that success in any area is 80% psychology and 20% strategy so to win at the ‘game of life’ you must master your mind. This is the biggest piece of work that any of us must do to affect any sort of transformation to achieve the results we want in life, and the emotionally charged subject of money and debt is no different.
I am a personal development junkie and I considered myself fluent in the Law of Attraction. Yet I felt a victim to my subconscious blocks because as much as I worked on my mindset and staying positive, my results were devastating in terms of my finances.
Throughout this process I discovered how to overcome my subconscious blocks and free myself from them forever!
From the start I laid out my foundations of daily disciplines that I knew would be powerful for shifting my state from one of lack and fear, to empowered and prosperous.
I continued through a process of connecting my mind and body to really understand and interpret my thoughts and feelings around debt. I connected to shame in a really big way as the overriding emotion and the one that was keeping me stuck in a negative holding pattern.
I become a conscious observer of myself! I found me fascinating!
I played with my understanding of the powerful Law of Attraction and was enjoying some pretty fast results.
I learned to become very adept at recognising resistance and interpreting the sabotaging behaviour that can show up when we’re making progress towards our goals and as a result, I discovered ways to effectively overcome them.
Life started taking on a whole new meaning as I was beginning to appreciate the truth of my power to create my own reality.
Where I had previously felt helpless and victim to my subconscious patterns, I began to feel in control. I realised that my subconscious blocks are only an issue when they’re ‘active’ and my results revealed whether they were active or not.
The more I learned about who I am, the more forgiving and compassionate I felt towards myself and the mistakes I’d made, and I moved into a state of increasing self-acceptance.
My debt balance diminished as I neutralised all my negativity around it, the stranglehold it had on my heart released. I no longer gave it any attention or energy, and this wasn’t about denial or avoidance as it once had been, I just felt liberated to direct all my energy towards creating my best life NOW!
It’s been immense, exciting and exhilarating and my understanding of how powerful we all are is something that I’ve become totally passionate about sharing with everyone who wants to transform their lives and become Paid in Full once and for all! Being Paid in Full starts in the mind and in the heart and is a state of being-ness that will bring so much lightness and joy.
I was thrilled to be able to share my journey in my bestselling book PAID IN FULL and impart my learnings, that have changed my life for the better in every way! In sharing the most vulnerable parts of my story, and printing some of the highlights from my own journal, people have reached out to me and thanked me for inspiring them to embark on their own empowering path.
Now I’m excited to have distilled all of the most powerful processes and techniques into an 8 week live group coaching programme that will transform you life and your money situation forever.
If you want to know more please click on this link and you’ll be taken to the event link:
All you need is yourself and your own journal. Enjoy! You are more powerful than you realise.
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