Debt is a powerful thing. It can be an empowering tool for wealth building (i.e., student loans, investment in education, investment in your business). It can also be a debilitating, awful dark cloud above your head that reminds you of all the things you're unable to do because of the money that seems to go down the debt drain. On top of that, when you struggle with financial anxiety, being in debt can feel like a huge obstacle that is keeping you from reaching goals that are deeply meaningful to you.

Trust – I've been there! If I'm being completely honest, any level of debt gives me a high level of financial anxiety, even if it's actually manageable. There are deep grooves in this brain of mine around financial anxiety that are difficult to undo. It's as if feeling the anxiety is more normal and more comfortable to me than feeling okay or at least neutral about money. Feeling this anxiety has been my comfort zone for most of my life.

But this is my work as a Financial Healing Coach for others as well as for myself – to help you smooth out those anxiety grooves however possible.

Anxiety around debt ruins relationships

I have had student loan and credit card debt most of my adult life. As a young, dumb, and broke person in college, I borrowed the maximum amount I could and amassed almost $100,000 in student loan debt. With that inflated number, I really had to learn how to live with it and not allow it to ruin my outlook on where I could take my future. But before I learned how to do that, there have been many, many times when I let my anxiety around debt overpower my optimism and negatively affect some of my relationships.

One relationship it deeply affected was the one with my husband, Conrad. When we got engaged, we decided to go all in on our joint finances: we joined our checking accounts, we named the other as authorized users on our credit card, we operated on a single budget, and my debt became his and vice versa. 

What I didn't predict was that I would also make my financial anxiety his financial anxiety. I brought her into the room anytime I felt any tinge of worry around paying down our debt. I would bring her into the room even though we were literally fine on the cash flow front! My M.O. was not good for me and it certainly was not good for our marriage.

Changing my mindset

I really credit Conrad for helping me reframe my idea around debt. He put it like this: If I worry about the debt we have to pay down, then I'm essentially duplicating the issue each time. During our early years of marriage, debt was a constant reality for us no matter what, so why did I have to magnify the worry and anxiety and let it poison our relationship? In the end, the only thing that worrying or being anxious accomplished was to create a big rift in our relationship.

To his point: The debt existed already. What power do I really want to continue giving it beyond that?

Be kind. Be gentle. Ask for help.

So, for those of you struggling with financial anxiety around debt: be kind and gentle to yourself. That debt that looms over your head like a dark, rainy cloud if you give it enough power. That debt may have been necessary for you to survive. But know that there are resources such as debt counseling centers, debt management plans, and financial counselors like myself who can guide you through it. 

I'm also here for you! You are not alone in this.