In today’s episode, I will be talking about the respectable addiction to debt with my lovely guest, Elaine Wilkins who is a BA Hons, PGCE, ILM Accredited Wellbeing Coach ILM and FHT Accredited Training Provider – Area of Specialism – ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia Recovery through Digital Healthcare. She is the multi-Award winning founder of ‘The Chrysalis Effect Online Recovery Pathway’ Her own 6 year illness with chronic fatigue syndrome was the catalyst to become a leader in the field in ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia Recovery. Her work has supported over 4000 people to recover their health as well as provided accredited recovery specialist training for over 1100 therapists and clinicians. Her dream of a holistic trauma informed recovery pathway being immediately accessible at point of GP referral is now a reality with NHS Pilots now commissioned and running.
A lot of people are suffering from the stress and shame around debt. Admittedly, most of us don’t have the basic foundation of financial understanding, knowledge and relationship with money which becomes stressful, difficult and can then lead to debt being the only way to survive.
It is a fact that being a slave of debt happens because it is a repeating cycle if you don’t get to the underlying drivers and causes around it. Debt is the easiest and fastest response to an external situation. It’s also undeniable that debt is embedded in this whole culture where the act of borrowing money becomes normal and socially acceptable.
Nowadays, we have the tendency to think we need to catch up with what we see on social media. This is because of a lot of underlying factors but 2 most important things about debt is that it is either a coping mechanism for trauma and adversity in childhood or it is the mindset brought about by the imprint from the adults that we grew up around.
The entire childhood trauma and the challenging lifestyle choices we make greatly affects our self-esteem. So what we normally do is to start to do something to soothe ourselves which affects your spending habits. It’s that “dopamine hit” we get with the mindset of rewarding ourselves and feeling good about it without being rational and cautious with our actions. As a result, money management is misaligned and the only option for us to sustain that feeling is to borrow money to get by. This is our way of taking all the financial pressure off our shoulders. The last thing we know, we’re already drowning in a massive amount of debt.
Listen to the PART 1 here
If you want to reach out to Elaine, here are her social media accounts:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elaine.wilkins.395
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elainewilkins21/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elainewilkins/overlay/contact-info/
You can also visit her website for more information:
The Chrysalis effect : https://thechrysaliseffect.co.uk/
