To listen to this episode of the podcast on iTunes, click HERE. If you would like to listen on other platforms you may click HERE (this will take you to Anchor which has links to other available platforms). If you would like to, you can read the transcript of the episode below.
Please subscribe and SHARE with anybody you think would be helped by this message. If you love the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes. Thank you and have a great day!
Society tells you not to let yourself go. I call BS. In this episode I talk about how the idea of not letting ourselves go represents a great truth, the fact that so many of us hold ourselves captive to the ideas of others. You are enough and don’t need to comply. Free yourself from expectations of others and society and learn to really embrace yourself. I hope you enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello Everyone,
It has been longer than usual for me publishing an episode and I am really happy to be getting this out there. I have taken a much needed break for some grounding time camping with my family and mentally processing some things in my life. I have had some break through moments and challenges as well, but I needed some time to take some extra steps in my life toward my goals and happiness and it has been challenging and yet incredible. So, thank you for listening. I am so grateful for each and every one of you, as you listen and engage with me here and on Instagram or on YouTube or whatever the case, I am just really grateful for you. I am learning so much the more I work on myself and work on these platforms of resources and sharing my journey I am overwhelmed by blessing and more gratitude. So again, thank you.
Okay, let’s get into it. Today I want to talk to you about an idea that used to really trigger me. I want to re-frame it and open it up and make it even more broad, diving into it as I love to do.
Today I want to give you not only permission, but encourage you to LET YOURSELF GO!
You see our society has all sorts of expectations of us as people that are tied to the way we should live and be, and a tremendous load of crap about our bodies and how they should look.
Typically letting yourself go means you allowed your body to become less valuable by allowing it to grow, age, or change in any way that is not further toward the culture’s idea… whatever that may be. This ideal tells us that if we have stretch marks, cellulite, wrinkles, or rolls or whatever else I am missing here, then we have let ourselves go and have become less worthy of love and acceptance.
I am taking this deeper here, because, as I said before, this isn’t just a lie having to do with our bodies and it’s not just women. We are supposed to follow society’s ideals of how we should look, how our homes should look, what we should drive, how well our kids should behave and according to what measure, and how we should eat and whatever else.
The problem is that the very idea of “Letting Yourself Go” implies that you have held yourself captive, and I believe there is no more true statement for the women of today. It is not just women, but as a woman, often speaking to women, this is my focus here. I love my non-women pepes, I’m just speaking my way here, so bear with me. The problem is that when we are holding ourselves captive we are resisting reality and truth and clinging to thoughts and ideas handed to us or formed out of our brain’s attempts to survive which cause us to feel fear, shame, pain and lack of control.
For me, this has played out in many areas of life. It has played out in the way I was always a chameleon, presenting the side of me or morphing and molding myself into an assumed more acceptable version of myself, hiding my flaws as much as possible, becoming agreeable and often times a door mat in order to find the love and acceptance I didn’t think I deserved. It played out in the way I thought I had to not only behave, but also the way I thought I needed to look. I became driven by fear and held myself trapped under these expectations so that my body was never enough and I was always working against my body, loathing it when it would get sick or not perform in the ways I wished it would. I had always been skinny, but had the tiniest little boobies. Still, I never felt enough. I would wear heals to appear to have longer legs. I would try to get tan so I could appear to have more flawless skin. I would whiten my teeth. I didn’t do all of the things, but I didn’t accept my body for what it was, let alone ever listen to it. I didn’t even know my body was trying to communicate, I was to side-tracked by trying to be enough. I got really sick when I was young, and often. I had a health scare and it propelled me to pursue perfect health even more than I had been at the time. I worked out, and felt good when I did, but I didn’t understand why my body wouldn’t change.
You see this is where the lies start. They start where we are, and tell us that all of who we are is not enough. We compare our bodies, our personalities, our strengths, our weaknesses, and any other part of our inherent self with what we perceive in the outside world. The lies tell us that we are not enough. The lies have us comparing, and we don’t even know that when we respond to these lies, we start to cling to them. They become a measurement of our worth. They trap us. I did this, and of course all of us have help. The voices of those around us can help enforce the voice of the lies and fuel it with more lies, or the voices of those around us can help to disarm those lies and replace them with truth. Before my husband, I was with a man for 6 years. I was with him since I was a teenager and I had a lot of insecurity in who I was already. I clung to what he said and measured myself against his words. They became overwhelming and worked to trap me more within those lies. He said things like “don’t you ever want to look pretty? Why don’t you dress like a girl?” or “If you cut your hair, I’ll put a bag over your head…” or “real women know how to cook and take care of their man” or “take off that red, it makes you look like a whore”. Now when I think about this I realize how terrible it is, and I am not saying this for pity, because for years I stayed with him getting weaker and weaker and handing him my power. I don’t shame myself or pity myself. I had the choice, I just allowed myself to be victimized. I had to forgive myself before I could even begin to heal. I had to also apologize to myself for allowing the lies of someone else to become such a powerful voice in my life. The truth is however, that there are lies that float around our culture similar to this, even if they’re not so blatant. They might be hinted at or implied, but they are there. Additionally, if you have experienced treatment like this, that doesn’t make you bad or weak. It means you didn’t know where your choice was. We do the best we can with what we have and what we know and believe. Until we start to hear truth and believe it, we can’t break free of the lies. I am not judging you sister, one way or another. I hid from these for a long time. Or when I shared any of this long after, I had to caveat it with whatever I thought would make it understandable because I didn’t want to be disliked. Because I already disliked myself. But I am not controlled by that anymore. I don’t need to be liked for my story or even for who someone perceives me as being. That was a hurting man, who hurt me out of his pain, and I let him out of my own pain. The experiences I have from my time with him have helped me grow so much and given me so much compassion and understanding for women who endure that kind of treatment or worse. It dramatically changed the way I related to and empathized with my mother, whom went through pain at a much deeper level than I did.
You see, I’ve let myself go. I have let myself go of the story that I used to tell about who I was. I have let myself go of the idea that my body has to look a certain way or isn’t allowed to have hard times. I have let myself go of ideas that I need to punish and reward my body according to how it’s fitting society’s expectations. I have let myself go of any and all expectations that I am aware of that have kept me trapped and am working to continue to free myself each time I learn of a new way that I am allowing myself to be run by lies producing fear and shame an pain. I no longer allow myself to be controlled by ideas that I am failing because I can’t control it all, and instead am surrendering what is outside of my control and focusing on what I can do, but still not trying to do all of it. When we are holding ourselves captive, we struggle to feel free because we aren’t “allowed” to let ourselves go. We have an illusion of control over what scares us while surrendering the power we have in choices to move ourselves forward and to free ourselves from the chains of resistance of the truth and clinging to what the lies have said it all means for us. When we let go of the past, of those around us, and of the current situations in our lives and focus on the choices we have no and going forward then we release our shackles and are set free.
What we need to do then is to deal with the challenging situations in our lives by accepting them. Acceptance is the opposite of resisting. Accept the past. Accept who we are. Accept the people in our lives for who they are. Accept what our lives are right now. Once we do this, we free up incredible amounts of wasted energy… energy that has been consumed by trying resist ourselves, our lives, our circumstances and cling to preconceived notions of what it all means or should mean. We not only free up this energy but we also gain incredible perspective. We are able to then step back and see our circumstances with fresh eyes, with the energy to take action owning our choice. The actions we then take work to reinforce our freedom and power, and move us in the direction that we want to head, rather than keeping us trapped or moving us in the wrong direction.
Okay, so as usual now I want to talk about what has helped me to Let Myself Go so hopefully you can free yourself as well:
First, I had to reflect on what I had to let go of. This takes time. There are layers. You’ll become aware of one truth you are struggling to resist at a time, or one identity you are clinging to because of a lie your believing. As you work on one layer and find growth, another will emerge. The growth will compound. You’ll find momentum. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re hitting a speed bump, and maybe as though you’re back tracking, but then you’ll have a breakthrough. You have to persist. You have to keep yourself connected with people that help you to reflect and you have to start getting comfortable with the feelings. Resisting feeling what’s inside is what is really going on, and you need to start letting what’s inside out. Give the thoughts and feelings a voice. It doesn’t empower the lies when you let them out, it unveils them so you can see them and reflect on them.
When you see the thoughts that are going on within yourself then you can dissect that thought. You can reflect and try to see where it comes from and how that makes you feel. Often times these lies are tied to the way you see yourself. To your worthiness. How do they make you feel? What would it feel like to not have those thoughts? What would you like to feel instead? What insight can you see when reflecting on those thoughts, without stepping into unhelpful perspectives, what helpful insight can you see as you read what you have written? Do NOT filter yourself… DO NOT judge your thoughts. The thoughts are there, and they aren’t usually consciously chosen thoughts. Your brain is working with habits and filters and you have to be able to accept that it’s not always going to be pretty and doesn’t reflect your worthiness. Byron Katie says “When you resist reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.” Your thoughts won’t change until you know what they are. They will continue to fester and produce more fear and shame and pain, and lead you the wrong way in life until you see them for what they are. Liars that are keeping you trapped.
Once you’ve dissected the thought, asked yourself these questions, written them out and reflected on all of it, re write this story. Re write what you were talking about from your new lens, with your new insight, seeing that you have a choice of where this leads you. The way you tell your stories predicts the way your life continues. If you tell your stories from a victim narrative, your life will continue to be filtered from that lens. If you tell your stories from an empowered perspective, owning your part in your life and your choices without shame but with empathy, compassion and gratitude for the lessons you learned from each experience, then none of it is wasted and the trajectory of your life dramatically changes.
Once you have done this you will see that your life will start to change a little, but don’t be discouraged when another layer reveals itself. Don’t allow it to overwhelm you. Be grateful as this is another opportunity to work that muscle and continue forward. Everybody has layers. All of us are working on them. You will continue to grow closer to who you really are, unhindered by lies and living as authentically as you can, but you will never be perfect. This is also part of the not resisting or clinging. Stop resisting who you really are. Accept that you have weaknesses and accept that you aren’t’ perfect. Stop clinging to roles. I’m not saying your roles don’t matter. I’m saying your roles do NOT define you. Your roles will constantly change. When you cling to your roles as part of your identity, then when those roles change or are threatened in any way, the result is feelings of emptiness and unworthiness. If your value rests in being a mother, when your child moves out on their own you will struggle more than you need to in order to find who you are. You won’t do this perfectly either, and that’s just a reminder. You will still cling a bit to roles likely, and it will still be challenging, but start to reflect on this idea and work on your thoughts around your roles and identity. Practice rewriting your thoughts. Practice those thoughts over and over again, and accept the whole process. It will not feel easy, it will be hard. Accept this wrestling all as a part of it. Don’t let it scare you into thinking that you’re not making progress, that you’re failing.
You see, you’re doing enough. Do not try to tackle it all at once or think it should be a quick fix. It’s about baby steps; small steps compounded one at a time over time. Nobody, even all of the other perfectionists who you think ARE perfect, are doing it all at once. Just this awareness and simple reflection will render results. Just be persistent and don’t give up. Give yourself time. Give yourself compassion.
You can visualize yourself accepting the bumps in the road. Visualize yourself living your life with peace and loving yourself and take one step at a time. Write down three things about you that you hide or resist accepting, and reflect on what it would feel like to accept those things; to not have that angst; to not think your thighs should be smaller or you should like to organize; to not think that you need to be skinnier or that you need to change the way you are easily distracted. I am obviously not anti-growth so hear what I am saying here. The problem is, as recovering perfectionists, we tend to see whatever is a good idea as another item on our to do list. It racks up more and more tasks until we are overwhelmed and drained and all of the good pushed out of our lives, because there is no room for it. There is more good than we could ever do. We aren’t supposed to do it all. That’s why there are so many people. We are all supposed to dance to our own beat and to learn more moves, but we can only do one thing at a time well. You’re doing enough. You are amazing. Your dance is beautiful and so are you. Don’t try to do and be everything. Let yourself GO sister and relish in the beauty and freedom that surrender and acceptance provide for you. I am in this with you. I’ll say that a thousand times over and over. You’re not alone. Have an amazing week full of acceptance and embracing your life and your power and leaning into being you more and more.
Until next week,
This is Holly Ann Kasper
The Radical Imperfectionist