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In this episode I’m exploring how all-or-nothing thinking impacts our lives. We talk about how it holds us back from growth and in relationships. We talk about some ways I practice work in this area and I hope you find this incredibly helpful. Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT:
Within the core of perfectionist thinking we tend to think in terms of all-or-nothing; thinking in Extremes. It happens when we think we are bad when we mess up, and we make this a statement, or a verdict. We don’t see that we can mess up AND still be good; that we can do things that are bad AND things that are good. When we live with this type of thinking, we struggle to see all of the facts that are before us as we are making a lot of assumptions… we are filling in the blanks to support what we think. As I have said before, we have a belief of what is good or right or bad or wrong, and our brain is affirming these beliefs with the way it filters and assesses the information that comes in. These thoughts make it so that we are stuck, feeling the need to follow an ever-increasing and rigid set of rules and expectations; rules and expectations which we can’t meet all of the time. When we fail to meet an expectation or follow all of the rules well, we judge ourselves as failures not just seeing that; first, our expectations were unrealistic; second, that our value doesn’t lie within our ability to meet or not meet rules and expectations; and third; we are stuck, detached from growth and our power, because we are swallowed up in the shame of not feeling like we are enough.
Over the course of my life I have had my thought world dominated by this mentality, and have lately been very actively been working to dismantle it with a lot of effort. It is so much work because the habit has been in place for… well, pretty much my whole life. I thought this way about my beliefs about God and religion for so long, I thought this way about politics, and about health. I thought this way about finances and parenting. I had so many black and white notions I didn’t even realize that I had until I started to unpack my thoughts. A huge part of this for me was simple… it occurred as I merely started to realize that I thought this way… seriously, that is it. As I started to realize that I thought this way even a little bit, it was like a flashlight was lighting up so many areas of my life where this was impacting me. As I realized this, I realized how much this way of thinking was hindering me and imprisoning me. At first, I was feeling more and more like a failure repeatedly, because it felt overwhelming as my paradigms felt like they were being blown away; paradigms I clung to and built other thoughts upon. This left me then feeling tricked and lost and ashamed… and even deeply saddened and angry. I had to mourn a lot of this even as I took time to settle and adjust to the feelings of loss and awareness. I had taken on so many of these beliefs often unconsciously as a dogma… as the right way, the truth, and it was a hefty burden to carry and weigh myself against. The shift was definitely challenging but incredibly valuable.
This weekend I realized how nice it is now that I feel so much more free; free from the black and white thinking that kept me trapped for so long.
My husband and I sat at breakfast and talked about politics from several angles without any emotional upheaval. Now there was not a bunch of that between the two of us in that topic but I am just saying how nice it is as I’m growing and shifting that, with him, I am able to be open and honest and work on my thought world and boundaries in these areas without fear. Now, don’t worry, I won’t be going into politics here. The fact is that the subject of Politics is such a heated topic, and to allow the power to be stripped away from those thoughts that I once held, gives my mind the ability to be open and creative… it gives me the space I need to see that very power that I actually now often remain in control of internally and see where in the past I was often the one bringing the negative charge into these conversations (not just about politics of course, this is just an example). What I am talking about is the power that unchecked thoughts around this topic (and other charged topics) has had in my life, and in many others lives. The power to create fear and anxiety, rage and panic and so many trapping emotions. These emotions are created when we choose to accept thoughts whispered in our mind about the circumstances surrounding the political environment, or health, or parenting, or religion… or whatever the given charged topic is. We hold the power to choose the thoughts we will accept, but we are not aware that this thoughts process is even going on and thus we hand our power over to the thoughts which are lies, and the whole process and we fall prey to all of it.
As I keep working in this area, I can see from angles I never have before and leave without a knot in my stomach and panic in my heart. I can have a conversation without having it impact my relationship and my thoughts about myself as well. Again, I am not going into the politics themselves here but sharing a point here that there are so many circumstances that are beyond our control or our total and direct or immediate control, a lot of them actually, and these topics are where the most powerful and debilitating thoughts often creep in unnoticed and successfully control our lives from the inside. I give this example because I think that most people in our day and age can relate to it. And this is a topic that has so much circumstantial weight that it can cause a divide within families and can ruin, not just conversations, but sometimes entire relationships… and many heated topics can be given this power. But it’s not the topic that does the damage, it is the thoughts about the topic; the black and white thoughts, which cause the resulting emotions of fear and anger and anxiety and whatever else; emotions which result in actions out of those feelings. Any circumstances that are not completely in our control are assessed by our brain, and result in thoughts. Sometimes we are aware of them and able to actively make a decision to accept or reject them; and sometimes we are not… but when they are either or thoughts… extreme thoughts that are incredibly limiting, they can cause endless fear and struggle in our lives that doesn’t actually promote any change in those circumstances of the very topic we are so stressed out about and emotionally charged, and often angry over.
As I said before, I have gone through this in so many areas of my life… many of the big areas. Politics, religion, parenting, health, and on… But I am not ashamed of that because I was not aware of it. We have to get out of the habit of allowing growth to shame us from not having known this already. Would you get mad at a toddler for crying when they don’t know how to talk. We are doing our best, we just don’t know it all. When we learn, we choose accountability, grace, and wisdom by learning from it… not shame. I know now that I was doing my best with what I knew and was aware of. I forgive myself and am grateful for the many, many lessons that have gotten me further on my path of growth. Now that I know I have a choice of what thoughts I choose to believe and accept, I will never stop working to let go of this extreme way of thinking.
All or Nothing thinking is also called Black and White thinking or “Splitting”. It’s when we don’t recognize or believe that there is a grey area and we live in either extreme. We can’t have both sides. Something is either good or bad, right or wrong. We also do this with our self judgements… we are either doing well, or a failure. We are either a good mom, or we have ruined our kids. How many times have you experienced this? This pattern is fueled by thoughts that produce fear and perpetuated by those very thoughts.
In the past I have also had black and white thinking regarding exercise and diet, and essentially all things health. I was very hard on myself, and thus very hard in my head on the world at large because there was a right way to do it all, and we should all be doing that… or so I thought… but what was the right way. Thank goodness I now live in the grey area on this topic. I have freedom to choose, without shame and guilt. I appreciate all of the information and research available at our fingertips but don’t always feel like I have to know the right answer. I also understand that there isn’t always one right answer and that my time is more valuable than attempting to have all of the right answer. God is God for a reason, not me. I always had to do and know the best options for healthy foods and remedies and exercise as well, and I never lived up to all of it so I felt like a total imposter and lived with the deep lonely shame of that, while running on a virtual treadmill toward this unattainable ideal that kept getting farther and farther away.
We constantly see ourselves as failures when we can’t do it all right under this mentality. Whenever the rug is metaphorically pulled out from underneath us; whenever the ideology we have is compromised, questioned or fails to live up to our expectations, we are faced with new thoughts, new feelings, and new fears from all of it.
A good sign that we are living in an all-or-nothing mentality is that we use words like always, nobody, and never. Because of this, we assume our views are the whole picture and thus right, or we hope they are, and so we see anything different than our opinion as wrong, and we are often incredibly stuck in our heads and in feelings of shame and fear. We are ashamed when we are faced with facts that what we believed or thought was wrong, and live in fear that we are wrong, because of what that would mean, under this way of thinking.
We also don’t see that things can have an “AND”… we don’t see that we can be a good mom, AND sometimes act in bad ways toward our kids. The way we see it, when we mess up we are a bad mom, period.
When we live with an all or nothing OR Black and White mentality, it is common to see anxiety, eating disorders, decreased productivity, depression, stress, relationship struggles, imposter syndrome, comparison struggles, and addiction… We get angry and irritated because so many things have the potential of triggering these thoughts that keep us trapped.
We are incredibly hard on ourselves; have a hard time hearing other people’s opinions and really trying to understand them and empathize with them; we have a hard time seeing things along a spectrum and we tend to spiral in negativity or are so easily taken out of a positivity spiral from one small mistake… If something went bad, even one small thing, within our heads it can feel like all of it has come crashing down. We see ourselves as good or bad and it can tend to color the world around us depending on which lens we are looking through at the moment.
How can we work on this? Let’s talk about some of the things I’ve been doing in this area.
We can recognize that we all have strengths and weaknesses and see this as a part of the puzzle. We can work to pan out and approach situations from a broader viewpoint, seeing the story with a fuller perspective. In this, we can actively choose to become more curious so that we can gain more information, and with this approach our perspective shifts from that of judge to student.
I talk a lot about using different feelings and emotions as cues. It will take time but the repeated practice will work to retrain our minds. When we don’t practice, we will fall back into old ways of thinking. It’s not something we did wrong; we just need to try again and be consistent in our practice all the while giving ourselves and those around us grace.
When we realize that we are starting to feel drawn toward extreme thinking which feels very trapping… we can allow this to be a cue to become a student and to seek to understand. So instead of making it my goal to have everybody else understand or agree with me, I try and practice shifting my focus to being a student. I work to 1, look for the lessons and 2, appreciate what I am learning from others. God wants to teach us in every single situation, but we are not teachable when we are judging. We are only teachable when we are in the curiosity mindset; the perspective of an interested student or learner, seeking to understand the world around us.
We can also choose to see progress in each thing. From this curiosity mindset we can look at the situation we are faced with. The people or the circumstances, and we can sit with and meditate on it asking what we are to learn in it all. There will be lessons. If the situation is such that I have failed or feel like I have failed at something, practicing this each time I think I have failed will help me change the relationship I have in my brain with failure itself. It will lose its power to control me and create fear and shame. If we are seeking the lesson in each perceived failure, we will see failure in a positive light over time. This is something I am working on actively.
We can also work to take out certain words from our vocabulary regarding our self-talk as well as how we talk about ourselves to others; words such as always, never, nobody, everybody… these words are usually exaggerations as it is rare that they are accurate. In order to do this, you have to know when you’re having those thought; so when you’re feeling terrible, and volatile in emotions from an experience or situation, you can stop and write out your thoughts. Just let what is inside pour onto the page so that you can identify the thoughts. Open your phone and write yourself an email if you don’t have a journal app. Pull out a piece of paper, or your computer. Whatever is close by… so that you can see the thoughts that are there. And when you realize what negative or challenging thoughts you are having that may be all or nothing, black or white stemming from perfectionist thinking, you can see where you have the wording that is extreme and you can dissect the thought to find the truth. Not everything is in your control. You’re not supposed to be perfect.
As perfectionists, with black and white thinking, we make a lot of assumptions. Instead of knowing and taking in all of the facts, or enough to get a balanced picture, we are making assumptions that support what we already think (or what our brains think and cling to, whether we are aware or engaged in this process or not). These thoughts might be that we are failures, that we are unworthy, that the world is doomed… any number of unhelpful things. Or it may be a smaller thought that is still trapping and causes us to both judge ourselves and judge others. Even though we are often constantly comparing and judging on autopilot, when we proactively seek a learner’s perspective we actually can move away from judgement in general. We become able to accept ourselves and others and love without judgement for real. The judge will still whisper in our ears, but our consistency will create habits.
The more I work to come away from, and break down, black and white thinking in my own life, the more I have been learning about the people in my life. The more I have been able to truly start to see them as they really are and love them for being that incredibly unique imperfect person… and this starts with myself. I now see myself as enough even when I mess up. I don’t hang out with the thoughts that I am a failure as often, and I am quicker to rebound when I do. If I am thinking these thoughts of black and white and all or nothing about my life and my circumstances, I am also projecting those thoughts and judging others as well.
Instead of feeling like we have to always do things perfectly, so that when we fail to live up to that, we feel immediate shame fear and defeat, we can work to do our best BUT also understand that our best does not mean doing every single thing with A plus work. We can’t do everything with A plus work, so that’s not our best,.. that is called impossible. We can see that our best can mean that we work to balance our priorities and become okay with things not being perfect, and that our best sometimes means we are doing B work. Kara Lowentheil talks about this on her podcast, and it is powerful. IF we are constantly working to do things perfectly, we will either not act or we will never finish. We will either feel like it’s too much to even begin, or we will continue to change things, never finding perfection, and thus never completing the projects we are working on. Or when we do, doing so with shame and fear of being found out as less than. Doing things imperfectly doesn’t mean we are not doing them well. Understanding that practice is what sharpens the saw, not perfection. Perfectionism is unplugging the saw in essence.
You are enough. Again, I repeat, your best doesn’t mean you do all of the things all of the time with 100% effort. That’s perfection. You are not an imposter, you are that person you are trying to be that is amazing and sometimes buried beneath a mountain of thoughts that have been wreaking havoc for years. Peel back the layers with grace and understanding. Take time for creativity and connection. Repeat the truth when you feel yourself trapped, and don’t let yourself entertain the lies. You can acknowledge them when you recognize them, but then turn to the truth and become your own ally. Repeat the truth so that you start to remember it when you hear the lies and practice being your own mentor, reminding yourself of these things in those situations.
When I was a teenager, I remember the WWJD bracelets and the saying that came with it: “What Would Jesus Do?” Well, this is actually quite helpful, to reflect on what someone else would think or do to help get out of your own patterns of thinking. When I was only beginning this journey, I would ask myself what my sister would say to me if I were telling her that thing I was struggling with. So often I was able to figure out what she would say, if I didn’t actually call her, and the help with priceless. I have also asked myself in reflection what I think one of my mentors would say if I talked to them about my thoughts when I’m struggling… most of whom are authors and speakers, rather than actively present relationships in my life, and this also helps me tremendously. Maybe for you it is a mother, sister, friend, another mentor, God, or an author or speaker you follow. Ask yourself who seems to have the most helpful thoughts on the topic and think about them when you’re trying to battle thoughts and feel stuck. You can always try to give them a call, but in the case that this is not an option, and for a quick thought shift, you can just reflect on what you know about the way they are and how they respond and try to mimic that. I’ll be your sister in this sunshine, and we can remind each other what this is about and face the lies with bravery and truth.
I have come a long way with this concept in the area of black and white thinking as it pertains to thoughts about the world and society and issues, and so on… but I still tend to struggle with the side of this that has to do with internal stuff, such as extreme thinking of myself. I struggle with this when I mess up or when I am faced with something that still triggers me to think unhelpful thoughts about what it means about me, when I do not dismiss them right away. When I lose my patience with my kids, I still entertain the thoughts, sometimes for a while, that it means I am unworthy of love; that I am a failure as a mom, and that I have ruined my kids. But the duration is less and less, even though those thoughts are not immediately faced with the truth sometimes.
You see, I am not seeking perfection in my pursuit of embracing myself… and you need not either. I am not using this as another way to be extreme. I am working toward growth, and I can’t do that until I embrace all of me and all of it. But I will keep working on it and I am seeing incredible results… and sunshine, you will too. You are not at all alone. You are incredible and I am in the trenches with you. Think about the lies that you face the most and when they tend to come up. What areas do you tend to have the most black and white thinking? IF you’ll share these with me and any ways that you have found incredible help in this, I would really appreciate it and I can share it with others as well in order to continue empowering each other. We are meant to live in a tribe. To love and support each other and even though it will be messy and we will be imperfect, it will inspire those around us and it will give us meaning and growth we never saw before. We are on the verge of waking up to who we are and not being held back anymore. It’s worth celebrating my friend. It’s worth so very much.
I hope your week is full of tons of laughter and a lot of reflection and work to accepting that beautiful unique and wonderful self that is you. I am honored to be a part of this journey with you. Have an incredible week.
Sincerely,
Holly Ann Kasper
The Radical Imperfectionist