Bankrupt …

 

I am awake, I am alive, and this morning … I release the weight that comes with releasing the debt.

To explain:

Recently I have come to understand just how important it is to understand money, to understand debt and interest, to understand cashflow and long-term debt and on and on. Because if you don’t understand money, it will own you rather than the other way around.

Now those who know my story, know I was raised in poverty. Money, to me, was something you worked really hard to have but something you never would. Good people didn’t have money. Bad people did. This negative, narrow interpretation serves no one and it didn’t serve me.

Fast forward a few years in business, and I began to have money. Sounds like a positive but it so wasn’t, not for some time. I had to learn how to be as comfy with money in the bank (and leaving it there) as I had been all those years with poverty. I had to stop going out and spending it just so I could return to my comfort zone. I learned. I grew.

But business is a learning curve, kinda like adulting. And like any adult out there, I can look back on decisions made then that I wouldn’t make now, decisions that continued to cripple me, yet I didn’t even notice I was limping until …

If you remember the post, the end of last year I exclaimed to my shock and joy that I had broken the 6-figure income barrier. I did it! This was about to prove to be the brightest light I could ever imagine.

For almost as soon as I acknowledged my accomplishment, I acknowledged my life, my debt, my lack of financial freedom. Why did I feel almost as impoverished as I did years ago when I lived in the projects barely making ends meet? I needed answers so I sought out experts (because I am blessed to know many).

And that is when I saw the writing on the wall. I saw it. I read it. And like some of the wisest choose to do, I chose to head the warning.

Last week, surrounded by tears and self-inflicted mental abuse of the most EPIC levels, I signed the papers and declared bankruptcy. I said good-bye to decade old debt with crippling interest charges. I said good-bye to interest charged on interest. I drew the line in the sand, setting down the debt while taking my wisdom with me.

It breaks my heart that good debt and good people were hurt in the crossfire (because bankruptcy is all or nothing, there is no picking or choosing). They are paying for my learning and for that I am so incredibly sorry, but this had to be done.

For now, I begin the rebuild.

Why the sharing? Why publicly release such personal truths? Because shame needs secrets to thrive and I don’t do shame or secrets. My followers know of my years of domestic violence. You know of my false teeth (partial) as a result of that violence. You know of my years of abusing alcohol and how now it is just a casual acquaintance (yes, you know I still like a glass of white or a nice rum and Pepsi from time to time). And now you know this.

So, when gossips tongues wag, when people try to defame the woman I have worked so hard to become, you can reply with, “Yeah, I know. Sandi told us. Hardest decision she ever made”. Because friends arm friends with truth. Because shame can’t survive truth.

So, this is me, shoulders squared, facing due north, the land of my future. This is me continuing the work as a wiser, stronger woman yet this is me, so absolutely sorry for those caught in the crossfire that has been my growth. This is me wishing I had learned faster or sooner yet knowing I can’t change the past.

I can only build a future and today that process begins anew.

Thank you for listening.

 

I so love you.
HUGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Sandi