134: Debt, Shame and the Stories We Don't Tell

What if dissolving shame is the missing step between you and real financial momentum?

In this solo episode of Plenty, Kate unpacks the tight grip of debt shame and financial secrecy—and why hiding from the numbers stalls your progress far more than the numbers themselves. She reframes debt as “invoices for blessings already received” and makes the critical distinction between high-interest consumer debt and debt that makes you money (the positive “spread” when your return outpaces your interest). You’ll also hear why all-or-nothing thinking is a nervous-system red flag, and how telling someone safe is often the first step to clarity and action.

We cover: releasing shame by bringing things into the light, building capacity to “do the math,” and seeing nuanced opportunities—so you can either dissolve unhelpful debt or strategically leverage it for wealth.

Listen now to discover:
 ✨ Why shame halts financial progress—and how sharing it sets you free
 ✨ “Invoices for blessings already received” as a practical reframe for debt
 ✨ The difference between consumer debt and return-producing leverage (the spread)
 ✨ How dysregulation fuels avoidant money habits—and what to do instead
 ✨ A simple truth-telling step: tell someone safe and start looking at the numbers

“I call debt invoices for blessings already received.” — Kate Northrup

🎤 Let’s Dive into the Good Stuff on Plenty 🎤

00:00 Why debt shame keeps you stuck; welcoming honesty and light
00:27 Show intro: money, time, energy, and a life of plenty
01:27 Debt, secrecy, and why shame halts financial progress
02:22 Tell the truth (to someone safe); vulnerability has to be earned
03:12 Debt ≠ bad: using credit as a wealth-building tool when appropriate
04:09 Credit, solvency, and why “no credit” can limit leverage
06:03 “Invoices for blessings already received” (student loans, credit cards, mortgages)
06:40 Beware false binaries; nuance requires a regulated nervous system
07:12 The spread: borrowing at 4% to earn 100%—a positive use of debt
09:32 High-interest consumer debt vs. productive debt (don’t pay 20% APR)
11:05 Normalizing the month-to-month “float” in real businesses
13:48 From credit-card debt to 8-figure growth: dissolving shame to act
15:11 When fear blocks math: build capacity, then choose the smart move
16:22 Two actions: tell someone safe; start doing something about it
17:19 Seeing you may have been smarter than you thought (the numbers help)
18:19 Learn the lesson, integrate it, and change the pattern
19:36 Any past decision can become wealth once shame’s story is dropped

Links and Resources:

Brené Brown
Relaxed Money

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Inside, you’ll learn how to:
 💡 Break the “money in, money out” cycle and create lasting stability
 🎯 Relax into a new relationship with money—where structure meets flow
 ✨ Use the 5-Minute Calm Cashflow Ritual to bring instant clarity to your finances

More money won’t solve money stress—a resourced, supple nervous system will. Ready to shift? 👉 Get The Money Reset now! 👈

Episode Transcript

Kate Northrup (00:00):
You may find that actually there's no reason to

(00:03):
even have any shame. Maybe youactually made a really smart
investment in some way, andthere actually was a situation
where you were getting a spread,and you were making money on
that money, making more money onthat money than you were paying.
Right? So maybe you wereactually being really smart, but
because you're so conditioned tohave shame about debt, you
couldn't even see that. Welcometo Plenty.

(00:27):
I'm your host Kate Northrup andtogether we are going on a
journey to help you have anincredible relationship with
money, time, and energy, and tohave abundance on every possible
level. Every week, we're gonnadive in with experts and
insights to help you unlock alife of plenty. Let's go fill

(00:51):
our cups. If you were to sit ina room full of a 100 successful
women, I guarantee you a higherpercentage than you think would
be sitting there with a degreeof secretive debt shame. We
assume that because people looka certain way, or their careers

(01:13):
are a certain way, or they havesome sort of external trappings
of success, that they don't haveany money shame, that they don't
have any debt, that they'venever made a financial mistake.
And so today I wanted to talkabout debt, shame, and secrecy,
and the stories we don't tell,and how important it is to tell

(01:35):
these stories because shame willabsolutely halt your financial
progress, honestly, completelyunnecessarily. When we're
carrying around shame, we'reoften also telling ourselves
financial lies or operating withsome level of financial secrecy

(01:58):
that's just completelyunnecessary. Brene Brown is a
shame researcher who you mayvery well know her work, and she
says that shame cannot exist inthe light. And as soon as we
share our shame, we are setfree. Now one of my favorite, I
think it's a Gloria Steinemquote, she says the truth will

(02:20):
set you free, but first it'llpiss you off.
So it may be that you actuallyhave some level of financial
secrecy that you're keeping fromyourself. You may have financial
secrecy within your family,within your marriage. And let
today be my rallying cry tostart telling the truth. Not to
everyone. I don't think you needto like post your numbers on the

(02:41):
Internet for your entirecommunity, or you know, for all
your friends and family.
That is not what I'm talkingabout. People have to earn the
right to our truth. People haveto earn the right to receive our
vulnerability. But when it comesto financial shame, one of the
most powerful steps you can takeis to tell someone safe. Now I

(03:04):
would like to be super clearthat having debt is not
inherently something you need tofeel ashamed about.
Every major company for the mostpart, and certainly the United
States government has tons ofdebt, and actually, there are
really positive ways to use debtto grow your wealth. And so if

(03:26):
you are carrying around shamejust because you have debt,
please let today be aninvitation to dissolve it. Like,
you don't need to carry aroundthe shame. And if you do have
debt that needs to be paid back,if it's a high interest consumer
debt, and I'll get into a littlebit about the different kinds of

(03:48):
debt and which one you need totake steps on to get rid of, and
which one you can actually useto grow your wealth. Regardless
of the kind of debt you have,having shame around it will
prevent you from doing what youneed to do to either dissolve
your debt or to use it to createwealth.

(04:09):
So many people who honestlydon't have proper financial
education think that debt isjust bad. Like blanket across
the board, debt is bad. I havefriends who are wildly
successful in business, and areso proud that they've never even
had a credit card, which islovely. It's lovely to be

(04:32):
financially solvent, but thatmeans in The United States, you
don't have any credit. And thenthat means, you know, you can't
use your credit to be able touse leverage to your wealth and
make investments in in your owncompany, in assets that would
bring you more money.
So all of that to say, you don'tneed to feel bad about your

(04:53):
debt. And if you're new here,you may not have heard me before
say that I call debt invoicesfor blessings already received.
So there are many countrieswhere you can't buy anything
unless you have the cash in yourbank account or the cash in
hand. In The United States, ifyou're not United States based,

(05:15):
we have a really strong crediteconomy. I think there's some
problems with that.
It leads to lifestyle inflation,it leads to our eyes being wider
than our bank accounts, it leadsto a lot of problems in The
United States, you know, multi Idon't know how much the national
debt is, but it's really high.So I'm not saying we're doing it

(05:37):
right, but it is important tounderstand that actually having
credit and being able to receivesomething before you have the
cash to pay for it is aprivilege. That people, many
people do not have thatprivilege in other countries,
and certainly not everybody inThe United States does depending
on their credit score. So justknow this. Debt is neither good

(06:02):
or bad.
It's just that you have receiveda blessing ahead of time, and
now you have an outstandinginvoice for it. So maybe you
have student loans, and youreceived your education ahead of
time, and now you're stillpaying for it. Maybe you bought
a pair of shoes on a creditcard, and you received the shoes
ahead of time, and now you'repaying for it. Maybe you were

(06:24):
able to live in your whole houseahead of time when you didn't
have the cash to pay for yourwhole house, but because you
have a mortgage, you're able topay for that over time. It's an
invoice for a blessing that youhave already received.
So that reframe may be enoughfor somebody to dissolve their
shame and heaviness around theirdebt to begin with. Now there

(06:48):
are two different kinds of debt,Some people will call them good
debt or bad debt. I think it's alittle bit more nuanced than
that. I think we need to bemindful of false binaries where
everything is good or bad.Honestly, our nervous systems
are wired such that when we getinto all or nothing thinking,
right or wrong thinking, good orbad, black and white, that and
when we lose track of any senseof nuance, we are in a trauma

(07:11):
response.
So a dysregulated nervous systemgoes into good, bad, right,
wrong, black or white, all ornothing. And anytime you're in
there, just know you'redysregulated, and it is time to
do something, use a nervoussystem healing tool to signal
safety to your body so you cansee more possibilities of

(07:32):
nuance. And when you can seemore possibilities of nuance,
that is where you can begin tosee the world through the eyes
of opportunity. What people whounderstand how to use debt to
make money understand becausethey can see the world through
the eyes of opportunity, they'vehad the proper education, and
they also are able to feel safeenough to look at the world this

(07:56):
way. When you can receive moneyat an interest rate that is less
than what you can make with thatmoney by investing it elsewhere,
you have something called aspread.
And that spread means that is apositive financial decision. So
here's an example. If I take outa loan at a 4% interest rate, so

(08:21):
let's say I have a business lineof credit, and my business line
of credit has a 4% interestrate, So I take out $100,000 on
my line of credit, and then ithas a 4% interest rate, so over
time I'm going to owe $4,000 onthat money, because that's 4% of
$100,000 But if I can take that$100,000 and then invest it

(08:44):
elsewhere, whether it's in apiece of property, a stock index
fund, something in my business,like if I know that in my
business if I spend $100,000 onFacebook ads and I'm gonna make
$200,000, that's a 100% returnon my money. Would it make sense
to take out a line of credit andpay $4,000 extra, 4% interest,

(09:08):
to then go and make a 100% on mymoney? Right?
Does it make sense to pay $4,000in interest to be able to turn
that $100,000 into $200,000?Yes. It does, my friend. And
that is called the spread. Sopeople who think and see the
world through the eyes of wealthand resources and opportunity

(09:31):
think in that way.
So that would be a positive useof debt. That's debt that makes
you money. Versus I go to theDesign District in Miami, and I
have a shopping spree at Gucciand Louboutin and Dior and
wherever else, and I spend$50,000 in clothes, shoes, and

(09:52):
jewelry that I don't have in thebank, that is on now a credit
card, and maybe that credit cardis charging me a 20% annual
percentage rate, and so everysingle month I'm paying 20% on
those purchases really reallyfast, that $50,000 is gonna grow

(10:14):
into, I I can't do the mathright now the top of my head,
but it, that interest ratecompounds real fast. And I don't
want to be paying 20%compounding interest, I only
want to be receiving 20%compounding interest. So that's
the difference between highinterest consumer debt versus

(10:35):
debt that makes you money.
I would never feel ashamed abouttaking out a business line of
credit for 4% interest and thendoubling that money by investing
it in Facebook ads in a funnelthat I know is going to get me a
100% return. Right? Like, I'llbuild that funnel all day. I
will take all the cash I can getfrom anywhere and put it in

(10:58):
there. I'm not gonna feel shameabout that because I am being
smart with my money.
So the only way we can start toshare these stories and learn
from one another is if we removethe film on the lens, which is
debt shame, and start talkingabout it. I'll never forget, I

(11:23):
was sitting with a friend who Iwas an affiliate of. This is
many, many years ago. She washad a much bigger business than
I did. I was like a babybusiness owner at the time.
And I was sitting next to her,we were at a conference, and she
I got a notification from herthat I had just been paid by her
on PayPal for promoting heraffiliate thing, and I was like,

(11:43):
oh, that's fun, I just you justsent me money, which you know,
she hadn't done manually, but itwas in her business, and she
looked at me and she goes,that's on a credit card right
now. I was like, what? And shewas going through a change in
her marital situation, andthings were all up in the air
and whatever. And it was such asobering moment for me, and it

(12:04):
was so helpful. Number one, shedid not have financial shame in
that moment that would preventher.
She was just reporting in on themath. And the math at that
moment was that her companydidn't have the money to pay her
affiliates cash right then. Shewas reorganizing things behind
the scene, and she just told me.And right then, I felt so much

(12:31):
possibility and power becauseshe was dissolving these false
hierarchies of, you know, shameand secrecy, and this is the way
it should be, and whatever. Andshe was just saying the truth,
which is that sometimes inbusiness, you have a what's
called a quote unquote float,where from month to month, in

(12:52):
order to pay payroll or whateverexpenses, sometimes you gotta
just float it.
And the float, right, from oneshore to the other floor,
sometimes that float requiresthe help of MasterCard or
American Express or a line ofcredit or whatever. Now of
course do I teach Inside RelaxedMoney and our Relaxed Business

(13:14):
financial system how to build upyour cash reserves in your
business and when to do so andwhat percentage and you know,
how to know how much and allthat stuff? Of course I do so
that you have the cash to floatyou ideally. But the truth is
most of us in business have hadmoments where we have not had
the cash and we've needed to usethe float from, you know, and

(13:38):
that float is made out of debt.That float is made out of like,
rather than just torch mybusiness because I can't pay my
expenses in full this month, I'mjust gonna float it.
And that's what credit is for,honestly. And I don't want us to
be going around using that allthe time by any means because
we're paying interest forsomething that we wouldn't need
to, but I also want to normalizethat sometimes that's just the

(14:03):
way it is. I also have a friendwho, you know, talked publicly
about the fact that in 2020, shehad credit card debt. Right? So
she had credit card debt in2020.
Now she's making over$10,000,000 a year buying luxury
real estate, you know, investingin a hotel, like creating an

(14:24):
absolute unbelievable empirevery quickly. And relatively
recently, right, like within thelast four and a half years, she
had credit card debt. I know alot of people who make tons of
money, and because they'redysregulated, and because they
have fear, unconscious fearpatterns operating behind the

(14:47):
scenes with their money, andrunning their unconscious and
subconscious, they'll have moneyon a credit card that is a high
interest, and they just won'tpay it off because they're
afraid, what if I use the cash Ihave to pay off the credit card,
and then I don't have the cash?So they're using their credit
card as their emergency fund inthis sort of bizarre, twisted

(15:08):
way. So if you're doing that,stop doing that.
That makes no makes no sense.One of the things that happens,
though, is when we aredysregulated, we do not have the
mental capacity to actually justdo the math and figure out, does
it make sense to keep this moneyon a credit card and pay the

(15:30):
interest rate, or does it makesense to pay it off with this
other money? Right? A lot of thetimes when someone asks me a
question in Relaxed Money aboutwhere do I put this money? Do I
pay off this invoice for ablessing already received?
Do I pay off this line ofcredit? Do I did a Honestly,
it's usually a math question,but because we have so much fear

(15:54):
and shame and secrecy because wethink we screwed up, we weren't
the good girl, right? We screwedup, I got in debt, whatever, we
don't actually have the capacityto do the math, because our
mental bandwidth and ourenergetic bandwidth is so taken
up by telling secrets and byfeeling shame. So there's two

(16:17):
things I'm talking about heretoday. One of them is telling
someone safe.
Right? Find a business bestie.Find a group of people that are
telling the truth about what ittook to get where they are. We
do that inside Relax Money. Wedo that in my spaces because
having a safe space that isshame free, that's really here

(16:40):
to figure out where are we now,and where do we want to go, as
opposed to where are we now, nowlet's throw a shame and judgment
party around it.
Like that doesn't help at all.And it does make sense that we
have these patterns, but itdoesn't mean these patterns are
doing us any favors, and we canabsolutely heal them now so that

(17:01):
we can move forward moreeffectively, more efficiently,
with more ease, and with morejoy. So tell someone safe. If
you have debt shame, tellsomeone safe. Start to do
something about it, and you mayfind that actually there's no
reason to even have any shame.
Maybe you actually made a reallysmart investment in some way,

(17:22):
and there actually was situationwhere you were getting a spread,
and you were making money onthat money, making more money on
that money than you were paying,right? So maybe you were
actually being really smart, butbecause you're so conditioned to
have shame about debt, youcouldn't even see that. That
happens a lot in inside ourprograms. People say, oh, wow. I

(17:42):
was so avoidant, and I had somuch money shame that I never
even looked at the numbers.
And now that I'm looking at thenumbers, there's actually it's
like way better than I thought.And I've spent so many years
feeling bad about my financialsituation, and actually it's
much better news than I evercould have imagined. Like, I
want you to have thatexperience, but you never will

(18:04):
unless you dissolve the shameenough to take a look at what's
really going on. And no matterwhat's going on, trust that
someone you admire has beenthere before. She has made some
of those same financialdecisions.
I'm not even going to sayfinancial mistakes, because we
learn from absolutelyeverything. And so they're all

(18:26):
learning opportunities. Icertainly made some decisions
financially that if I could goback in time, I wouldn't make
those same decisions now.However, the thing is, if we
don't actually take a look, wecan never integrate the lesson.
And so we'll keep making thesame decision over and over

(18:47):
again without having integratedthe lesson if we don't look to
begin with.
And then the other thing is wetalked about the difference
between high interest consumerdebt and debt that actually
makes you money. And you canonly begin to see the world that
way and see those opportunitiesand do the math when you invest
in the healing work to dissolvethe money shame or the debt

(19:09):
shame so that you can even havethe mental capacity to be
logical and make those smartmoney choices. If you have debt
shame, I hope this has releasedsome of that weight. If you know
someone who is struggling,please send this to them. We
don't need anybody walkingaround the world feeling

(19:31):
emotional shame and weightaround their past financial
decisions.
Any past financial decisions canbe turned into wealth, but we
cannot do that if we keeptelling the story that there is
something wrong with us, andthat is the story that shame
tells. So start telling thetruth to yourself to save

(19:51):
people, start seeing the worldthrough the eyes of opportunity,
and we can all dissolve our debtshame together. See you next
time. What if managing moneyfelt effortless? You've worked
so hard to earn money, so whydoes it feel stressful?
Well, I wanna introduce you tosomething brand new that I've
created called the money resetbecause abundance starts in your

(20:15):
body, not in your bank account.This free audio experience will
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money in money out cycle andcreate a foundation for true
wealth, and relax into a newrelationship with money. Plus,
it comes with the five minutecalm cash flow ritual, so you

(20:41):
can have financial clarity andmagnetism anytime you want. All
you need to do to get the freemoney reset is go to
katenorthrop.com/reset.