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In this episode of the podcast, I want to tell you that your thoughts are not “you” and that we are all experiencing the current circumstances differently. Our minds are faced with a lot of uncertainty and more than ever before, our mental health matters. You matter. And the things we were struggling with before feel even more in our faces as we are participating in social isolation and attempting to find our footing. Today I hope to encourage you and to reinforce why I’m here. I want to give you a couple of tips but also just to remind you that you are a human with a human mind and to give yourself grace. I hope this finds you well and gives you peace today and know that I am praying for you and sending my love into the world. You are not alone, even if it feels that way.
Transcript:
Hello My friends,
My it is a different time, isn’t it? How cliché it feels to talk about it for me sometimes. The interesting thing is that the circumstances that are taking place are global and yet not one of us are handling it the same. We are all handling it differently and many of us, myself included, are finding it difficult to predict how I will feel throughout a particular day because of the gymnastics my brain is participating in.
It’s so true… My brain is constantly switching it up on me. Some moments I laugh and some I cry. Sometimes I feel guilty and sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I am overwhelmed by gratitude. The way I respond to the thoughts are an array of feelings and an array of responses to those feelings. Sometimes I want to crawl into a hole and go to sleep for a few months until this is all over… sometimes I want to dance. Sometimes I want to call everyone and just shower them with love. Other times I am overwhelmed by all that it feels like I should be doing.
If you listen to my podcast regularly, you know me and you know that my whole gig is letting go of the idea that I can or should have everything all together. I am about learning to love being me; understanding that who I am is not how I act or how I feel or what I think or others think of me; who I am is inside of this body, experiencing the world with my physical body and my thoughts and emotions.
I deeply feel that my imperfect journey through my life is an incredible blessing which pours from the very nature of my imperfection. I am all about empowering ourselves, but I really don’t buy into the idea that it’s all about pushing yourself. I do believe in pushing ourselves past our comfort zones, but I believe in letting go of our value and worth coming from how we push and persist; rather that it’s our experience of the ups and downs of our own life in its beautiful unique nature that molds our hearts and minds and experiences and helps us to see past all of it to the being inside.
I don’t believe that our worth ever changes. You have never been more loved and will never be more loved; but in that you are perfectly enough in all of the hot mess that makes you YOU. I don’t need to earn love. And whether you believe in God or not is not my business; I just want to spread the love I have to you. I believe that my creator created me to love and be loved; I believe in a God that knows what he was doing and I know that if that artist wanted perfect beings then that is what we would be.
But isn’t it then in our very flaws and messy bits that we find our beauty and get to see with eyes of true unconditional love? A love that says that’s not what this was ever about or ever supposed to be about. This life is not about perfecting us. It’s about healing the pain of our hearts of EVER not believing that we are loved or lovable. About showing us that we have always been completely adored and accepted and helping us to experience life more and more fully each day as we learn that we are just the observer anyway. That the love that created us, only has the ability to create things from the nature of this perfect love that is the essence of life.
So that’s what all of this is about. As I have grown and trekked down my path, I have been learning to accept who I am; I have been learning to change my entire life experience by changing the way I treat the thoughts that run through this human brain of mine. I don’t believe it’s in my power that this was done, but I believe I am meant to help others to find their way to peace and freedom from the lies that have run their lives for so long.
I know that everyone struggles, but I also know that some of us struggle much more than others of us with the internal story that is running our feelings and actions and the way our lives unfold as a result. Some people have an easier start; some of us are less sensitive than others. Some people didn’t form such powerful thought monsters, and the trouble for those of us that don’t fall into those categories is that we judge ourselves more than the world ever will. We think the world is judging us and we live in fear and shame of that judgement. It doesn’t even matter what the world says because it’s what we believe in our head that forms our reality and we do the work of shaming ourselves so the world doesn’t actually have to.
So, this podcast isn’t for everyone, but this is for anyone that needs this powerful message. This message is for those people that get this message in their bones and feel the breath of fresh air in their lungs as they hear this idea. You are my people.
I have faced troubles to overcome them and help you with yours. I want you to be my sister on this journey and to see yourself with new eyes. I want you to be able to let go of the version of yourself that felt unworthy and was stuck in fear of being found out; in fear of losing the love and acceptance of others because you didn’t really have it for yourself; for those of you that have found yourself stuck in shame and as life has gone on.
This is for those of you that have found the skeletons in your closet aren’t fading away in the background through your experiences as you had hoped but have instead taken a more powerful form in your minds eye. Maybe the stories of your past have more of a voice in your life now than the anything that is real.
I am here to help you find who your inner hero is. I am here to help you to stop feeding the story teller in your life that tears you down and leaves you powerless and to feed the hero inside of you that is able and willing to show you the life you could and will live. This hero doesn’t expect perfection. In fact, this hero expects failure and this hero redefines failure so that it’s not bad or scary or wrong. Your hero expects you to be a human being and to continue to be a human being, but it knows you can take back your power and start to see life the way you want to see it for once and for all.
I am not selling to you the idea that you will meet some standard. I am here to show you that regardless of what you are facing or have faced, you can step outside of the identity you have created for yourself and start to see what’s going on without judgement. You get to start to learn to love yourself actively in your life by first acknowledging that you don’t right now. By first noticing your thoughts and the stories you’re believing and regurgitating. The fear and shame you live in is because of a deep belief that you are unworthy of love and acceptance and it’s bull. But it’s powerful bull that has had a grip on you for so long.
All of our lives have taken on a whole new flavor lately. Our days have a whole new rhythm and our awareness is getting the ultimate test. I am not immune to the fear that is circulating and I’m not selling an idea that life should be sunshine and roses with no struggle or pain. This circumstance is teaching me profound lessons and they are not easy, but they are beautiful. Most of us have not experienced death at the hands of this virus, and yet, in our minds we have all lived it out at least once or twice if not repeated like the drip drip drip of a leaky faucet. It is in our minds where all of it begins and then spreads out into our lives and the world like a zap of electricity… or dare I say, like a virus.
The other day it was pouring down rain and my just turned 6 year old wanted to go splash in puddles with me. I adorned myself with appropriate gear, including rain boots, jeans and a hooded coat and stepped into the elements; only to be both delighted and yet not surprised by my bare-foot babe, soaked from head to toe and splashing and spinning all over the place in the water.
Yes, part of me wanted to “be smart” and make him get boots on and a coat. But the child in me let go. I saw him where he was and I started to laugh and a tear came into my eyes. Eyes that had been distracted for several days, overcome by feelings that I knew how to process but hadn’t yet.
We noticed raccoon tracks in the mud and followed the trail delightedly, my little guy splashing all the way. As we followed them up the street and around the corner, the street sloped and Dyson noticed a current in the water beside the sidewalk… he got excited as he described the current and then he realized that boats love to race along currents, if only he had a mini boat. He decided to attempt a bark boat, and quickly realized the bark he found wouldn’t float… then he tried leaves… and to his delight, the leaves where a success! He found different sized and shaped leaves and started multiple series of boat races along the puddle river. The rain continued to pour and this barefoot trooper only amped his energy the more saturated with water he became. He splashed as the water pulled at his pants and he crouched near the water’s edge and followed his little boats, around cars and garbage cans out for emptying like little obstacles challenging the boat onward. He was completely absorbed in the excitement of the race and fully satisfied by the thrill of competing leaves plummeting down the mini river. In his mind, this was the whole world. Nothing else was real. He was completely present and his ability to see and imagine and feel all of it with such delight shaped his life and manifested deeply rooted happiness in that moment.
I needed that experience. I needed to step out of my own head; to step out of the story I was telling and delight in the story of someone that was in charge of what he experienced and how he experienced. I needed to learn from his curiosity and to be enamored by the enrapturing of his chosen delight.
When we live in the present moment, we are making a choice, but that choice is often a split-second decision. A story is proposed that brings delight, and we don’t allow our brains to talk ourselves out of it. We lean in. We count down and simply respond, like the blast of a rocket. When we are driven by curiosity and not by fear; when we are fueled by being and not by doing; then we get to delight in life in the way we are intended to. It doesn’t mean we won’t get rained on. It doesn’t mean it won’t get cold or the grass won’t be flooded. But when we are focused on leaning into the story teller of curiosity like a child we are not even hearing the story of judgement and comparison. We are not paying heed to the voice of criticism, fear and shame. Instead we are delighted by what is. How things are right now where we are right now physically in this body is enough, and we are left with feelings that result from this story. This is the narrator that, in our heads, says things like “why not…” and “I wonder how…” This narrator is the one that sees the beauty despite the obstacles and any pain that goes along with it all. This is the narrator that allows us space to breathe. Pauses in the story as we just observe and breathe and renew.
Our brains want to keep us from pain, but in the process, they keep us from living. Our brains are trying to protect us from harm, but in the process, we agree with stories that don’t help us or the world, and we do harm by rendering ourselves helpless and ashamed.
I am empowered by spreading love. I am empowered by helping others to step out of the story in their heads that is interpreting what is going on right now in the world and what it all means to them. I am rendered helpless when I focus on what I can’t do. When I focus on what might happen. I won’t remain helpless, but I see that I am only helpless when I allow the tornado of thoughts that are coming through my brain right now to go unchecked, unquestioned and when I agree with all of them; anchoring the emotions that result to my reality like the blossoms on my orange tree. This is the fruit that grows when I allow that seed to be watered.
We are all human. We all have human minds and we will all endure these processes of our thoughts and the emotions that result. We need not judge ourselves for the thoughts that we experience; or judge ourselves for judging our thoughts. We can sit aware of the fact that these thoughts are coming and going constantly and there is nothing wrong with them. The thoughts we have are not who we are. Some of them leave us feeling pretty powerless; and some of them leave us feeling sentimental and connected and empowered.
If we can recognize this we can give grace to ourselves for both how we are handling the roller coaster of emotions from these thoughts; from the stories that are running in our minds, and know that our brains are working well; AND we can also give others grace for how they are handling things, then we all have space to accept reality and feel it and grow from it and connect.
The truth is that all of us are doing our best. That doesn’t actually mean we couldn’t do better, even though that sounds totally contradictory, but it means in each moment, with what we are thinking and believing in every part of our days, we are making the best decisions we can. There are more factors involved than simply will and it’s not as clear cut as this is right and that is wrong. A lens is involved. Influences are around us and inside of us. We have patterns. We have neurons. The truth is in each moment, though what we choose isn’t always the best, it is our best in that moment despite the messiness and the flaws and accepting that allows us to learn from the imperfection of our best and move forward focusing on the traffic before us and the direction our vehicles are moving, so to speak.
We can choose today to savor. We can root ourselves into the moments we have right now intentionally, taking a step out of our heads and leaning into the desire to live our lives. It might feel like a whisper from curiosity drowned out by all the chatter that is going on in the opposite direction, but if we each follow it just a little, the delight that we find will empower us so much more as we continue to face the world in our minds as never before. The world we each create in our minds; or the way we see everything that is happening, is a choice. Recognize that you don’t have to believe everything you think. Maybe write that on your mirror. You don’t have to believe every interpretation of what something means for you and means for the world. When you interpret the circumstances with doom and gloom, you torture yourself before anything has even happened. You strip yourself of the ability to be here and now. To love your kids and to take care of yourselves. To notice the friends that need a loving ear and to reach out when it is you that needs this. When you allow this all to mean something for you without questioning this meaning you are giving to the events taking place, then you will continue to feel helpless.
So, give yourself grace. Understand that no thought is right or wrong. The thoughts are simply proposals and as you have these shifting thoughts you will feel the waves of emotions that result from them. Just as I always say, your emotions are the physical messages to you of what thoughts you’re believing. Your body is feeling the story you are believing very tangibly. Give yourself a break. Take a bath. Take a moment and look at what is before you and really notice it. If you feel emotional pain, you know what I’m talking about; sit with it. Allow it to move through you and don’t run. Don’t move. Don’t distract yourself. Write it out. Call a friend. Hug your spouse or your kid or yourself. Or grab a pillow to hug or, I maybe to punch and cry into.
More than ever in my life, my mental health matters right now and that goes for everyone. I know that this circumstance is unique for all of us and the level of uncertainty we are all facing is unprecedented for most. Choosing to propose to yourself questions that peak your curiosity and present to your brain a question to be answered that actually helps you move forward is one thing you can do intentionally. You can start small. Start once a day. Believe me, I’ve not perfected this. This is tough on me. But this is also my teacher and this experience won’t be wasted. I am asking myself, “Why do I feel so empowered?” “Why is this teaching me to be brave?” “Why do I trust that I am resilient and will come out of this stronger than before?” “Why am I grateful?” “What am I learning?”
What is it that your inner hero is proposing to you and your inner critic is shutting down. There is always a battle of dialogues on the inside. In one of my past episodes I talked about questions that would change your life. I encourage you to go back and have a listen; even if you’ve already listened. Understand that your brain will seek to answer the questions you ask of it. That is the way your brain works; and if you are asking your brain questions to which the answer can only be tragedy and misery (whether you are aware you are asking these questions or not)…. Questions that are propelling hopelessness and helplessness, then guess what you’re going to get??? Like a genie in a bottle… your mind will seek to find evidence to support the answer to those questions.
I am not one to promote that you just need to “be more positive”. Yes, I think we can try to think positive, but when thinking positive is not thinking positive but putting up a façade of positivity, all the while judging ourselves and our neighbor on the inside and running from our true feelings, then that’s not actually helping anyone.
I am about reality and I am about what actually helps. I understand that each of us is interpreting facts and creating for ourselves a reality that is oftentimes painful and unhelpful for us and those around us. We need to have compassion for ourselves and the world we have created for ourselves and how it’s impacting our lives and the lives of those around us.
The story is where the suffering comes from. We will all face pain and obstacles, but it’s not in the pain where we suffer. It’s when we are stuck in pain and when we run from the obstacles because of what we make it all mean. Our lens can change, but we don’t have to change it. Only you have the power to change the story that is being listened to and believed inside your head, but you won’t do it perfectly.
Until we try to hear the story that is playing inside of us subconsciously, we won’t get to follow raccoon tracks up the road with a zing of delight and watch in wonder as our leaf boats race down a miniature river. I want to delight in my life amidst the obstacles and despite the pain. I don’t want to create undue suffering in my life by re-living the past and pre-living possible terrible scenarios that may or may not play out in our future. I want to create healing and spread love. I want to live right now and love right now… and I even want to feel the pain that is hiding so that I can let it go and become truly stronger to face what life may bring.
I want this for me, and more than ever I want this for you my friend. You are not alone. This week is a very introspective week for me. I have had a propensity to recluse, and as I said, have felt the waves of emotions as my thoughts come and go with the tide of change in my life… but I am not giving up. I am not surrendering to the story of the liar and what all of this means for me or for the world.
Instead, I AM Surrendering all that I don’t have control over. I am releasing it to the creator, and focusing on my story and how I can live the best life in my actual life right here and now; How I can help you and myself and my kids and spread love and healing to as many people as possible.
That is where my power lies. Where does your power lie? Take it back today! Don’t expect perfection. Just try. I really hope this helps you. I really hope you can find some refuge and empowerment in this message. Share this with others who also need this. I love the messages of empowerment out there. I know it can be hard to hear over and over again the common themes but each of these messages are part of each of our unique purposes and they all matter. I am here to be as real as I can even if it looks different than many. I’m struggling through this with you, but we need not suffer. Let’s face the circumstances as they come. Let’s do our best to understand the way our brains work and try our best to be present and to help one another; be it your kids, your inner child, your spouse, a neighbor or maybe even just connecting with your creator or your inner experience. I have said this before, but this is not an interruption. This is the real deal. This is Life and we are all meant to live this right now, or we wouldn’t be. When we stop resisting reality, we get to focus on choosing our lens of how we see it instead and how we move forward.
I hope you find this helpful today and I look forward to hearing from you. You can reach out to me on theradicalimperfectionist.com and you can find me on Instagram. I am here for you, as my messy imperfect self. I will keep showing up. We can do this. Until next time, this is Holly Ann Kasper, the radical imperfectionist.