One of my best friends moved to Boston and called to tell me how she was adapting from West Coast to East Coast. She said, “Here my girlfriends will ask me how often I have sex with my husband, but they are mortified when I talk about money.”
It reminds me of our relationships with the bank. Sometimes I get the feeling we are all a little bit Boston, even while millions are swirling the drain of personal finance as they once knew it. If we are all in the same swirl, wouldn’t we want to talk about it? Hear each other’s tribulations and solutions? Wouldn’t we want to relate our issues to our friends, to the loan officer and the bank, because they could have the solutions?
Financial Matters Out in the Open
Money is a secretive matter. It gets tied up in status and shame, and when we are faced with losing it, the prospect of loss is often bigger than the sum itself. It is emotional and heavy.
What if potential loss were an easier burden to share? What if talking about money challenges and fears could open up solutions? If you say out loud what your situation is, someone very often will know someone else who can help, or who went through exactly what you are going through, or knows someone who works at Chase, or whose cousin is a financial advisor who can help.
Talking about money challenges means letting go, and maybe even coming to some conclusions that are hard to swallow. In the interest of letting go, I am trying that on. I have been filing loan modification papers for a year now, and have reached the point where I can take no more steps forward. What if the only answer now is to surrender?
What if I was willing to take the massive action of letting this property go? And if I am willing, why am I not including the bank and loan officer in on my process? Why am I acting differently in this relationship? Any other relationship, I would speak to what I’m struggling with, and what I am willing to do.
Conversations About Letting Go
Wouldn’t it be great if I actually had that conversation with the bank? I would love to keep this property and pay you on a regular basis. But I can’t do it if I don’t get the loan modification. I have tried everything from changing my family’s lifestyle to filing twelve months’ worth of papers. And now, I am willing to let it go.
My actions at the beginning of the day included faxing my bank six utility bills and thirty pages of statements. What I am going to do now do is write a letter to thank the loan officer. Then write to the bank to say I’m willing to let go. What I am hoping is that by surrendering and being public about it, I will be building my team, my support network, to help me continue to make the changes I want to make in my family’s life.
Andrea, this is a FABULOUS piece! Right on!!
Expectant mothers have no idea of the toxic substances waiting to leap into their blood streams from products: cosmetic, household cleaning, food, etc. Sadly, too many of us are quick to trust that companies producing these items have our best interests in mind. They don't and why should they — corporations were created and are administered for BUSINESS purposes. Nor can we count on our government to protect us. When you examine the number of FDA executives who leave government service for work in the same companies over which they exercised "public safety" enforcement, and you can easily figure out what goes on there.
Whenever I'm consulting with Moms-2-B, I tell them the following: You are responsible for YOU and for BABY with regard to whatever you permit to touch your body, and Baby CANNOT READ THE LABELS. Regarding cosmetics and hygiene products, Mothers need to make sure nothing but ORGANIC (or at least all-truly-natural) comes in contact with their bodies. EXCUSES BEGONE, as Sir Wayne Dyer would say.
The "label" issue is something I come in contact with in my work to assist others (expectant mothers included) with their health challenges using essential oils. Unfortunately, so many consumers are using substandard, inferior, recreational or fragrance-only oils for their HEALING purposes and getting inconsistent results, if any. Others are getting negative reactions from such oils, once the CHEMICAL constituents and synthetics so often included in low-grade essential oils come into contact with living tissue. Others are even BURNING these potentially dangerous oils in their homes, causing them and other occupants to breath in God knows what! That is why I tell people to use ONLY "therapeutic-grade" essential oils. If that term is not on the label, you truly have no real idea what is in the bottle.
Andrea, together, we can educate more and more people to take a stand against impurities in consumable products. Once profits go down for the producers, they'll be forced to go the other direction. That's already happening, but progress is slow because too many people are still lining up to victimize themselves by consuming these products.
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Joseph "Holistic Joe" Delgado
Holistic Wellness Advocate
Holisticjoe.com
Holi Joe, this is what happens when public service is not segregated from private interests. This is why Plato in the Republic had his philosopher-kings owning nothing of their own from birth. I am not that radical, but certainly there should some sort of firewall, otherwise some form of Corpratism is inevitable, as we have now.
@ Joe :: Thanks for the comments. You know, in writing my blog and just looking it around and the recent recalls from China, part of me misses the old days when we made our own stuff in the back yard. As it stands, many people (but not enough because of cost and ignorance) are beginning to make the turn, either by doing their own due diligence or researching ingredients or by simply using base oils or simple ingredients.
Pregnancy is close to my heart, especially as hubby and I have decided to add on to the existing family this winter and I'm already changing my exercise routine, eating habits, et al. So I see it as self-propelled mission, as I don't wish to stop capitalism and definitely don't need big government being involved AT ALL. I'll keep my eyes open to how this progresses.
AK