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In this episode, I talk about how resilience is critical for a life of happiness and fulfillment; how It is not about surviving but about thriving. It has a lot to do with our perception at the core and it is a habit, a muscle to be worked and built. Struggle, stress, frustration, fear and failure are not BAD. Join me as I talk about the profound shifts I’m making in my perception so that I can live my imperfect life more joyfully and fully. Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello Everyone,
I hope your week has gone well around here for the most part. We are in the swing of things and I am incredibly happy with my ability to stay focused this week and to try to meet my needs so that I am filled up for my family. I have had points of struggle, particularly today, but I’ve been more aware of it and it’s been incredibly empowering. I share this because if you’re listening and feeling like this sometimes feels like an uphill battle, I want you to know that I get it and am right there with you. It can be hard but we are in this together and the work you are doing is laying foundations that will continue to be built upon little by little. There is progress even if they’re sometimes hard to see and even when there are setbacks, so don’t give up.
This week I want to talk about fostering a little thing called resilience… okay, it’s not at all a little thing. In fact, in order to live a life that has any sort of meaning and fulfillment, resilience is necessary and as perfectionists, we often tend to have quite a resilience deficiency at least on the thought level and in our internal world. You see, they are competing qualities… perfectionism and resilience… they’re at odds with each other.
The need for resilience in our lives is so strong. I have experienced this time and time again in many situations. I know for me it has been such a struggle in marriage. When you’re in the honeymoon phase, you are both on your best behavior, constantly thinking of the other person and not highly offendable. We were definitely like that. I saw my man with rose colored glasses and presented the best version of myself, which often was just what I thought he wanted and the best I thought I could be. Then, as real life began to happen, I would either get irritated by my husband or he would get irritated with me and that image that I had of us having this perfect relationship up there on my carefully erected pedestal along with the belief that I could or should Keep it all perfect was destroyed and the pedestal burnt to the ground… I started to internally panic because the idea that I couldn’t control it all just felt so incredibly scary. What if I lost him? Was he not who I thought he was? Was he finding out I wasn’t perfect and falling out of love with me? My previous relationship and patterns of relating weren’t exactly helpful in laying a foundation of coping patterns for me, and wow was this hard. Resilience in marriage is so incredibly important. I was not used to the idea of having an argument and then coming back and being okay and healing from that argument. Arguments with my ex literally felt like they destroyed me every time… so with this new relationship, I would emotionally react similarly by detaching and locking up in fear and then just reacting by putting up walls… then I would sort of panic and try to fix everything. It was a disaster sometimes and sometimes it sort-of “worked” but it was never really super healthy because my internal world was a mess. I reacted very co-dependently, needing to finish the night with his approval one way or another or feeling alarm if we didn’t resolve the disagreement with him loving me from my skewed definition. The idea that he would be mad at me felt like it was too much, like I was drowning and I just felt so much fear and shame and resentment at the same time that I was consumed. I was so afraid of abandonment. I was hiding in imposter syndrome and lack of self-acceptance which resulted in a very unhealthy type of dependence on this relationship… again also known as, co-dependency.
Oh, and as our honeymoon phase was ending, we had our first son. Everyone who has kids knows how much easier kids make marriage, right? … hahaha SIKE!!! Kids make marriage 20 times harder in my opinion… especially for perfectionists… especially for two individual people who don’t realize how it would change them and how it would essentially break them in many ways, as they are transformed. Project much holly… haha.. anyway, Wow… talk about a perfectionist nightmare. Perfectionists want to control it all and to present to the world that they are perfect. Granted we want to actually be perfect, but that’s impossible so we are stuck in all of the emotional baggage that goes along with that… and Kids are not all-controllable. Spoiler alert.
Pregnancy timing is not always perfect; they aren’t born in convenient times or hours, often not how you want and holy wow it hurts. If you’re one of those mamas who had a blissfully pain free birth without drugs, then freaking awesome. I did go natural, but in no way was it easy. My boys both had their fists next to their massive Kasper heads and from the start it was one challenge after another. Resilience did not come easy to me and never has… now that doesn’t mean that I haven’t survived, and I haven’t overcome. Of course I have. But surviving and thriving are the key differences from living with resilience and living with perfectionism. I was NOT adaptable. There was just too much. I couldn’t throw my hands up and accept all of it. I had to control all of it… label all of it… fix all of it… or I was a failure. Seriously… my internal world was a circus and a scary movie all wrapped in one incredibly complex little bundle 😊
When we are stuck in our perfectionist tendencies, we are stuck lying to ourselves, or being run by the lies that we have chosen to believe; whether we are aware we believe them or not. The thoughts we have and that we cling to as beliefs, result in the way we feel and thus how we act and what results we produce in our lives. When we are acting out of the lies that we have to do it all right or we are not worthy of love and acceptance; that we have to control everything because otherwise all hell will break loose; then we are stuck in anxiety and overwhelm… because, well, first, we clearly can’t control everything, and second, there is just too much to try to control. It is consuming and causes us to be stuck judging the world around us and ourselves and never feeling like we measure up. We get stuck feeling like imposters and become masters of fear; we can feel crippled by our fear of failure and frustrated with circumstances as they are. It’s hard to be truly honest with ourselves because we see the honest truth of our less-than-perfect being-ness as us being “failures”, not as us being human. We don’t believe we are loved and lovable as we are when we are livin’ in perfectionism and thus, anything less than ideal is falling short.
Resilience is a muscle. It needs to be worked, or it contracts. It’s the habits that make up the actions in our lives. It’s a mentality that comes from our perception of life and circumstances and results in the fruit of our lives. So, it’s a way of thinking, and a way of looking at our feelings, and a way of responding to our feelings, our circumstances, our moments and everything in our lives.
As far as virtues go, I am working to foster resiliency in my kids as one of my number one priorities… even though sometimes I forget or lose sight. There are absolutely others, but as far as success and happiness in life… Right now, I am hyper aware lately of how important this will be for their futures.
In becoming aware of this I also realize that if I am modeling perfectionism to them constantly, this will not nurture resilience. It will model to them how to resist life. How to fight circumstances and be inflexible. How to complain and how to over tax your life and become resentful. It will model for them that anything less than the best isn’t even worth trying. When I recognized this, I felt an even deeper sense of urgency in this because it is so important to me that they not find life easy, but find it beautiful. That they don’t follow the crowd, but follow their hearts, missions, passions and create more beauty and love in the world regardless of what others are doing or what challenges they face.
Hold on because I am getting to the how’s I’m working on here.
You see, it’s all about perception. When our perceptions change, then our emotional reactions start to follow suit and then the actions we take in our lives. We start to see fruit of the mindset shifts profoundly.
When we make just a handful of shifts in our perception, the change is compoundable and incredible. Granted, like I said, it’s a muscle and our brains are used to thinking one way, so it’s perceptions that we need to remember and constantly work to proactively seek until the shift really takes place on a deeper level and becomes more second nature. Here are some of the shifts I am working on making for myself in my perception:
- Frustration happens right before a milestone and huge growth. I can’t remember when I learned this but when I remember this and actively remind myself during times of frustration, I find incredible relief and a connection with my student self… the part of me that is curious and ready to learn from life and experiences. So, when I start to feel frustration, I can try to use it as a motivator. There is something I am supposed to learn from this. Somethings gotta give. What am I clinging to? What outside of my control am I trying to change? What do I have control over? What lesson can I see here? It’s sort of an active way of rewriting our story as we go along. This helps me to push through frustration to find the victory, not give up and reinforce lies.
- Failure is a part of success. Recognizing that failure is literally a stepping stone toward success turns the traditionally negative definition we have all been groomed to believe or cling on its head. We can recognize that babies don’t walk the first time they try and birds don’t fly the first time they take a chance either. So, failure is a part of success, but if we stop trying then we don’t fail, we lose. Then we surrender the power we do have and we submit to the lies.
- Fear is a signal of where we must lean in. I have talked a lot in the past about how fear is a liar. About how we get afraid because our brains are trying to keep us safe and we believe thoughts that result in fear and keep us trapped in those thoughts that perpetuate anxiety, shame, and isolation and essentially keep us from living. The other side of this, is the fact that often times we are afraid of what we actually need to do. We are often afraid of the opportunities in our life in which our most precious blessings are wrapped. So, these seemingly opposites are simultaneously true. If we run away when we are afraid, then the lies win and we reinforce the fear. If, however, when we are afraid, we lean into the thing we are afraid of with awareness… allowing ourselves to accept the feelings and push through the discomfort while working on the thoughts creating that fear, we will find the path we are meant to be on. Because, again, usually it’s what we fear the most that has the most benefit for us and is often also meant to bless those in our lives. For example: love is risky, it’s vulnerable, and our brains can tell us all sorts of thoughts that drive fear deep… these thoughts can make us want to run for the hills when we are at the crossroads of being real and loving with our whole hearts. But when we can lean into this opportunity to be real and to love deeply, we both disarm the lies that interpret that vulnerability and risk as unsafe, and whether it ends up perfect or not, we get to experience the beauty and the growth that our life is meant to bear from whatever experience is before us.
- Shifting away from judgement and towards curiosity. We all judge. It’s in our nature and it’s a habit. We are making sense of the world. But it’s not quite ideal always. There is a difference in the way a young child’s brain assesses the world and the brain of an adult. A small child’s brain is curious and in research-mode. It is incredibly excited and is learn from everything, taking things in with fresh eyes and assessing them with much less judgement. An adult is judging, evaluating, and comparing. We are constantly doing this and don’t realize we are doing it often. It feels crappy, because we are not just judging, evaluating and comparing others, we are doing this to ourselves. When we can recognize when we are judging, and feeling shame for doing so… we can try to become aware and instead of hiding from these habits and the shame we can take it as a cue that we are not only judging whomever about this whatever, but we are judging and comparing ourselves. When we give total grace and acceptance to ourselves, we find it hard to judge and evaluate others. We will never be perfect at this but realizing this can be huge because it relieves us of the shame and helps us to see with clear eyes an area that we have not yet accepted ourselves. An area that we need to work to forgive ourselves and rewrite a story. There is a lesson we are meant to learn from this and we can learn from wherever we are judging and shaming ourselves and others; and then none of it is wasted and the judgement and all that goes along with it sort of easily melts away. Now again, we will never be perfect at this. It’s a constant work in progress, so knowing this and just working on it when you become aware is the name of the game. I am doing my best in this and constantly finding areas I need to work on, so just freaking try it but with loads of grace.
Each of these areas of perception I will go into more detail about in up and coming episodes, but for now, just chewing on these ideas will be helpful. You see, when we realize these shifts, we find the inspiration for the courage we need to become resilient people. Remember, it’s a muscle. And courage comes from exercising that resilience muscle… from pushing forward even when you are afraid, even when you have felt failure, even when you are frustrated and even when you’re wrestling with judgement and comparison. It is brave to step out and be real even when you’re not perfect. To show the world your voice even while you are growing and be the blessing you’re meant to be for yourself and for others. We can only truly help others to embrace who they are when we give them an example of what that looks like. When we show them reality and say it’s enough? This message is contagious and powerful. Resilience is the marker of a life lived fully. I don’t want to waste my life, and trying to do it perfectly is a total waste. A toddler looks like a drunk fool trying to walk for the first couple of months, and then their bones strengthen and straighten, their muscles get stronger, their balance becomes in sync with their rhythm and before they know it, they’re running and climbing and on to the next great thing. So, let yourself be that toddler. Fall down and get back up again, knowing we are all doing it even if most people try to hide it. It’s the ones that take more falls, who push through no matter who is watching who find their pace and their rhythm aligned… who find their muscles strengthening and their body aligning and who get to move on to the next great thing. I’m willing to be a curious toddler with you. Cry it out when you need to. Realize that your shifts in perception don’t mean you were bad before; they mean you were not accepting yourself fully and were busy growing. Don’t look back. Look at your feet. Laugh, smile, cry and walk baby… walk! I love you my friends and hope you have an incredible week and know you’re not alone even one tiny bit.
Sincerely,
Holly Ann Kasper
The Radical Imperfectionist