For years, I protected my credit score at all costs because what I really wanted to protect was my image, my reputation and my “credit”.

Not just my access to credit, but the form of credit represented by credibility. Good will. Trust.

Back in the old days, when consciousness was low, the only measure of whether a man was trustworthy was whether he remained faithful to his wife and paid his debts.

If he did, you could trust him. If he didn’t, you could be sure he would try to rip you off, first chance he got.

And women? Well they were, de facto, not to be trusted. Women didn’t have credit or credibility.

I wouldn’t have fared well back in those days. I’m both an adulterer and failed to pay my debts. Plus, I’m a woman.

An unconscious, conditioned mind screams “Scoundrel!”

Of course it does. It has been passed on for generations, hard-wired into our neurology.

And if we want to survive the coming shortage of what we hold near and dear as the planet heats up to temperatures not seen by us or our ancestors… 

It’s time to break free of the old conditioning and find new measures of trust and credibility.

Our only hope for thrival (beyond survival) in the new economy that will fully emerge when droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes become ever more regular (and good food becomes even more hard to get) will be our ability to get along, knowing how to exchange based on actual value (rather than current false measures of worth), and the personal attitude and energy we bring to the collective.

I pretty much suck at all of this right now, and yet I’m way, way better than most.

The only thing that makes me better is that I sacrificed my credit (and some would say credibility) in favor of something far more valuable.

I learned to surrender, adapt and connect.

From the seat of a million dollar business superwoman, I couldn’t learn that. What I kept learning from that position was to separate myself more, suck as much as I could out of the collective to hoard in my own private bank accounts, and trust no one.

But I knew those lessons were lies. They hurt my insides. And I couldn’t perpetuate them a minute longer, even if it meant sacrificing everything I thought was important.

What I discovered is that there is a greater form of responsibility we have now, against which we would be well served to judge a man or woman’s credit and credibility, if we want to live and thrive in the new world we are creating.

What action are you taking to create more harmony, more sharing of resources and more goodwill in the lives of your immediate community?

How are you contributing to that which we will all need as the climate shifts beyond our control?

What skills are you learning (and passing on to your kids) that will ensure we can live, work and love in harmonious community?

How are you becoming more and more enjoyable to be around? More purposeful? More generous. More aligned and infused with true integrity, far beyond the immediate moment.  How are you BEing in the world?

Today, we no longer need to rely on false measures of credit and credibility, such as “did you pay back the bank?” or “did you earn your investors back many multiples of their investments?”… when there are far more important and meaningful measures.

Money, the giving and taking, the exchanging and saving, is no longer a reliable measure of what it means to be noble and good. Tweet this! 

Rather, I invite all of us, to step into a new level of awareness here.  Money is nothing other than the meaning we give it.  It’s the current method of societal exchange; it’s fungible, but not edible, and instead begin looking to other measures for how we determine the worth of a man or woman, including ourselves.

Debt should be paid back, not because it’s the “responsible” thing to do or to preserve your credibility or credit-worthiness, when paying it back serves the world in a real and meaningful way.  If paying the debt back won’t serve the bigger picture, let it go, release it, and do the more responsible thing.

Debt, and all resources, should be leveraged, used and invested in what really matters, our personal well-being and self-reliance first, then in our community (ability to be with others, especially in stressful situations), our creativity (ability to make more than we take) and resourcefulness (ability to procure what’s necessary to accomplish one’s aims even, and especially, through non-traditional means).

Our quality of life now and our future both depend on it.