Meadow DeVor was hardly on a spending spree. She and her husband simply bought a house. And they had a few credit cards, but doesn’t everyone?
In the November series, Bye-Bye Now, we’re talking about what we need to release and surrender before the year is out. For a lot of people, debt would be at the top of that list.
Meadow was on a roll. Her coaching practice was thriving, so of course she wanted to invest in her dream home. Then they had a chance to buy a little getaway place. Why not? It was so charming!
But within a few years, she and her husband were divorcing. Their split wasn’t the only fracture. It coincided with a real estate market that had cratered. Still, she was hoping prices would bounce back, just like her coaching practice.
She remembered, “I had just left my husband, I wasn’t working much, and I treated my credit cards like a fancy little back-up plan. I spent money I didn’t have. And I planned on paying it all back with money I didn’t have.”
Meadow had a lot of options to deal with her debt. The biggest, and most obvious one, was bankruptcy. But…
She. Just. Couldn’t. Get there.
She asked herself a radical question. “What if I stepped up and paid everything off, no matter what it takes?”
And that was Meadow’s breakthrough moment. Now all she had to do was work on that balance.
To be precise: $571,817.68.
Step one was finding the courage to cut her underwater properties loose along with their “someday” profit. Out of the blue she realized, “The money “lost” on my house was fictional. All I was losing was a story. And I was willing to lose that story.”
She added to her coaching practice, ultimately working three jobs. She recalled, “Every single month – I could have taken a vacation to a tropical resort or bought a new MacBook Pro with the amount of money I was spending trying to clean up my past-self’s irresponsible choices.”
For a moment, step away from the focus on money. Can you see the real story?
Meadow was willing to lose the story that she was a victim of circumstance. Her new story was, “I created this, but I’m also creative enough to fix it.”
She was willing to lose the story that life isn’t fair. In its place, she empowered herself with the belief, “I can do what needs to be done. And I can keep it from happening again.”
And she lost the story about needing a huge paycheck every month. Her new abundance priorities are: “Give me enough to live my dharma.” Now Meadow seeks enough to run her business, care for her daughter, and do the things she enjoys, like travel.
Do you need to have a moment of radical acceptance, just like Meadow? Kickstart your transformation by asking, “What’s costing me peace? If I say bye-bye now to this person, place or thing, will I also lose the anxiety, anger or sadness that goes along with it?”
Lose that story, and gain so much in its place.