19 Legal And Money Matters - Ch 4 Walk In Your Own Footsteps

Feeling bad about ourselves because we struggle with legal and money trouble can be very demoralizing and ultimately undermine our sense of self worth. Taking the time to address these issues, and other challenges in our lives that we feel badly about is an important part of keeping our self-worth high and our connection to Spirit clear. 

Transcript

Hi, I'm Laura Pallatin. Welcome to the Practically Spiritual Show, where we break with restrictive religious and cultural indoctrination and create our own personal spiritual path.

 In this episode of the podcast, I am going to be reading a chapter from my book, Walking Your Own Footsteps, Chapter 4, Legal and Money Matters. If this does not seem like it applies to you, I hope that you can be open to the idea that this is all about shame. It's about having anything hanging out in your life that makes you feel uncomfortable, unworthy, maybe you owe somebody an apology.

 So while the chapter specifically addresses legal and money issues, it also applies to just anything that we have that makes us feel shame.  So let's listen to the theme song and then I will read that chapter to you and then discuss on the other side.

 Welcome to the Practically Spiritual Show.  Together we will learn, laugh, and grow. Break indoctrination.  Rise above our nation. And  soar welcome to the Practically Spiritual Show. 

 Walk in Your Own Footsteps, Chapter 4, Legal and Money Matters. We give legal and money matters the power to make us crazy faster than anything.  Knowing that we have an outstanding legal, financial, or tax issue and avoiding dealing with it can cause us to feel very unstable.

 This problem goes to the soundness of our foundation in life. Looking at and dealing with the issue may seem scary, but not knowing what is lurking in the back of our closets waiting to get us is worse.  Many people live with some sort of legal matter hanging over their heads. It may be a small matter that can be cleared up easily, or a more serious issue that will require legal representation.

Having issues regarding paying taxes will also belong in this category. Such issues should always be addressed as promptly as possible. Allowing them to lurk in the shadows of your life can severely undermine your progress and growth as an evolving being.  It is a sort of issue that lingers in our subconscious, constantly whispering our doom and lack of value.

Even small problems can seem huge when we're trying to pretend they're not there. ...  You may feel it's best if no one knows, but you know, and that's enough. Unloading a burden is a step by step process. This is a very important element to living a happy life, free from constant worry and repercussions of dread. 

 I had an opportunity to speak with a man named Ted, who was putting his life back together after many years of struggle.  Ted told me that he had done many bad things, and couldn't imagine how he could ever feel good about himself again.

 He told me, I've never killed anyone, but I've done some pretty bad stuff. Well, another person overheard that last statement, and he told us a pretty amazing story. The stranger explained that he had been a hitman for the mob. For too long, he had lived with the guilt of killing many people.

 He told us that he'd paid his debt to society and now lived a good life and he had self respect. The fact that Ted had a probation issue he still needed to work out seemed pretty small compared to a mob hit man. Before we parted, Ted told me he felt ready to deal with his legal issue. 

Another issue that can cause great harm to growing self esteem is money problems. Melanie was working with me to get her life in line with what she wanted it to be. As a very young professional, Melanie had acquired a great deal of debt from student loans and the startup costs of her new career. In order to bring order to her financial life, Melanie took her entire financial portfolio, a large shoebox, to her father, who is an accountant.

 It was very difficult for Melanie to take this step because she wanted to believe she was handling things on her own. Her father, thankfully, was able to sort out her situation and help Melanie create a plan that she could implement to get herself out of debt and back on track. While it was hard for Melanie to admit she needed help, the relief she is now experiencing is well worth the minor sacrifice, a little bit of pride.  

 Most people can recount a story about addressing legal or financial issues. In almost all instances, the result is a freeing experience and not the horrible one imagined.  You may  to make restitution of some kind, but the torture you go through putting off the inevitable is usually much worse.

 It is vital that you gain support and guidance on these trying issues. If need be, seek legal assistance through the recommendation of a friend or family member who has to deal with such an issue.   Dread is dead. Get on with living. Carrying a worrisome legal issue as baggage along your personal journey will slow you down and can even stop you in your tracks.  Facing your legal issues and clearing them up will allow the light to shine on your life again. 

 Walking Your Own Footsteps is a workbook . And at the end of each chapter, there is a section called Bringing it Home that asks questions and offers prompts for the person that's reading the book to write. So I'm going to read the Bringing it Home section now.  

1. Take a moment and write down any legal or financial matter that makes you uneasy. 

 2. Review your list and reorder the items based on the urgency and emotional impact of each item. If there is an item on your list that will cost you more money or stress, the longer you put it off, address that item first. Then work your way down the list until you've prioritized every item.  

 3. Starting   with item number one, work through your list. Do something to knock your list down every day.

 Every day that goes by that you don't work on the list is another day you spent feeling bad about yourself and your choices. 

 4.  Once you've completed every item on your list, Address any legal or financial item as soon as it comes up.

 Letting things go because they are uncomfortable to deal with is a sure way to feel bad about yourself.

 As I said in the intro before I read the chapter, I really believe that the root of the problem when it comes to legal and financial matters is shame. Shame is something that we impose on ourselves or somebody else. Uh, they can begin the process, but ultimately you cannot have shame unless you accept the premise that your action is something that is shameful, right? 

 So we've all seen people that we think, Oh my gosh, they did that. Wow, they must be really ashamed. And the person just seems absolutely unfazed because for them, it was not a shameful act. So somebody can try to make you feel ashamed, but unless you have buy in, unless you agree with them on some level, it doesn't work. 

 Legal and money matters, and this includes like having loads of credit card debt. It just makes us feel less than. It makes us feel like, oh, if that person knew about me, they wouldn't like me. There are so many scenarios that go along with this.  Medical debt is another one, and there are agencies that can help with medical debt. But I personally know several people who are absolutely living their lives off the grid because of legal threats regarding medical issues that they had no control over, they didn't have the money to pay for it at the time, and oftentimes, you know, it's medical, man, you have to get care. So there's a lot of aspects of this, right? There's a lot of possible avenues that would lead us to a place of being in this position. 

 I just want to talk about shame for a moment.  My very first memory of shame, I was less than two years old. That's how powerful this is.  So I was born in February of 1966, and my brother was born in March of 1967.

 So his first Christmas, which was December of 1967, so, as I said, I wasn't even two years old yet, he got the coolest cash register. It was green, it had little plastic money inside, and I was enamored with this thing. I can remember seeing him sitting in front of it, and he wasn't dexterous enough to push the little keys down to make the drawer open.

 So I went over and I pushed one of the keys down, and the drawer popped open, and he screamed, and my dad came running over and told me, You should be ashamed of yourself for taking your brother's toy, which of course wasn't what I was doing. I was trying to help him.

 I mean, how powerful is it? I, I felt shame. He accused me of trying to take my brother's Christmas present, and I felt the shame because I did admire the toy. I did want to play with it. And I did want to see what would happen if I pushed that key down far enough for the drawer to pop open. And I wanted to show my brother all of these things at once. 

 No less than two year old child should be shamed for being interested in a toy.   That is way more about my dad's parenting than it is about me as a person. But because I did have interest, I would have liked to have received that as a gift. I took the shame on.

 And that's how shame works.  And that's the same for being in legal trouble, being in financial trouble. All of these things make us feel bad about ourselves, but only because we have buy in. And let me just tell you, the only way through these situations is forward.

 You can't go back in time and make different decisions so that you don't have legal ramifications. Probably you can't return whatever it is that you bought,  including education or a car that didn't work out. I mean, there's so many reasons, but certainly, obviously,  a surgery. You can't go back and undo that. 

 And that's not how life works anyway. That's not what we're here to do. We're here to go forward together in a positive way. And recognizing that what you're experiencing is not proof that you're a bad person or that you don't deserve a good life and taking positive actions to address these issues will help you feel better.

 Let's take debt.  Just like in Melanie's situation, where she kind of humbled herself to somebody and took her financial problems and laid them in front of someone else and asked for help, right? Once she'd done that and she started the process and started paying every month to make a difference with these bills, she started feeling better.

 Because she had a sense of control. And that's the big, dark cloud, right? When you don't know what's out there.   You don't have anything hiding and lurking and waiting to get you. Even if you feel like you do. These are your challenges. They belong to you. You're not subject to them. 

 Somewhere in your life you were a part of creating it and you get to be the person who addresses it. You are in control. And trying to pretend it's not there and deny it is more time consuming, is more exhausting and draining than actually making a plan and addressing it.

 It is static between you and spirit  that you can control.

 Because life is what it is, it's not a one and done process either. You may find yourself down the road addressing exactly this again, but this time you will have the tools to deal with it. 

 This brings us to the end of another episode. I really hope that you found something helpful here. I know this is a difficult conversation to have and not the fun, topics that I usually like to focus on, but  let's face it, sometimes dealing with the nuts and bolts and the nitty gritty, that's important too.

 So I'm glad that you stuck around all the way to the end of this one, and I hope that it has some meaning for you, and if you have these kinds of issues floating around for yourself, that you are now inspired to address them and clear them away. 

 If you know somebody that you think would enjoy the Practically Spiritual show, I sure hope that you pass along an episode that you think they'd particularly like. I am so honored when somebody that has listened to my show resonates enough with it to want to share it with somebody that they care about. I make it pretty easy to reach me. I'm on TikTok, Facebook and Threads. I also have a website called ThePracticallySpiritualShow.com All Run Together. And I have one for me and my artsy stuff called LauraPallatin.Com. You can reach me through either one of those. 

 I'm also working on putting together a mailing list for a newsletter.  I would love to grow a community of like minded people who are breaking cultural and religious indoctrination and creating our own path so that we can share what we've learned with one another and create a sense of community.

 Yes, we're all on different paths, but we can very much acknowledge that we're in the same world working together to creating a life that works specifically for us. And I think that would be really cool. So, if you're so inclined, reach out on any of the platforms and send me your email address. 

 Until next time, take good care of yourselves, And remember there is no them, there really is only us.

 Thanks for listening to The Practically Spiritual Show.  Thank you so much for sticking around to the end. It means so much to me. I love you. See you next time. Bye bye.