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In this episode I’ll talk about the idea of feeling lost; of not having to know it all, and the endless pursuit of knowledge. I talk about how important it is to respect the ideas we have before us and accept that which is outside of our control. I hope you enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT:
Today, I want to talk about the struggle in this life to know. Where I am at in my life and with my passions, I am constantly looking for ideas that make sense to me. I want to nourish my mind with ideas. I want ideas that help me to find freedom and I want to help to spread those very ideas to help other people find their freedom as well. I compare this very much, as the Homeschool Philosopher Charlotte Mason did, with feeding and nourishing your body. Just as we want to feed our body good whole foods that provide what we physically need, that which we feed our mind is of the utmost importance. Our minds do not thrive on just the provision of rules and adherence to them; the very nature of the mind is to dissect ideas, making connections and revelations based on what it is fed. We are constantly thinking.
I love food… But one of my deepest fascinations is with the concept of thought food. But, because of this, I can be a thought food junkie as well, in that I love to consume new ideas. I find so much pleasure in hearing new ideas and pondering them that I can just find myself constantly seeking new ideas as my next fix, not really allowing each individual idea to sit and resonate; to take root and produce fruit in my life.
I love to dissect an idea and make connections. This is our very nature. But this also requires time and patience. When we are moving constantly from idea to idea, we can overload our brains with ideas providing no down time to process and assimilate what our brains desperately want to connect with.
I love listening to a particular Rob Bell on his podcast and audio books. In one of his podcast episodes he was talking about the idea about how he often feels lost. About how it used to be really difficult for him to battle with these feelings sometimes because he used to be a pastor and thus made his living teaching people. He had the idea that he had to and people expected him to have all of the answers. He felt like he had to know the answers and when he didn’t, he would feel incredibly lost, but he said he often feels lost and that something he’s learned is the freedom in accepting that lost feeling. He said that recently he was talking to a friend who has seen him speak and that she said (and I’m paraphrasing) that she doesn’t go to see his talks because he has all the answers but rather because she loves to watch him explore in public. This was profound for me to hear because I realized how true that often is for me with the people I choose to spend my time listening to on audio. Now, there are times when we want experts. And there is nothing wrong with being an expert on a topic, not at all. But that doesn’t diminish the value of the novice chewing publicly on ideas or sharing what they’re learning which they find deeply profound. So much of what I’m learning and I’m sharing, or most of it, is not my ideas to begin with. They were thoughts and ideas that were presented to me or that blossomed from connecting ideas that I came across. They were ideas that formed as I contemplated questions presented to me in my life or through hearing the stories of others.
One problem that I have is that I so very much want to help people that I can find myself somewhat mentally trapped or drained by the idea that I need to know everything about a subject that I’m talking about. That I need to be an expert or I’m a fraud. And even though my intention is to be real and learn alongside of all of you, I can find myself struggling with imposter syndrome (as I spoke about on the last episode) and a lot of “should’s”. When I find myself in those spaces, it becomes incredibly difficult for me to make any progress, because I feel like I have to perfect my journey first. This is an overwhelming thought that handicaps me from progress. How ironic is it that with a name like The Radical Imperfectionist, I want to perfect my journey before I share. Although, I realize that it’s also my very propensity toward perfectionism that makes this an appropriate name for my podcast and an area that I have such profound passion. I desire so deeply to accept my tendency towards perfectionism as one of my struggles, not to be judged and used to shame myself, and to work toward growth in an open and vulnerable way that helps you to know that we really are doing this together.
There have been many times in my life where I admired someone, but didn’t feel the ability to measure up to them because I didn’t see their weaknesses.
SO much of what I hope to say here in this episode/essay and through all of the avenues I am sharing just has to do with showing you my dirty laundry essentially, so that you can sit with your own without shame and hopefully find some of your own clarity as you make your own connections.
A friend of mine just shared something from a sermon she heard last week. The pastor said “Don’t keep learning new stuff. Focus on what you do know until you feel and live that way. Knowing a bunch of stuff isn’t as helpful if you don’t live it.” Wow… That’s powerful stuff. The mantra on her notes said, “I know a truth. I feel a truth. I LIVE that truth.”
I remember years ago when I was talking to my sister one day randomly and telling her about a book I was reading and she told me she was taking a break with books. Now, she is like me with books and devours them constantly. For her to be taking a break intrigued me a lot because we are similar in other ways too and I wanted to understand why she would do this to herself. What she said hit home just as what the pastor had said in the last statements. She said that she realized that she needed to focus on the information she already had. On assimilating what she had already learned and was learning and giving herself a break so that she could try to break free from perfectionist tendencies. I thought it was incredibly brilliant. I too tried for a little while and the break was incredibly helpful, although short lived. Then a couple of years later I tried again regarding parenting and homeschooling, and this was only last year. I found myself constantly feeling overwhelmed by the weight of constantly pursuing the perfect way to do it all, while I was not implementing much of it at all. You see, while in pursuit, it’s hard to focus on change. When we are pursuing answers, we are struggling to make changes because we feel like we don’t yet know. We are so focused on finding an answer and it draws us away from the actions that will make change in our lives.
Not only do we need to realize that it’s okay not to know it all, we need to stop seeking more food constantly and eat the delicious nourishing food before us before it goes bad. How many times have you gone shopping for good foods and then gone out to dinner, or something came up and the good healthy foods you already had in the fridge were not eaten in time and went bad.
I’m talking about when we have ideas that come our way, thoughts that we know are what we need right now for our emotional body, but instead of sitting with them and really digesting them, we are on to the next idea, seeking more. Clearly from what I’ve said already, this manifests in my life often. I love thoughts. I love good thoughts. I love them so much that I can often fail to allow one to make a great difference in my life as just as my brain is mid-aha-moment I have shifted and am already in pursuit of the next new idea. Before I realize it, I have forgotten all about what could have really changed my life for the better and in that sense it goes bad.
There have been so many great ideas that have come across my path. Ideas that I have essentially disrespected in this manner. Ideas that then cross my path yet again much farther down the road, and I realize that this was something I had already been at one point connected to, but hadn’t allowed it to truly take root. This is not about regret and again not about being perfect, of course not. Because this will happen in larger numbers than we can control organically. But it’s about realizing that there are a lot of ideas right here and now in your life that are incredibly valuable. Ideas that you have already been chewing on and need to sit with and chew on some more, to digest and assimilate; so that you can find healing and incredible growth right now with no further searching.
There have been countless times where this has taken place in my life. One of these times has to do with parenting, as I said before. I remember when my kids where younger, I wanted so desperately to be respectful towards them and to nurture within them the virtues which will serve them and others in their lives forever. I learned several foundational ideas that really resonated with me surrounding parenting and yet whenever facing a challenge, instead of sitting with it; stewing over the ideas I already had that made so much sense to me on a foundational level, I found myself regularly googling and reading more and more books, about the SAME topic in search of the magic bullet. I was pursuing something that was right there. I think we most often do this with controversial things that aren’t black and white, and most of life is not black and white. Parenting is definitely one of those grey shaded pieces of the pie. When we know how we are and what we want foundationally; when we know what makes sense; it is of deep importance that we gain a relationship with ourselves and with God where we reach inward and upward for the answers and not always outward. I am not saying that there is no value in seeking information when we aren’t sure about something. Parenting is just such a game changer in life and I get that as much as anybody. But there have been so many times where I could have eased my own struggle, and found incredible peace and connection by stopping and sitting with an idea. By writing out what I am feeling and thinking about a situation and what I think and feel about moving forward in the given situation; and weighing that against the prevailing ideas of my life; the foundational truths that are taking root and giving me growth and lighting my path; INSTEAD of distracting myself in a perfectionist habit of overwhelm and thoughts of insufficiency misguiding us and drawing me away from truth and toward fear and isolation. Drawing me in this endless pursuit for the magic pill or the perfect solution.
There is so much peace in sitting with what you do know even amidst the feelings of being lost. There is so much serenity in learning to become okay with the idea that you don’t know it all and won’t and realizing that you’re not supposed to. There is freedom in the idea of realizing that the more you learn the more you’ll realize you don’t know and accepting the fact that you will constantly be peeling back layers.
The two keys here are that, 1, you realize that you don’t need to know it all to help yourself or others, and 2, you have a lot of food in your fridge already. Feast on the nourishing ideas you have before they go bad.
Sit in your feelings, and share them. It’s not in my abundant and superior knowledge that I am setting out into the world to help people. It’s in the vulnerability of sharing my journey which I believe will help people. It’s the connections I hope to make with everyone that I come into contact with. The connections I make with the people and the ideas that come to me and that are already within me.
My challenge for myself and for you this week is to stop seeking more food. This doesn’t mean you don’t feast on the ideas that present themselves to you organically in your life and this doesn’t mean seeking more thought food is bad. But, maybe just for this week, stop looking for the perfect next book, for the perfect next blog or podcast, for the perfect next philosophy of parenting or minimalism or whatever. For this week, stop searching for the perfect answer to something that you hope to find on Google but know you’ll just get trapped in the vacuum that is the internet. Start to write out the things you would normally google or look a book up for. Start writing openly and expressively without a filter just how you feel and what you think about any and all of the ideas that come to you. Realize the power of your own critical thinking. Think and write about what is going on and what you wonder and what you think. Sit with it. Sit with the unknowing and the knowing. What you do know and what you don’t and allow your brain to simply make connections with what you already have before you. With what is trying to take root in your life.
Allow the work that needs to be done to organically present itself before you and start a list. When you think of something you know and something you already find deep connection with and feel moving within you, write it down. Allow your brain the space this week to ponder and produce from what is already laid before you and whatever God allows into your life and your mind this week.
Remember the volatility of our emotions depends on our thoughts. Our thoughts need food. So, find the food within your reservoir that is nourishing, and start to recognize the lies. If you are feeling shame, fear, anger, jealousy, rage; this is a signal to you that something in your thought world is trapping you. Accept the feeling with gratitude as a spotlight to the thought… to the lie that is attempting to control you, or maybe has for a long time in some areas. I encourage you to attempt to write this way every morning, expressively about what you think.
Each evening, try writing with gratitude and presence. In the evening Write about what you were grateful for that day, maybe just a handful of things, but be specific. Then write about the moments that were profound and incredible that day. Hal Elrod talks about this on his podcast. Unless you recognize the moments which bring joy they can’t be felt on that deeper level, cherished and they can’t provide the joy they offer in abundance. Allow yourself to bring ideas from that day, with that perspective of gratitude, into your mind for the next day. How do you want it to play out and what can you see and feel deeply that you need in your thoughts in order for this to happen. If you do this before you go to bed, your mind will be ready to pour out in the morning with the ideas that have been stirring in you all night. It will take your perspective to the truth and what will fuel your next day, just before your body works to restore itself. It will meditate on this all night and can help to predict your waking mood and vibration. This is speaking life into your world and this is filling yourself up with the nourishment you both need and have at your fingertips already.
Wisdom does not have to do with how much you know. Wisdom has to do with the ability of your mind to digest knowledge and apply it thoughtfully. To apply it with connection to life in a way that aligns your integrity and your footsteps. Wisdom connects that information that is within yourself and presents it newly before you in the current moment in an open aware perspective that offers loving guidance.
I also highly encourage you to start a commonplace book if you haven’t already. If you don’t know what a commonplace book is, it’s a simple twist on a journal. It’s not a place that you write whatever; but a sacred notebook where you write profound thoughts and ideas that you come across or that come over you. You write down connections you’re making and quotes and ideas that move you deeply. Mine has a collection of quotes from both Non-Fiction and Fiction books that I’m reading. It has ideas that I myself have made connections with and it has notes from things I read and heard that I loved and want to have at my fingertips.
This is a collection of ideas that inspire truth for you. Your commonplace is where you can go to find the nourishment your thought world deeply yearns for. It is just a simple notebook, but you can use a fancy notebook if you prefer. Great thinkers throughout history have often had in their possession a form of a commonplace book and it’s a practice that is incredibly helpful. Ironically, this is one thing I do but forget about and thus it’s something I am going to proactively start utilizing regularly so that this is an idea that doesn’t stagnate again as I have said before but one that I can use regularly to nourish my life as it has the ability to.
Affirmations. Affirmations are also thoughts. But they are thoughts that you can choose to have. Often, they are thoughts that we want to be reality but that we don’t feel are. I feel that the most effective affirmations are those that focus on your identity, on your core and that then involve action. Here is an example… If you state an affirmation as “I am a thoughtful person who helps all that are around me but has boundaries knowing I can’t do it all. I lean into life when I feel natural promptings, and I also hear my own needs echoed within me and I respond. Every morning I check in with myself and ask what I need to be filled up for the day, knowing that making sure my mask is on first is not selfish but mandatory as I know that if I have no energy when I go out into the world each day then there will be no energy for my kids when they seek to draw from me as their mother or others that come into my life.” This is just an example. Yes, it is lengthy, but I try to combine several components. I try to have identity, what matters to me, mixed with action that helps me with living it out, as well as the why. All of this supports the idea that it presents and becomes a thought that my mind will draw upon. Saying “I’m an amazing mom” as an affirmation doesn’t do the same for my mind and is not a complete or effective affirmation for my own thought world. Try writing out maybe 3 affirmations that are complete thoughts. Here I will share with an example as I did above regarding motherhood and see if it helps.
- Start with something core to you and what’s important to you (as in “I am a connected loving mother”)
- With truth around that (such as “that is loved and lovable not for how well I mother, but just as a child of my creator”)
- Then add in actions that you know help you and want to be regular with within the construct of the statement ( as in “When I feel myself being drawn toward anger, I breathe deeply or take a break and name my emotion, reminding myself that none of it will be perfect, nor will I. Then I get down to eye level with my children and connect without pressure to fix anything.”).
- Lastly, add in some of the why (such as “Because I know that it is not about being right or doing it all or doing it all well, but that it is about connection and love. It’s all about Unconditional Love which I can express through connection however great or imperfect my actions may be.”)
If you write out even just one core to what you struggle with each day, and you read this every single day this week, this will help to manifest the very truth it includes within your life. Not fuel shame or the imposter syndrome some of us tend to battle. It will become something your brain will remember and can draw on.
Lastly, you can start a practice of a one-minute surrender. Like a meditation, where you sit and you recognize that you don’t have control over everything but that it is okay. When you accept where you do have control apart from what you cannot change, you find freedom. Spend one minute in a chair sitting with your eyes closed and think about the thing that is stressing you out the most. Think about what involved is outside of your control and choose to accept it. Then think about what is within your control and accept that. Then think gratitude. Gratitude that you don’t control it all. Gratitude for what you will learn during this time. And then close. You can continue to sit. Sitting in prayer and or meditation if you would like to. But just a simple one-minute practice such as this will help your thought world immensely as well.
We already have so much knowledge. And there is abundantly more coming our way. It is not bad to seek knowledge, but in sitting with what we have and what’s going on already; surrendering both our imperfection in what is in our control as well as those things we have no control over and accepting that we will sometimes feel lost… this is where immense growth meets us. This is where we find peace, confidence, trust and the freedom to continue to step out into the world with brave vulnerability to be who we really are.
The road will always have bumps but it will also always have flowers. Sunshine, the path is wide enough for both of us and it is absolutely beautiful. This is going to be an incredible week of growth and awareness for both of us. I would love to hear how this is going for you. If you want to reach out on Instagram you can follow or message me, the radical imperfectionist, or you can use #theradicalimperfectionist and I would just love to hear how you are doing in your work toward embracing yourself, growing and empowering yourself and those around you. Do not forget that you already have plentiful food in your fridge. Do not forget that you don’t have to do it all or know it all. Rest in where you are at and have a wonderful week.
Sincerely,
Holly Ann Kasper
The Radical Imperfectionist
