To Me Real Estate Is Scary
And most of my life I have been able to avoid dealing directly with real estate until a couple of years ago when my partner and I bought a house. (No, that’s not our house in the picture above.)
I remember being stressed by the purchase of our house at the time, but I didn’t do The Work on it. So, no surprise, my stress showed up again this month as we are now considering selling our house.
This time my partner facilitated me. We were driving in the car last weekend and I was talking about how real estate is stressful for me. He stopped me by asking, “Is it true?”
I Hesitated Before Diving Into Inquiry
But I couldn’t resist the invitation. I wasn’t even sure that this was the “right” stressful thought to question. But I went ahead anyway. Yes, it was true. Yes, it was absolutely true that real estate was stressful for me.
How do I react? I feel tension in my stomach and chest. I avoid it. I show no enthusiasm when my partner shows me real estate listings. I see an image of BIG money. I see loss—big loss. I compare the amount of money involved in real estate with the amount of money I make each month. I think, “I have to be VERY careful.” I get tense. I see images of foreclosures. I see myself humiliated. I want to pare down to a shack if necessary to avoid any risk.
My partner asked, “When did you first have the thought that real estate is scary?” I thought about it, and found that it was when my parents divorced and it took a year to sell the house.
Then I Realized Something Interesting
I’m actually not just scared of real estate, I’m scared of having a home. I felt like my home was destroyed when I was 16 when my parents divorced. Not just the physical house, but the sense of home. And since that time I’ve chosen over and over again not to have any kind of real home.
My mom used to ask me, “Why do you live like an orphan?” It’s as if I wanted to avoid a home so that I could avoid having it taken away again.
But Without the Thought that Real Estate Is Scary…
I would be exploring real estate options with my partner in a very non-stressed way. It would not be a big deal. I would simply be problem solving with him, like I do in any other area of life. But without the charge. In fact, it would be enjoyable.
It Turns Out Real Estate Is Not Really Scary
What was scary was my thinking about it. My fear of loss. And my emotional connection of it with divorce.
But when I looked at real estate directly, I saw that even in the worst case scenario, if we lost money on the house, it would not be the end of the world. How many times did we “lose” money by paying rent all those years? What’s the difference?
And even if we lost everything, does that take away our ability to earn more money? No, of course not. Both my partner and I have lost money in the past, and have earned more money again.
That’s just how money works: it comes, it goes, it comes again, it goes again. What is there to fear in that?
This Eased My Mind
Now, I’m less concerned about making a profit. I’m less concerned about doing it perfectly. And I’m relaxed in a way about real estate that I never was before. I thought real estate was bigger than me. But now I see that I’m bigger than it.
The cool thing is my partner loves real estate, so now I’m more open to join him in his enthusiasm.
And I look forward to doing more work on that divorce stuff too.
Have a great week,
Todd
“People who live through it will tell you that their experience of loss was kinder than their beliefs about how it would be. Inquiry allows you to take the fear out of loss before anything happens…” Byron Katie, I Need Your Love, Is That True?
