In debt-recovery, time, perseverance are great allies

Rome was not built in one day, neither was your debt accumulated overnight, so suffice to say, the road to recovery is also not a magic wand that will wipe the entire slate clean in an instant.

My experience of a road to recovery is that it rebuilds pure character, teaches you patience, perseverance, tolerance and as you progress, it starts rebuilding your self-confidence as well as encourages humility in you and you begin to help others facing similar situations.

When you are accustomed to spending indiscriminately without keeping track of your spending, then it is very difficult to apply the discipline to ‘be without, to make do with what there is, to be satisfied with less than what you are accustomed to, to make so many sacrifices so as to meet all your repayment commitments’. But at the end, you will never spend money on something you don’t need with money you don’t have.

You definitely will get despondent and depressed in the beginning when you have to downsize, perhaps move to a smaller more affordable home, sell one car, or sell your boat, jewellery and other items that hold no monetary value, where you could utilize that money to help repay the debt.

The lesson is refraining from holding onto ‘things, materialism’ that does not serve you when it could serve you in a way that you need it the most. When you must step down from your high living, it’s not easy. It’s not easy losing your flashy friends in your social circle, it’s not easy to be driving in a less fancy car , it’s not a good feeling not to be able to spend those weekends away in hotels, it’s also not easy to stay at home when it should be your vacation...

All those niceties are gone for a few years depending on your volume of debt but those sacrifices must be made because in life, you have to give to get, else you will not be in alignment for transformation and so you hamper your own transformation and self-empowerment to progress. Hence the end-result is, you never get to live your dream.

The realism is if we make a huge mistake by getting ourselves into debt then it is our personal duty to ourselves to take responsibility to make the shift, sacrifice a few years of counting pennies while repaying our creditors and then be able to look forward to rebuilding the life we deserve and succeeding to achieve our goals and dreams.

Nothing is for free and I maintain that ‘if anything looks or seems too good to be true, then it normally is’. So if any opportunity comes your way whether money related or other, don’t just believe what people say, just know that to achieve anything good, prosperous and abundant in life when you find yourself in a negative situation, the only key is sacrifice, time and patience.

Today there are so many other alternatives to compensate this time of sacrifice and even if you feel like you have to make yourself short each time you must repay a creditor, then find an alternative pleasure to substitute that action you must make.

So for example if you are a female accustomed to weekly spa treatments or manicures, then buy good bath and spa products that are on sale 365 days per year. Go home, run the longest fullest hot bath with those luxurious products and soak it all up for an hour or two. When you are finished spoil yourself with the same silky creams and lotions, give yourself a pedicure. So what did it cost you? Perhaps Dh10 each for one bath salt, one  bubble bath and one lotion versus perhaps Dh250 for one treatment. This means you can have five  baths after this one with the same products saving yourself Dh1,250 if you had have treatments and realistically that saving could be a creditor repayment!

This is the power of self-control, discipline, self-respect, taking responsibility, gaining inner-strength, while still maintaining your wholeness as a woman. This will also elevate your confidence and you will be ready to face the world.

This is only one example of the level of sacrifice that must be made when you are on your road to recovery. Self-indulgence of the self is key and powerful to transformation both physically and emotionally and strengthens the mind.

When you have made even one committed payment on time, never forget to pat yourself on the back, because it will retain your eagerness to make the next payment when it is due because you will be able to see the debt diminishing if it is restructured with a fixed interest alleviating all the unnecessary late penalty charges.

It is also important that the changes are visible for you to see because it encourages you to continue embracing this new found path, which by the way can be extremely enjoyable, because as you gain more pleasure out of the little treats you give yourself, you will continue to look out for more ways to compensate your old habits to maintain that happy equilibrium.

Now here is the secret: As you continue maintaining that happy equilibrium, which I term ‘vibration’, you are no longer in your dark hole. Now you are absolutely in the light, beaming, happy, embracing all sorts of stuff all around you and so what happens? You are now calling goodness into your life which some may say is much like what the Law of Attraction is, however it is the Law of Life. i.e. what you call into your life, will yield more of the same.

So more goodness and positivity, miracle situations and surprises and you will come back to me to affirm what I am saying today. That is exactly how it all evolves.

If we just take the time to observe the pleasures that we do have, the things that others don’t have or are yearning to have that we still have after all the dust has settled, then we should take the time to be grateful and thankful for the small and as we do, we get the big coming into our lives. Very little positive can happen in your life when you are not grateful and thankful for what you have right now.

These are the keys to the new door that I leave you with today and I wish you the very best on this road because you deserve it.

[Note 1:  Theda Muller is a UAE-based author of two books: Embrace Financial Freedom Volume One: 10 Proven Ways To Release Debt And Emotional Fears In Today’s Economy, and Volume Two: Releasing Fear And Bouncing Back From A Debt Crisis.
She also conducts webinars and workshops on debt recovery.]

[Note 2: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect in any way, the views of Emirates 24|7. Readers are advised to carry out their own due diligence before taking any decision.]

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