Personal finance: Emotionally handling a debt crisis?

It simply means that your life has come to a stand-still where you no longer have control over your thoughts, actions or even intentions to do the right thing and get yourself out of debt.

Allowing your entire being to become emotionally saturated with fear, not only clouds your ability to function normally, but it also has a huge negative impact on your health, well-being, relationships and progress in your life.

After sometime you don’t even notice the difference in yourself, the negative effect you have on others who are close to you especially loved ones, because this fear bubble transforms you into someone you don’t really know where most of the time you only come to realise this when it’s almost too late to salvage.

It takes you years to build and establish a credible reputation in all of its forms, but it takes a small percentage of that time to diminish what you built and it’s not worth it because rebuilding is a very long process to regain self-respect, integrity, reliability and relationships. Often it takes more than double the original commitment to rebuild where you could have avoided this process.

You are human like everyone else, so you are not infallible and failure is not a crime that you should punish yourself mentality and engulf yourself in fear, rather focus on gaining clarity of your situation and focus on the new big picture as that will divert your attention from the fear. In life, mistakes can be rectified, but you must be willing to take action.

Through coming to terms privately only with yourself that  you are facing a debt-crisis even though you have not taken action, you allowed yourself to become engulfed in fear which directly stumped your ability to move forward, even one inch. 

The fear factor is created, nurtured and maintained by you from the day you started receiving creditor payment reminder calls, follow-up calls, then threatening legal action calls, then legal action confirmation and finally you decide that ‘Oh I must do something about it, it has gotten out of hand’, by which time it is too late.

The fear you create within is like a cancer that starts off small and begins to fester so badly that it paralyses you from doing anything proactive or progressive, not just within the context of debt, but it affects the full circle of your life.

Very soon you don’t feel like speaking to your family or friends when you get home after work, within the workplace you are too busy guarding the telephones, doors and HR Department just in case the creditor pitches up and so you become totally unproductive at work, because your focus is created on this huge fear bubble you created.

It is the most paralysing emotion I know and it steals your joy, friendships, family harmony and live and your progress in life, simply because you chose to give that emotion a label of fear.

When you really think about it most of the things or situations you truly fear, hardly ever materialises because it is all in your head and only you convinced yourself that it is real.

There is only one real fact and that is: Your are in debt so it is your duty to put the most effective plan of action in place.

Then you avoid receiving all those creditor calls in the first place, you can now comfortably meet your monthly payments, no more over-limit, minimum payment interest charges or any other negative situation that you don’t need in your life.
 

So what happened to fear?

If you look at the damage control actions just suggested, then you will see fear never existed. It’s about taking that first step in the right direction, go and face the problem, speak to your creditors and meet with them to find the right solution for you because this is your job, your duty to yourself and it will lift years of emotional heaviness from you in an instant.

Clearly fear steals your joy, not just from today but from the day you realised you were facing a debt crisis.

Then from thereon you start imagining all kinds of negative situations from taking bits out of creditor calls you receive and then you continue to build and label those situations so directly feeding those fears into huge mountains of fear balls that eventually consume you.

I hope that my enlightenment actually creates the picture intended for you to feel from within and visualise because it is real, it is within you and therefore I am sure you can identify with what I am saying here today.

I just want you to stop in your tracks right now, read this article and identify with what I am saying because I know this is your experience right now with fear.

So once you feel it, then proceed to take this advice and start planning your action to eliminating this fear and get yourself debt-free.

Remember, any situation and therefore any negative situation can be eliminated with the right tools and actions where stepping out and taking control is the solution right now, so do the right thing for you, not for anyone else as you must live with these terrible fear emotions that you created for yourself.

Nobody is perfect, the path of life has many obstacles and for many, debt is one of them so you cannot afford to stagnate at this time in your life as there is much more pleasant positive opportunities and situations awaiting you, because we all have innate gifts and talents that we must nurture and is the reason for our existence.
 
So don’t let anyone else tell you that this situation is the reason you will never progress, or achieve your dreams or amount to anything because people are in the ‘finger-pointing game’ where very few will step out to encourage or support you to transform your life.

You are on your own baby, believe that, but also believe that you have enough inner strength to overcome this challenge because it is what builds inner strength and integrity and if I or anyone else could do it, so can you.

You will hardly find supportive people on this path but that should be your last concern, your ultimate goal should be feel free again, live your life on your terms, how you want it, what you want and when you want it. Let me assure you becoming debt free is a huge sacrifice but nothing compared to the emotion once you are debt free so let this be your goal and the big picture that you can envisage at the end of this rainbow.

You only have this one life, so why destroy yourself for something you can rectify?

[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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