Thought for today: Sometimes to recover from compulsive debting it helps to develop our Visions for the future. A Vision board helps us map out where we want to head in the future, to make our Action Plan a reality. We cut pictures out of magazines, and make collages with the things we want to get, do […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: Sometimes we need to claim our own future with specific goals. Then if we share our visions with trusted friends as if they have already happened, we set the bar high for ourselves. When we have truly committed ourselves, we often find that we will do everything in our power to make our goals. This is a healthy use […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: Vague, lacking confidence, confused, indecisive. When many of us come into DA, we feel bewildered. How did we get so off course? And how do we get back our lives? DA Promise 2: Clarity will replace vagueness. Confidence and intuition will replace confusion and chaos. We will live engaged lives, make decisions […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: Being in debt is a temporary situation, but some debtors think it is the end of the world. They can’t buy food or electricity because they need to make payments to creditors. Why do we put creditors needs first? Because we neglect reality. We forget that we exist. Only the object of […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: The Twelve Steps help us find a Spiritual Awakening. They are in the order they are in for a reason. For example, we need to “come to believe” before we can turn ourselves over to the power. But what does DA mean when it says we need to “turn our will and our lives over […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: Bargaining is the third of the “”five stages of grief*”. For compulsive debtors, this means a desperate search for ways to avoid the consequences of debt. We may feel compelled to hold extra jobs to pay our creditors. We may “splurge and purge” , going on bulimic shopping sprees, and when the rush of binge […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: In DA we focus on the total person, leaving aside the “quick fixes”. Refinancing a loan, or renegotiate the terms or rates of a loan, needs to make sense in the context of our Spending Plan that puts our needs first. When we negotiate refinancing rates and terms that benefit us it’s called “debt […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: Continuing on the theme of sharing and pressure relief, let’s talk about what happens in a Pressure Relief Meeting. A member shares: “I like to start my Pressure Meetings with a short prayer like the Serenity Prayer. Then I hand out my numbers and give the group a chance to review them. “My Pressure […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: Having set up our spending categories, and tracked our numbers for a few weeks, the next step to simple pressure relief in DA is to put together a realistic spending plan that puts our needs first. To do this we schedule a Pressure Relief Meeting (PRM) during which we will share with our Pressure Relief Group (PRG) our categories for income, spending, […]
Continue reading →Thought for today: Feeling financial pressure? Having a Pressure Relief Meeting, as outlined in DA Tool Four, can help. It starts with tracking our spending for a few weeks, and ends with sharing what we find with others more experienced in the program. Tracking what is going on with our money, summarizing it, sharing it with a Pressure […]
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