Deep, Dark Secrets

Do you ever feel like the world is just one big, "No!"? Do you ever feel like there is no one out there who wants you to succeed?
Well, I uncovered a deep, dark secret about myself this past week. It is humiliating and has been a source of shame for years. What is this secret? It is the fact that I got a student loan when I was 18 to go to college and have never been able to pay it off. Not only that, I haven't been able to put a dent into it!

To some people, this might not be a big deal, but to me it has been horrible. It has been something I have tried to hide because I am ashamed that I have been unable to understand money for most of my life. This lack of understanding has impacted my self esteem, has made me feel weak, and has made me feel imperfect. Imperfection scares the heck out of me because during my childhood, being imperfect equated to getting viciously psychologically attacked by my over-achieving father about what a loser I am. (Granted, he never paid for my college education and has never offered to help me pay off the debt, so putting myself through college could be considered a victory.)

However, childhood is over now. If those patterns get repeated, then it's because of me not him. So I must move one and get past this drain on my energy.

My mother has a law degree and has worked for the government for years and it took her two hours to figure out what happened with this student loan. It turns out that when I was 18, the bank sent up the loan to never get paid off. They determined ahead of time what the interest would be for 10 years and then the majority of every payment I sent in went to pay this interest. Well, what happens when you only pay interest on a loan? When you only pay the interest on a loan, then the principle balance never gets touched and therefor never goes down. When the principle never goes down, then the interest continues to build up and one is obligated to keep paying and paying.

Gosh, I feel so stupid! I wish I would have understood that when I first signed the papers! But does anyone explain that to an 18 year old? Or is that the point? 18 year olds are easy targets for credit cards and outrageous student loans. So, now I feel like I will never get this thing paid off and it will haunt me and follow me the rest of my life... like being a slave. The best thing I can do now is make sure it never happens to my kids and to work on expanding my mind so I can come up with some way of manifesting the money to buy my freedom.

Money only makes sense to those who are making up the rules. This is why I talk about emotionally detaching from money and not losing our sense of God given perfection in this schizophrenic human world. I let this student loan beat me up my whole life. Now I just have to transform my sense of Self and remember my pristine origins as a powerful spiritual being and manifest myself out of this quagmire.
But I'm still angry about it.

Credit Cards

I got a credit card bill yesterday that went from 0% interest to 22.99% interest. The minimum payment went from $22 to $103. I was like, "What?!" So I called them up right away and said, "I happen to know that President Obama met with the heads of Citibank just today about illegal tactics like this." The woman on the phone said, "Congratulations, Mis. Joslin, it looks like I can put this back to 0% interest and we will remove all the extra fees."

Don't let them take your money!

Just My Opinion

Does it bother anyone that the media refers to us as "consumers"? It drives me nuts hearing that on the news. Wouldn't it be more flattering to refer to us as "contributers" or perhaps "smart decision makers"? But I don't think flattery is what the media or the corporations have in mind when it comes to the general public. They only want to flatter us if it puts money in their pockets. I think that we should pay attention to the fact that we get referred to as consumers. It says a lot about how we are viewed by big institutions. With all the misconceptions and flat out lies floating around the media today, this is one bit of truth we need to take seriously. All we are to them is consumers, not humans.

Clear Thoughts Outside

I just finished reading book 6 of the Ringing Cedars of Russia and many thoughts and realizations are running through my head.
The books are fantastic, the best series I have ever read, and yet it leaves a lot to consider about our world today. How did we get here? The books answers this clearly. But what can I do in my day to day life to help my family get out of the illusion and secured in the space of reality?

Today I am feeling impatient with the world. It's not easy to begin seeing through the illusions that surround us moment to moment. If one more bill arrives in the mail, I'm going to scream. It's all just a distraction from what is truly important: family and having uninterrupted time to think. It seems like we're being pulled in a million directions. It seems like there is so much outside of ourselves that cannot run without our constant attention. The outside world seems to nag and pull at us like starving children. Pay this bill now! Call me back now! Me me me! Now now now! Why do we put up with this? It's maddening.

So I see through the chaos. I see what is really going on. We as a society seem to have allowed our energies to be pulled away from our home, away from our gardens, away from our children. So, today I will be shutting off the computer and going outside with my kids to plant some seeds. My kids are far too used to playing with plastic toys instead of interacting with things that have a soul. Sure, I am to blame for this. I was ignorant when they were little. I was poor and living in a dead dimension. Only now am I realizing how important it is to interact with living things. Bills are not alive, so I don't need to expend an ounce of emotion on them. People on the phone can figure things out for themselves. I need to put my foot down and be a stand for my family. We are going outside. Perhaps you should too. I will hear your thoughts better outside than through the phone anyway. See you out there!
Blessings,
Stacey