Welcome to another episode of Tuff Love, with Rob Kandell. This is episode 75, and the topic is Dealing with Debt, which is something people have commented is important and very timely. Debt is something that everyone in the modern world has to deal with, and a big part of personal growth and expansion is the ability to consciously deal with your debt instead of letting it run you. In this episode Rob shares his lessons around debt, and then coaches Chantel around her current situation with life and money.

There are all kinds of debt. The obvious ones are the financial debts we take on in life: bank loans, student loans, credit cards etc. However, there are many other kinds of debt that are not so obvious or overt, including things like emotional debt, physical debt, family debt, karmic debt, sexual debt and the list goes on. These are all ways that we can bring on a form of debt in our lives that we need to handle and confront.

There is another way to split up the types of debt, too. One way to describe it is overt or conscious debt vs. covert or unconscious debt. Conscious debt is when we know we’re getting into it, and unconscious debt is when we don’t know that we’re taking it on. Sometimes you know exactly what you’re doing, there’s a contract, paperwork and you can see the clear effect on you that it will have for years to come. That’s a conscious way to take on a loan. This might be a business loan or student loan for example. You sign up for it knowing you have to pay it back and you know what you’re putting yourself into.

Then there’s the unconscious debt. This is the one when you don’t know when you do something that you’ll be taking on debt in the very near future. For example, when you’re young, invincible and you’re going to live forever. We do things when we’re young that we have debt for in the future. For some that’s simply not paying enough attention in school, paying too much attention in school, missing out on a youth from taking on too much responsibility, not taking care of our bodies, hanging around with negative influencing people or bad eating habits. It’s places we’re not putting attention when we’re young that end up coming back to us when we’re older.

There can also be unconscious debt in families and relationships. Perhaps it’s taking on the debt of our parents’ expectations. For example, sometimes parents expect things like ‘because I raised you, you owe me.’ In some cultures there are even overt family agreements about this. Whether conscious or unconscious, it can be a heavy weight that we feel. In our romantic relationships, there can be unconscious rules of engagement and if they get broken it can cause conflict. Sometimes in dating there can be tit for tat assumptions. E.g. ‘I pay for dinner, you give me sex.’ Commerce is so engrained in our society that it’s hard to escape this kind of transactional thinking in our relationships. Look at where you have these debts that you’re not clear about and what’s the effect on you and the effect on your relationships. Even months and years later those debts come back alive and we argue about them. Look at the places where you take on debt in your life and also put debts on the people in your life.

Here are Rob’s key points around dealing with debt:

We are screwed if we do and screwed if we don’t. There’s almost a perfect storm because no matter what, we’re going to be laden with some form of debt in our lives. Accept that being in debt is part of the human condition. Unless you live in isolation, there’s some form of karmic, emotional, physical debt in your lives.
Read the fine print! Sometimes on college loans or other loans, there is fine print that we don’t take the time to read or the sales person perhaps glossed over the extra finance fee. It can hurt a lot, so pay attention.
Most of us rue,