Reframing Debt — Energy as Currency
This article takes an energetic approach to your financial situation, however unwanted it may be at this moment.
There’s a lot of advice out there about “getting out of debt” from an action-oriented perspective, where you’re told the best way to get out of debt is to not get a credit card in the first place (too late for that), or that you need to go and get a job (any job) to earn more money and pay off the debt as a snowball or avalanche. Working to a very strict budget — cutting down on extras..
Not discrediting those ideas — there’s certainly logic at work there — but for a lot of us, it goes deeper than that.
This series of articles (and videos — this version is also available on Youtube) takes a different approach. Here we’re talking about getting your mind and your energy right first, before you make any movements. Before you take any action.
The reason that is important is because if you’re running on the vibration of fear and lack in your effort to stabilise your finances and ‘get out of debt’, you’re not really changing the energy that got you in the situation in the first place.
Running on a pattern of resistance only begets more resistance. Wanting to get out of one state of being and into another is natural, but it’s important to take a moment to check a few details before you take any next steps.
First things first — and if you take nothing else from this — just know that there’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Many of us aren’t taught financial literacy. We’re not taught how to manage our money in a way which makes it work for us.
Your current financial position is absolutely not a reflection of your innate inner value whatsoever.
What (I feel) is needed to adjust the situation you find yourself in, however unideal, is to first become still, learn how to calm the mind and take some time to get steady and reflect on a few key points to alter your perception.
Sidenote: This article is also in video form
Perception is everything. How you see yourself and your situation is why you’re in this position in the first place. Until you recognise your perception and how it might have formed, what kinds of programmes you’re running on, you will continually perpetuate those truths in your outer world.
What is more important than not being taught how to successfully manage our money is that is we’re also not taught how to manage our energy, and our energetic spends. And by that I mean:
- mental energy
- emotional energy
- physical energy
Mental energy is where you put your focus, where you focus your thoughts. Your thinking takes up significant mental energy, some thoughts can feed you a good ROI, others can deplete you significantly. Learning to calm the mind (we will discuss in this series) and steadying the brainwaves to a calm and centred state enables for new ideas and solutions to enter your field of awareness.
Emotional energy includes states of panic, despair or despondency. These emotional states stem from where your mental energy is focused, and in the same way as focusing your thoughts, learning your emotional energetic states and cultivating a practice of calming the mind, reminding yourself that you are safe in this moment and (potentially) not under any immediate threat in the here and now will also help you step you out of a scattered vibration (which limits new ideas and solutions from emerging), into a calmer state where you can make better choices.
Physical energy is the action part. Moving for the sake of movement can keep you in the same cycles if not taking time to align with your centre and your personal power first. That’s why it seems counterintuitive to me to work harder/more if your core vibration isn’t tended to first. That is what we’re investigating in this series.
If you do nothing else, just think about the idea that once you step out of the shame spiral, you’ll be able to readjust your course for the better.
It’s important to understand that you are where you are.
If you are resisting the situation — you cannot change it.
Acceptance is the first step.
The beautiful thing is when you apply acceptance to the equation — when you neutralise resistance — you actually put a foundation beneath you where you can then build. If you are in the energy of resisting the reality of your situation, it’s like standing on a rug with a hole beneath it. You can’t jump off from that. Because before, you were likely flailing about, loose with your energy and therefore your money, trying to keep up with all these factors external from you and trying to bridge these imaginary gaps which came from ideas and concepts outside of you, not from somewhere true and authentic within you. Only you can discover what that is. People can guide you, show you their way (like I am now) but only you can decide and know what’s in resonance with you. Other people are vibing on their own unique frequency. You are vibing on yours.
You’ll be guided about how to move — but first you have to calm the mind. If you’re constantly on a wheel of worry and fear, your energetic vibration is static.
When you’re giving off a static vibration into the Field, you will be resistant to ideas and help that presents themselves to you. You won’t be able to recognise the solutions when they inevitably arrive (you’ve asked, probably millions of times).
When you’re giving off a static vibration into the Field, you will be resistant to ideas and help when they inevitably arrive (you’ve asked, probably millions of times for these answers). However, from a high-beta state (stress level brainwaves) you won’t be able to recognise the solutions.
That’s why it’s so important to calm your mind, your emotional state — your energy.
Calm yourself by taking deep breaths with a focus on the longer exhale, coming back to the body and the stillness of the room you’re in, reminding yourself that you are safe in this moment. The long exhale disrupts the high-beta waves, because if you’re breathing deeply, your hi-jack the mind and the body itself tells the mind that you’re not under any immediate threat.
As many times as you need to do this, do it. It might be every 45 seconds. Consider this practice like putting $2 energetic dollars into the bank of you. It’s an investment in yourself that will pay off in dividends in a relatively short amount of time.
Reframing your debt.
Consider this: You’ve actually been investing in you this whole time.
See your previous spends — whatever the dollar amount — as an investment in you.
You might not realise it, but this experience has created an incredible power in you. You likely feel disheartened because you know you’re better than that, that you should be in a better position. Perhaps your previous investments didn’t get the ROI you’d hoped. You’re not bad because you tried. You’re not a failure because some outcome wasn’t reached — it’s all about alignment.
Now you know now what not to do.
Look how much you’ve learnt about what you really value. It’s likely you can look back now and see where you used to spend heaps of money (and energy) on things which you no longer resonate with. Those things will have the most regret attached to them.
It’s also likely you can easily see how $10 here and $20 there and $100 there easily adds up to a larger amount. Observe those previous patterns, those previous spends, without shame or judgement and see where you can make small adjustments in the opposite direction. Now it’s time to flip the script. Note: the pendulum swings both ends of the spectrum. You’re up here on the left, naturally, you’ll swing back up there to the right.
Don’t dwell, just note and make an effort to refine your energy spends first.
In the past, it might be a matter that you weren’t necessarily in control of your energy. Perhaps outside factors influenced you — what you thought you wanted, what you thought you needed, what you thought success was without cross-referencing those ideas with your inner truth. Those factors could have been parental influences, authoritative influences, spouses, partners, or the ever pervasive social constructs (groups, communities, media) that tell us we need this, or need to be here in order to gain the respect or love or approval or whatever is that’s currently motivating you.
The thing is, no matter what you do to align to these outside forces, if they’re not resonating with the truth within you, there will always be conflict and a disconnect.
This is where we find ourselves working exorbitantly to get somewhere, and when we arrive, it’s not at all what we wanted. Or spending energy/money in the hopes something will make us happy, but deep down we don’t really know what we value or what we need, so nothing ever fills the hole. An impossible bridge to cross because it’s simply not your authentic nature. Only you can know that. It is innate within you. And here’s a little secret — it’s likely pretty simple.
So first things first, you calm yourself, then you learn yourself, and then you move — with intention.
What’s true for you?
What means something to you?
It’s likely if you had your needs rejected in the past, in your youth or in developmental stages, you might have trouble identifying these parts of you at first. We’ll go more into this in the next instalment of this series. Again, it’s about gentle, quiet, open and curious enquiry. Little pieces will emerge when you give yourself space and time to receive them. It’s not a matter of force, but allowing the information to come through. Be open to the unique ways in which these ideas present themselves to you.
It’s also possible you have trouble believing you deserve financial stability (because of perceived errors in judgement in the past). Again, let’s jump out of the shame spiral, take some deep, long breaths, come back to the present moment and begin with exploring some of the many potentials that are actually available when we’re not hating the situation we’re in. That’s totally unproductive.
(Also, remember — that’s all been part of the journey. See the first graphic in this article).
When you change these mental habits and step out of the self-deprication, stepping out of the fixed mindset that this is how it’s always going to be and understanding that energy is always in motion, energy is always moving and you are energy and it’s natural for you to evolve, then potentials enter your awareness.
But like a plant grows, little by little, the same is true for altering the established patterns (mental, emotional and physical). As you start the practice of getting to know your energy — how you spend your energy (not just your money) and making slight and consistent adjustments to nurturing the evolution of your mindset (your thoughts, your patterns, your reactions and therefore your spends) little by little, things start to gain momentum in the opposite direction.
When you think about it, you didn’t accumulate debt In one fell swoop, so getting out of it is also a practice of compound interest.
So, to recap:
Cultivate a practice of self-soothing. Soon, you’ll start to open up to different potentials. Your certainty about your ability to change the narrative + successfully control your money will come in waves. It’s important to realise this is like training and developing a muscle and you will inevitably have lull moments — trust me when I say that these are as important to the process as the breakthrough moments. In emptiness, new revelations can come. When you breakdown, you breakthrough.
There will naturally be days when you lose your resolve and doubt emerges. This is part of the process also. Don’t sweat it, like the waves on the ocean, tomorrow will bring with it a completely different arrangement of energies.
Remove your energy on what’s happening outside of you. This is a tough one as comparison is natural and the voices and opinions of others and experts and loved ones seep into our energy field all the time. The programming will have residual influence. Take some time in your own energy field, just you and you alone, and check in with what’s going on. Don’t judge, just watch. You might not immediately be able to silence the pervasive and insistent/well practiced patterns, but you’ll begin to just see them for what they are, clouds in the sky moving by. Soon, your intuitive faculties will pipe up — but they need space to emerge.
Begin redefining yourself and what you value and what’s worth your energy spends. I mean this on every level in terms of where you spend your mental, emotion, physical energy. Will you spend it on thoughts of how shitty you feel for getting yourself in this position, or will you pivot and spend it on cultivating your uniqueness, curating your mental equanimity and begin working on refining your special talents with the focus that come from a steady state. These are all components which will enrich your self esteem and sense of value from the inside out, finally creating a healthy feedback loop.
You’re always in control of that, it’s just a matter of practice.
This transfers out to your financial spends. Will you keep up with the fast movements around you which cost you? Will you keep up with the static of others even though inside you’ve got some other pull? How will you honour those feelings within? And how kind to yourself will you be when you go against those little inklings by force of habit, and then realise you did?
Be kind, rewind.
One last point:
Let’s try reframing the idea of ‘getting out of debt’ — which is actually perpetuating the story of lack. How about setting a goal of progressing toward financial and energetic literacy/maturity. Learning how to gear your energy into a state of refinement, because when you control your energy — your mind, your emotions, your actions — you can then control your money.
Stay tuned for the next instalment .
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