Awareness 2015 - The Seven Year Rescue Comes To An End

At 5:44 PM on Friday, August 21st, the Seven Year Rescue came to a glorious, hard fought end. It was a day I had hoped for, thought about, and eventually knew would arrive. It was the day I became completely DEBT FREE!


What I wasn't prepared for was the lessons that would come out of the journey, some of which came to me only today while sitting in Church.

Allow me to give you a little color on why this is all so important and why I am even bothering to write about it. My intention is to share this so that someone else who is even considering for a moment to do the same will think twice. I was challenged to write my raw feelings about what happened - and I will, if for no one else for myself.


The Backstory:

I loved a man I should not have loved. Our relationship was toxic, unequally yoked and like walking on eggshells. This guy was my best friend, my confidant, he could push my buttons like a champ, and he could be tender, sweet and attentive. To say our lives were enmeshed was an understatement. To be fair, sometimes God gives us exactly what we want in order for us to learn. I wanted this man in my life...for all the wrong reasons.


(What I now know was that the reason we were so close had more to do with the alcoholism we had in common, in his family and in mine. We spoke a common language which we understood at an emotional level. Both were/are codependent by nature and family upbringing.)

Over the course of 18 months, I spent $15,000 bailing him out of his life, his choices and making life better for him. I paid rent for him. I paid bills for him. I reconciled his finances for him. I dealt with creditors for him. I relocated to be able to be closer to him, even though I convinced myself it wasn't about him. It was a bill here, some money there. I put money in is bank account so his account wouldn't be over drawn and incur more charges. I even joined his business so that would have more reason to have him in my life. My payoff was being wanted. Was knowing I was making a difference in his life because I could. And he could throw me an emotional bone from time to time and I would stay. It makes me cry as I write this - to think I thought so little of myself to allow all of that to happen.


My thinking was that rather than watch him bottom out, I could handle it better than he could. It was a total and complete lie. I was paying everything with a credit card at 19.24% APR. I would fill out those little checks like there were endless funds. I upped my credit limit to 15,000 just to be able to accommodate even more. I not only maxed out this card, but another card for $7500 as well, by helping a family member and robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I helped him enter and win a contest where he won a large sum of money, just a little under my current annual salary. It my mind, it was a perfect opportunity for him to set things straight in his life and to pay me back. I mean, if someone had been helping you for more than a year, wouldn't it seem reasonable to pay them back ? Magical thinking on my part. When he finally got the money, I finally dared to broach the subject about him paying me. He was furious! How dare I even ask him ?!


I felt embarrassed for asking for what I wanted and then I was angry. REALLY angry! What the heck was he talking about? You can't even THINK about paying me back, even a little bit ?

Eventually and against his will, he gave me something, but it was a drop in the bucket.

By the time everything was said and done, I was over $32,000 in debt between my car payment and my credit cards. I was drowning so someone else could float. And then to add insult to injury, he met someone else, started a relationship with her and then married her.

I had given everything I could for love and in the end it didn't matter. I felt used, verbally abused and like a carpet that I allowed him to walk all over - except that I invited it and then thanked him for the privilege of helping him. My thinking was absolutely screwed up. My heart was broken in more ways than I could count. I lost my best friend, my confidant and I was left to pick up the pieces. I was embarrassed that I had given so much for so little in return. I was angry with myself for destroying my financial life in such a grand fashion and I had nothing but a mountain of bills to show for it.

Honestly, his marriage was the best thing that could have happened to both of us. I needed to find myself again. And I needed to figure out how I was going to undo the damage I had done.

I chipped away at the debt but it took really making some tough decisions that allowed me to finally get out of debt. I had to begin to use a budget. I needed to pay more than just the minimum on my cards at every opportunity. The 2 pivotal moments that made the difference were: paying off my car and changing jobs. Once I paid off my car, I was able to snowball my debt at an accelerated speed.

I dedicated my bonus to my debt, and watched the debt begin to really go down. As I finally hit under $10,000, I realized I had paid 2/3's of my debt. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. It became exciting. I shared my journey with a friend who kept me motivated and likened my journey to running the bases. As the amount kept falling, he said " You are rounding 3rd base", and I could see it ...and moreover, I was believing it. I was going to be out of debt. I could hardly believe it !!!

There were a multitude of lessons I have learned over the last 7 years. Here are a few of them:

1) A man who allows a woman to help him out of a financial hole loses respect for himself and eventually for her.

2) A man can accept financial help from a woman without being emotionally connected to her.


3) Never give someone you love money. It will change your relationship forever.


4) Unless I expressly set up an agreement for repayment, don't assume the other person has any intention of repaying.

5)There is only one Savior - and I'm not it.

6) If you feel you are over helping someone, you are.

7) Never take away another person's struggle. You have no idea what challenges God has given them to grow.

8) There are lots of healthy ways to support someone. Money isn't one of them.

9) A relationship that is unequally yoked will eventually end.

10) If both people aren't all in, then you don't have a relationship. You are dreaming to think you do.




Current lessons:

I realized today that I carried a low simmering anger in my heart for years about this entire situation. Today, as tears fell from my eyes, peace and forgiveness filled my heart. I felt the weight of 7 years come off my shoulders and empty out of my heart.

I felt sadness that had wasted so much time being angry at him and angry at myself. I resented the fact that he was able to take so easily, and was embarrassed that I gave so much. And today, I put that into perspective. I did what I did. It's done. I can't go back and undo any of it. I forgave myself for not taking better care of myself and my heart. I forgave him for a multitude of things.

I am grateful to know that chapter of my life is over. I have learned to value myself, my worth. I have learned how to love without rescuing. I have learned how to say no. I am learning how to balance my desire to help with asking others if they actually need or want that help.

And I have learned that my Savior, Jesus Christ, gave his life so that each of us can work out our salvation here on earth. I have felt his love and support as my heart healed and my life changed.

I am preparing for my future with a lightness of heart and in my step. It is a new place for me and I am stepping fully into my own.

What a beautiful place to finally be!




Rachel

Insights Into Me - The Road to a Paradigm Shift - May 25, 2015

The story of the Golden Goose... do you remember it ?  The poor farmer who discovers one of his geese is producing eggs of pure gold.  Initially he doesn't believe it until he has the egg appraised.Once he has had the value validated, he cannot believe his good fortune and day after day he returns to the nest to find another gold egg. He becomes fabulously wealthy; it all seems too good to be true.

With his wealth comes greed and impatience.  He is finally unable to wait  any longer for the goose to produce and he decides he will kill her and take all the eggs at once. But when he opens the goose, he finds it empty.  There are no golden eggs - and now he has effectively in one moment of sheer insanity forever changed his ability to get any more. The goose is gone and so are the golden eggs.

This story turned on a light for me in several areas of my life. First, my job.

I love my job. I come to work each day with a sense of purpose, with energy, feeling happy and ready to go. There hasn't yet been a day when I have not felt that way. It is a definite positive in my life. I also spend many hours at work.  And when I spend 9-10 hours a day at work, what I bring home is
not nearly the same as what I brought to work in the morning.  I am bringing home fatigue, exhausting, lack of desire to talk to anyone, no desire to cook or do any menial tasks, occasional irritability... I sound like a blast to live with, hmm ?   With all of the "pros" I get with my job and from my job, there is a price I pay on the flip side.

I am the goose. I am the one who brings home the bacon, makes the golden eggs. And I am happy to do it for myself and our family.  But is this overworking because of external forces or is it that validation that I get personally from the long hours that eventually takes a toll in my home ? Is it my boss telling me I "must" stay ?  No...it's not his voice I hear in my head.  I cannot tell you the countless number of times he would tell me to go home, only to have me tell him, " I only have one more thing to do...", which never ended up being one more thing.

I need to own up to being a workaholic and that I work with other workaholics. We don't see it as a problem because we make up our own truth about it.  It is perfectly okay in my mind to responsible, to work hard and even work long hours as needed,but that is not every day OR ever week. By owning up to my underlying intentions about why I work long hours i.e., getting a break from being at home, needing time that is just for me, getting interaction with other people, handling the stress of living with someone who is chronically not well, avoidance, procrastination, I can make a different choice about how I spend my time and what my days look like.

If I burn myself out to the point I am unable to be healthy in all aspects of my life, then I become the farmer. I will effectively have nothing left for myself, my family or others   And I cannot blame anyone for that happening. The control is 100% mine.  I can make a change that keeps everything alive and in balance.

So which one are you ? The goose or the farmer ?

Insights Into Me - The Road to a Paradigm Shift - May 18, 2015

Growing up, women in my family didn't exercise on a regular basis. I remember years ago Mom swam, but that stopped once her head/neck would get too cold.

I loved gymnastics as a child. The energy, the drive, the challenge, the friends. We didn't have the money for me to go very far with it. And eventually, I was drawn away from it by people who were better at it than I was.
My self held belief is that women in my family are curvy and it's hard for us to lose weight.  The truth is that I lose my drive to commit myself daily to good health. And it frustrates me when I bump into the results. This is entirely my doing.

Underneath that lack of commitment is the belief that I am not really worth taking care of. It's a self esteem piece that is attached to a very old abandonment tape.

I will not give up on myself. Even if you walked away from me, our family and your responsibilities, I am no longer carrying that "map".It has had me "lost" for too many years.  I have to create a new map of the territory of my life. I don't know what it looks like, and today I am not going to figure it out. All I care about is that today that I am shedding light on a corner that has been dark and under cobwebs for a long, long time.

Today, I found a flashlight. Today I start to clean house.

Insights Into Me - The Road to a Paradigm Shift - May 17, 2015

I was talking with a friend about an entirely different topic and the book " The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" came up. I had read it about 10 years ago and truthfully, it wasn't life changing at all for me
at the time. My head/mind/heart wasn't into it. 

Fast forward to May 17th, 2015.  This book was going to become a door that needed to be opened, corners that need to be explored, and some dusting was probably going to be happening in the rafters. And I'm not talking about a Swiffer. I mean some serious cobweb removal!  Except I had no idea any of that was lingering in the pages of this book. Now that I think about it , I am pretty sure my friend was silently laughing at my innocence of taking on the task of reading it in 6 weeks. Because he knows I don't just read... I digest, devour, dissect, inquire, tear apart, unearth...

Because I know my own struggle in keeping my commitments, I said, as if it was no big deal, " Give me a deadline. "   I thrive on deadlines. The procrastinator in my knows just how much time it will take me before I am in panic mode to finish the book.  Fortunately, he gave me June 30th as a finish date.  That is quite literally an eternity in a procrastinator's life ! 

And so on Sunday, May 17th I read my first 51 pages. It was like I couldn't get enough. There was so much that was resonating with me. Honestly, there was a voice inside my head that said, " Are you sure this is the same book you read 10 years ago ?" I had highlighted key words, made notes of important stories and really took note of the "aha" moments that happened in my first night of reading.

It became clear that as I learned more about Character Ethic and Personality Ethics, I could see where my path had lead. I could see that quite possibly my weight and all the ups and downs I have had with that could be buried in all of this. The story that lingers in my head about not being financially stable, about not having enough, lack of abundance. Yeah.. all those creatures came out for a moment into the light. And I realized that next 6 weeks were going to be work. 

I put my highlighter away and closed my book. 

And I wrote in my Impressions book: I am curious and afraid to open Pandora's box. For today, that says it all.