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In this episode we talk about how we are all jerks, how we need grace and how nothing is really personal. We talk about how the present moment is our greatest gift and it constantly being stolen from us as we pursue an illusion of joy… all while joy is in our very midst, if only we can live here and now. Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT:
It is really easy to find ourselves feeling stuck, trapped by our feelings; even on our journey toward accepting ourselves and growing and living our lives whole-heartedly. We can know that our feelings are created by our thoughts and it’s also those feelings that produce our actions, but still have a hard time getting out of those very emotions.
When I am living in the lies of perfectionism, I am not the person I want to be to other people or to myself. According to Brene Brown, “Perfectionism is the belief that if we do things perfectly and look perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame.” Again, Perfectionism lies to us. It keeps us trapped in believing the thoughts that keep us in suffering.
One mental shift that has helped me significantly is realizing that whenever I am living in the habit of trying to do it all, to do it all well, to present to the world or any particular person, that I am doing everything perfectly; when I am doing this and living this way, I am not actually HERE. When I am acting out of these beliefs, it is out of a reaction to the narrator created by perfectionism that prevents me from thriving… prevents me from liberty. This reacting pulls me out of where I am at. When I am drawn out of the moment, thinking about what I should be doing, what I did wrong, what others might think about this or that, and afraid of what might happen if… then I am catapulted out of reality, and I am surrendering the power I have to live well and find joy to this ruthless, masked narrator. Perfectionism does not help us. It does not produce healthy striving or healing growth. We might do well in some ways specific to our actions while living under the reign of this narrator, but we are not really living and we are running in shame and fear the whole time, unaware that we have surrendered our power.
It bears repeating that in our society, checking boxes and doing it all (and doing it all well) is promoted as not only supreme, but actually attainable and how success is measured. We see this as the ideal, and because we have the skewed perception that it can actually be achieved, we constantly see ourselves as falling short of this model. If we can’t meet this standard (which none of us will), this standard that is seen as a measure of our worthiness, then we are stuck in feelings of shame and unworthiness.
Because the focus is so much on what we do and how we do it, not on living and being… the moments of our actual lives are being sacrificed. Our presence is literally the greatest gift we posses, but not just to those around us, to ourselves. When we can stop and just be present, we grant for ourselves an escape from the suffering caused by, and held within, our minds. An escape from the mindless unintentional but addictive escape of reality.
In one of Hal Elrod’s podcast episodes that I heard recently, he mentioned (and I’m paraphrasing) that we are only as happy as we are able to experience the moments of joy in our life. Yes! If we don’t live in the moment, or reflect with gratitude on those moments shortly thereafter, then the beauty and power of the moment to fill us with joy flickers away in the black hole of time that is left like bread crumbs behind us. In essence, the thoughts that keep us in an obsessive “doing” mentality, steal from us the most precious gifts that we have. The very gifts of being amidst our own lives that provide for us the abundant joy we seek; the very joy which the lies promise await us at the end of the rainbow of perfectionism, like the myth of the leprechaun and the pot of Gold. The beautiful rainbow and gold is before us, if we will only stop running from it. If we will only stop believing the lies and be.
When I am attempting to do it all right, it is not out of a joyful grateful springing forth, but a mindset of fear and scarcity. The thoughts running my actions tell me that there is not enough of whatever it is that I need in order to be happy or to be safe or to not be hurt in the future, or whatever it may be. These thoughts produce a chest-gripping fear that propels me to act out of anxiety. I’,m acting under an unchecked belief that anyone that gets in the way of my productivity, of checking the boxes, is getting in the way of my joy and peace; the joy and peace I think awaits if I can do it all; and the feelings boil up and over and spill all over these people, most often the people I love and care about the most.
When I am in the present moment, I am accepting of myself and my reality, I am grateful, I am seeing who is in front of me and I am immersed in joy, regardless of struggle. The gratitude brings both contentment and the peace of knowing that I have all I need right now; that what is beyond my control, is under God’s control, and I accept what is as it is. Reality brings a choice. I can accept what’s outside of my control and choose to live with joy regardless, soaking in what I do have control over or what is present as the blessing that it is. Knowing that I won’t always understand and the present moment won’t be without struggle, but that it is still a blessing. If it were supposed to be any other way right now, then it would be.
I know that a lot of this may sound incredibly fluffy and foo foo to some, forgive the scientific words 😊 But bear with me as I hope to anchor these ideas to other thoughts that make sense to you as we continue…
I have two young boys (now five and seven) that are incredibly energetic, bright and the most creative inquisitive humans in my life. Their ability to take anything and make a game out of it; to run and jump wildly for hours on end with what seems like unlimited energy reserves, and their capacity to be present is simultaneously inspiring, beautiful, and yet unbelievably exhausting and difficult for me and my personality at times. It’s funny because before I had kids, for years and years, I wanted A LOT of kids; and for the few years leading up to parenthood, and a couple of years into it, I was still set on having four boys. FOUR… BOYS… Not even kind of kidding here… Then reality,.. I had two and was at capacity. I am still at capacity!
Don’t get me wrong, no part of me is complaining. I am more blessed than I could have ever dreamed having these two rapidly growing but still somewhat little humans in my life loving me and letting me love them every single day… BUT I had no clue. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. As someone trying to do it all right and wanting to be the perfect parent, and somehow check all the boxes, motherhood sort of crushed me. I question everything and I have to weigh out all decisions, and had the idea that I had to make the perfect decision, and there are just too many as a parent to ever feel like you’re really doing it well… or that’s my thoughts anyway. I am nearly certain that this whole idea amused God, and the many mothers I talked to before having kids, and yet I also know that this kind of stretching and growing is what I personally needed to get where I was supposed to be on my path. I know that there are a ton of women out there who are superheroes in my book and able to handle being the mother of three, four, six or even more children, and to you my hat is off! Not me. And, as a side note, I also know that the role of motherhood isn’t the only thing we can act as superheroes in… this is related to what I’m sharing from my story.
Anyway, I also homeschool my kids. Because, I guess I really just love doing things against the grain and again I question everything… And if you think I’m crazy, you’re absolutely right. I unquestionably am,.. but I also and whole-heartedly love it. Homeschooling is something I wanted to do ever since I was a kid. It was a dream of mine because of how I struggled in school, and then when found my way in college I was even more inspired. It was a seed that continued to grow because the idea of giving my kids the option of pursuing their passions, of having more time for childhood, and of being able to introduce them to rich literature and inspiring ideas with incredible care and thought, while redeeming my own education AND being outside constantly; well, that is a vision that I absolutely fell in love with. And I do just love it. In this day and age, we have resources galore, groups all over, and no end to the opportunities for us to learn and grow together. I know people that wish they could, and I know how lucky I am that I have the opportunity to do this with my kids. This is not something I take for granted,.. well, not most of the time anyway. At the same time, it’s not all sunshine and roses. It can be really hard some days. Constantly assessing curriculum, ideas, and balancing schedules and priorities and more. But that is also just life, and another one of those things that I am grateful for in how it stretches me. However, when the perfectionist Holly takes over… that is, when I listen to the thoughts that want to dictate my emotions and actions toward getting it all done now,the thoughts comparing me to others, the scarcity thoughts of there not being enough, or thoughts of needing the house to be clean when the energy level of my kids equates them to Tasmanian devils or tornado’s on the loose in our house… when these thoughts take over, I become a terrible version of myself. These are the days when parts of me that love this life and can accept what I can and can’t control shut down. I can’t handle the beliefs that I am not good enough, or there is not enough, or that I am failing along with the demands of the actual task of educating my children well and thus when they’re “too loud” or “too messy” or taking longer to do something than I had planned for, or God forbid, they don’t respond to something planned as I had hoped, my she-devil comes out. The shame and fear and whatever else are all too much and I snap. I criticize them. I yell. I send them away. I may even roll my eyes. I treat them the way that my internal narrator is treating me… it’s like a bully, and I become that bully. If you’re a parent, you know that this can be the worst feeling in the world. When we are supposed to be the one building them up and yet we are doing the opposite.
When the narrator is unchecked in our heads; that is when we aren’t making ourselves stop to understand why we feel the way we feel which is resulting from those conversations, those thoughts or lies that are being echoed in our heads, then we react. People react in different ways, but I know, for me, when I cannot handle the overwhelm of lies going on in my head producing fear and shame, I act in that fear and shame and take it out on those around me… I do this that is unless I notice it. Unless I am able to notice how I feel; unless I stop long enough to dissect what thoughts are causing those feelings and process them. Unless I go counter-culture and stop doing enough to be and to sit with the priority that is hidden beneath the surface.
I can become a total grade-A bitch to my kids. It’s not something I am proud of and it is not something easy to share, but it is the naked truth. I know I am not the only one who struggles with this, and even if you don’t have kids, perhaps this happens at work, or with your spouse or significant other or maybe your sister or best friend. Maybe this happens with you to other degrees and maybe it comes out in different ways. Sometimes we are able to shove the emotions down enough, to keep the shame and fear hidden as much as possible for as long as we can; but this draws us further and further away from those in our lives because we are not facing the truth and we are usually drowning in the emotions. When the feelings are shoved down, the thoughts are still there, they’re still producing the feelings that we keep shoving down. This becomes a powerful pressure expanding, as the emotions continue to build and build… as the thoughts breed into more and more lies about how you are not enough; how you are a failure; how you’re not pretty or will never find love, or whatever the lies are… they multiply and they build and they are running the show while we feel like we are drowning… we feel like we can’t breathe sometimes and we get aches and pains and stiffness and sadness. We become exhausted and lonely, and overwhelmed and try to cope.
There are several related points I am trying to make here. Points which could be their own topic of discussion, but the connection of which I find so beautifully compelling tha t I want to share them, even if briefly here.
First, it is when we are pulled out of presence that we are pulled out of who we really are and into a reactive shell of a person living in the past and the future without the connection we desperately need or the healing power of intimacy within connection to those around us, those closest to us. When we are pulled out of reality, we can’t really find the joy in the moments, because we aren’t living the moment. We are living the past and the future in shame and fear and anxiety. We are living reactively, without even knowing it because our brain spirals with what it is fed. When we feel thoughts that produce shame, the shame feeds the very thoughts that produced it, and our actions align with that which makes us feel shame and think shameful thoughts; this again reinforces itself again and again and again, around and around and around… it’s an abundantly prevailing sequence that continues to cycle more and more as it fuels itself. We are acting as this person, this person that isn’t even us but is a pawn of the liar, living in a time that isn’t now all while the moments pass beneath our noses along the conveyor belt of life.
Leaning on this truth is the fact that we are all jerks sometimes. But that is not who we are. Now we have muscles to be jerks and we also have muscles to choose to live life in the present moment with love and kindness, but muscles need exercising to become strong, and it is not easy to exercise the right ones when we are used to using the other muscles. The muscles that are worked are the ones that get stronger. The more I allow myself to live in this reactive, non-present state, the more I work to strengthen the muscles of being a jerk. And of course, the more I practice presence and becoming aware of what thoughts are causing the emotions I am feeling… the more I work on these and choose the work of living this brave imperfect life vulnerably, with awareness and all of the struggle that might come in really accepting my emotions, really accepting what’s going on within me… the more I condition the muscles that make this ideal living in the present easier and the stronger I become at recognizing the thoughts and choosing to step into the person that is the best version of me. The version that is working in unconditional love not reacting out of fear and shame.
Another side to this, one that can sort of help us in the deconstruction of the walls built with these lies or thoughts that have been controlling us for so long (the walls that we all have which we are working here to take down), is a reminder that this is true for all of us. Every person struggles with this, and that includes those people that have hurt you in your life. Pain comes from pain. And none of it was or is personal. It’s only personal within oneself. One of the four agreements in the Toltec tradition (written about extensively by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.) is “Don’t Take Anything Personally”. Don Miguel talks about the idea that each of us are living in our own little world mentally, that each world is different from each other’s and that because of this nothing is actually personal. It’s within oneself and thus when we take this perspective, it becomes easier not to allow other people’s actions to propel thoughts that hurt us. That doesn’t mean they aren’t wrong and when someone does terrible things to you that it’s not their responsibility; this doesn’t mean they should have no consequences. This is not what we are talking about. Rather, this means that you can let go of the ideas and thoughts that entangle you into emotional pain in your life. It means that you can stop and sit with the idea that when people are believing the lies within their own story and within their own world, that the lies are running their thoughts, their emotions, and their actions, and thus their actions are not personal. No matter what they think or you think, they are not personal. They or we might lie, cheat, steal, and do all sorts of painful things in words or actions, but it’s because of what is going on inside of each person, these actions are because of the lies a person is believing and because the person may have muscles that have strengthened in that arena, making it difficult to use other muscles; and regardless of the why, it’s within this person and is not anyone else’s responsibility, fault, or actually personal at all… even if it affected another individual deeply on a personal level.
Reflecting on this idea, you have the opportunity to choose not to allow the pain others threw your way, while they were immersed in their own pain, to birth a new story or a new narration for more lies in your life that will run the show for you. This idea can be incredibly freeing… it can be freeing on multiple levels because all of us, no matter how much we try to live in kindness; all of us have, at times in our live,s lived our lives in response to the lies within our heads and acted in ways that hurt others. Suffering is caused by lies. Only when we know that they are indeed lies, and that lies cause the suffering, can we feel liberated and see the choice we have in exercising muscles that will enable us to live the empowered and driven lives of presence and growth and gratitude; muscles that, when strengthened, will take us to wherever we are meant to go.
This idea can aid you in forgiving yourself for choices you’ve made while under the influence of lies which hurt other people, and it can help you to forgive others; freeing yourself from incredible amounts of deep suffering. If you have listened to the episode on rewriting your story, I encourage you to sit with these ideas and re-write the parts of your story where you have thoughts causing suffering which are holding you back. Parts where you need to forgive yourself and where you would find freedom in forgiving others as well. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I would recommend you go back and check it out. It’s the episode called “The Incredible Power of Re-writing Your Story.”
I know there are a lot of trends out there now about how to be present, and it’s awesome; but I also know that the presence of too much information or too many options can be daunting and overwhelming to say the least. For those with perfectionist habits, who want to do it right, this can be a trigger that causes us to just skip it altogether.
Because of this I hope to give you some ideas from my arsenal of activities that help me in my struggle with being present. I always want you to leave, not just feeling excited about the new ideas you’ve learned but feeling you’ve got some tools (and not too many) that you can try to help implement into your life. They may get redundant, or seem overly simple, and you have possibly heard them before, but that’s both expected and useful in the arena of working towards embracing yourself, growth and empowerment because you need to exercise these beneficial muscles over and over in order to remember and for them to become a habit and to allow them to overpower muscles that have not been helping you which you may have been flexing for years and years, whether intentionally or not.
So, before you seek to do anything else, you need to give yourself Grace. It is simple but incredibly difficult at the same time to give ourselves grace, and I know that. But this is the first muscle and it is going to be your most powerful weapon against the lies. You were never expected to do it perfectly, and it’s in your very imperfection that you learn and grow… so see the beauty in that and practice reminding yourself of the idea that you are enough as you are, and the very struggles you have in your journey are building muscles you might not see yet, but you are growing and you are right where you need to be. The one being that is perfect, the creator of everything, offers us an overwhelming and unlimited abundance of grace. It is there for the taking and you are not expected to earn it, you don’t need to be perfect, but just to be, to live, to mess up and to try again. Without Grace we fall into the trap of the lies. Everything you will ever do is known fully and yet you were made anyway and you are loved anyway for the very reason that this is not what makes you worthy of love; perfection was not why you were made. You are enough in all of your beautiful imperfection and always were. From your first breath to your last and every moment in between.
You need Grace. You need space to really let the grace soak in and be accepted. Then and only then will you begin to be able to accept yourself. When you start to see yourself as God sees you, then you will be able to not just accept who you are but fully embrace yourself with a love that says “I do not need to be anybody else. I am not here to compete, but to grow, to love and to be loved.”
So, once we have found a space of grace for ourselves, we can work on becoming more aware and in our bodies in presence. Meditation isn’t just for Yogi’s and hippie gurus. Indeed, it’s now pervasive to hear about meditation in our culture, but there IS a way to find growth in it for everyone and to find a practice that works for you. The easiest meditation ever, for me, has been one without all the bells and whistles. It’s as simple as sitting in a chair paying attention to the sensations of the parts working in your body; focusing on the surfaces of your body touching other surfaces; where tension sits; where there is any discomfort or other sensation; then to lean into the feeling of your lungs as you breathe in and out; and in this breathing remembering that you don’t make the breath happen, but it comes, it just comes and it goes. God’s very manifested love is in your just sitting and being; in whatever you are doing while our lungs are rhythmically and faithfully filled with air day in and day out, until we are to be in this body no more. Just sit and feel the breath. Sit until you are done. Then do it again tomorrow, or later that day. Do this and make it a habit by doing it every day (even if only for a minute) for 5 weeks and you will have formed a new habit along with the benefits this habit has on your awareness.
Taking this one step further, is the idea that you can help to practice the muscle of presence by making everyday activities into a mindfulness or meditation rehearsal for yourself. I prefer to do this during self-care activities. That doesn’t always mean the most enjoyable things, but those things where you are caring for your body, your vessel of life, can be the most satisfying activities (at least to me) for this practice. Try when you’re showering, to feel the soap, the water, the warmth or cold. Try feeling the strands of hair as you wash, or the curves of your body. This is something that takes time, but it’s time already used for self-care anyway which is a convenient way to brings you to where you are when you have limited spare time.
You can even do this while washing dishes or folding laundry, but I really do prefer activities where you are connecting with your body by listening and responding to it. Maybe you can even try this when you go to the bathroom. I know, I am not good at filtering here so hopefully this isn’t TMI, but truly, allowing yourself to fully be present in fulfilling your bodies needs. In mindfully drinking your glass of water. In feeling your body as you lie down and get relaxed in bed and when you wake in the morning.
No these aren’t “meditation” in the traditional sense, but being fully in your body and connected to this moment no matter what you’re doing, takes you out of the story that is being told in your head a little and connects you with the moment as it is happening. Your thoughts can come and go, and you don’t need to correct them or yourself if they distract you. Again, this muscle needs practice and you won’t stop the thoughts. You’re not actually supposed to stop the thoughts. Our brain was built to think and narrate. But you will become more and more aware of the thoughts that do come and go and start to see where the narrator is guiding your emotions and controlling your joy. If your thoughts come from a place of gratitude and a love that has no conditions whatsoever, then those are thoughts of your ally and will produce more gratitude and love… as the ally is the narrator that is there to help you, it is the voice of God or the voice of the person you are inside, the one you are meant to be that you are growing into. But, if your thoughts are those of fear, shame, or anxiety, those thoughts are of the liar and those thoughts are producing more fear, shame and anxiety and will continue to do so. Noticing them is like unveiling the little old man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. You still hear the voice, but you now see the source of the lies. You now begin to have a bit more choice in listening to the lies or in hearing them and choosing instead to remind yourself of the truth.
Another practice that helps to expose what story is being told in your mind is by identifying what thoughts are driving your feelings. Pull out a piece of paper or a page on your phone or computer and start to write out how you’re feeling. If you’re angry, why? Start to write out what you think is causing your anger. If your narrator is telling you a story about what someone did that made you angry, realize that its’ actually your thoughts that result in the anger. And the anger is usually masking another deeper feeling. What thought is it? Is it that you have an opinion of how a person should have done something? Should have treated you? This is not about judging the thoughts, just about finding the source. If you don’t know the feelings, but perhaps you’re aware of what you’re thinking. Maybe you just keep saying something over and over. “It’s not okay that he talked to me like that.” Or whatever.
You might realize if you keep writing that you feel unloved. You feel that someone’s love was conditional and maybe your underlying feeling is fear. Or shame of perceiving yourself as not being enough. We are not here to fix our feelings, because feelings are there to show us what we are thinking. Feelings are there for a reason. They’re alerts. So allow them to speak to you, but realize that what you are thinking is one of your narrators. It’s your brain interpreting things, and telling a story. Realize that this doesn’t have to be the version of the story that you listen to. But first, allow yourself to feel heard. Get all of the thoughts and feelings down on the page, however they organically come out. And don’t judge yourself for feelings that aren’t aligned with how you want to feel or think, just honor yourself enough to uncover the thoughts. Unveiling them takes away some of their power and allows you to be able to reflect on those thoughts and feelings to see where they are coming from. Now determine which narrator they are coming from? They aren’t coming from the Ally if they’re thoughts and feelings that are causing you emotional suffering. Now reflect on all that you just got unveiled. Again, without judgement. You’re not here to shame yourself, you’re here to uncover lies, find truth, and experience healing. And getting the garbage out is a part of the process. It doesn’t make you bad. Remember, we don’t actively choose a lie-based story being told in our heads so often. But now that we know what story is being told, we can choose to sit with it… digest it… allow our brains to make some connections and then try to look from an outside perspective, from the perspective of unconditional love, and acceptance of what is not in your control. You can look with grace and plenty and choose how you want this story to read. Re-write this story in a way that actually empowers you and offers you love and growth. Include in it forgiveness and an understanding that there are many different perspectives to every single story… there are so many ways the stories can be told, and you get to choose once you’re aware of how the story is being told to your brain. This is powerful stuff.
The truth is, we are all jerks sometimes. We hurt other people when we are hurting; but we hurt ourselves most of all. Nobody hurts someone out of unconditional love and acceptance. And yet, the hurt people that attempt to inflict pain by way of their words and actions, do not have to be the verdict for our story. We can gain tools by strengthening these various muscles with proactive repetition which allow us to be aware, reflect on and make choices with the thoughts that produce our feelings and affect our emotional well-being. We can work to live in the present moment so that we are not drowning in lies of the past and the future; and so that we are not robbed of the joy that we have before us. Life will still have struggles, this doesn’t take all of that away, but it’s not meant to. You’ll mess up, but you’ll forgive yourself and learn incredible lessons that will help you to help others and continue to help yourself. As I’ve said in another episode, taking responsibility for your actions does not need to propel you into a shame cycle. Messing up means you are human. You can be responsible taking accountability for your actions and still move forward with grace and acceptance, while not allowing this to mean that you are not lovable and should be ashamed of yourself. Shame only perpetuates lies.
This week, I hope you will make a practice of giving yourself grace to mess up. The grace needed to not only survive but to thrive in this messy beautiful world. The grace needed to live in the moment and find the joy we are forever seeking. Each week, I write about something that deeply resonates for me, not out of mastery, but out of my own needs for the very thing I write about. I write this to connect with you while we both trudge on and I don’t claim to have it all figured out, but I truly hope that what is helping me will help you as well. I am excited that you have come to join me and I would love to hear from you. Please reach out on Instagram. Share your story with me. Share your victory and your struggle. We are in this together.
With Love,
Holly Ann Kasper
The Radical Imperfectionst