Letting go of what others think
Living Wholeheartedly - Guideposts 1 & 2
New & Exciting News!
You can now contact me on my WhatsApp! For anyone interested in learning more about my Self-Worth School.
Guideposts for Wholehearted Living
Last week I spoke about potential and living a life full of worthiness being THE way to live a wholehearted life.
Brené Brown has 10 guideposts for wholehearted living and this week I am going to focus on the first 2:
Cultivating Authenticity and Letting Go of What Other People Think
Cultivating Self-Compassion and Letting Go of Perfectionism
Cultivating Authenticity and Letting Go of What Other People Think
What is authenticity? Authenticity is about honouring your truth. Now I know that can sound really wishy washy and believe me I never thought a statement like that would be said by someone like me 9 years ago! When we cultivate authenticity we start to live a more conscious life - we question our beliefs and ask where they have come from. For example: do I truly believe that success means money? Or have I been brought up / influenced by society to believe this? What does success actually mean to me?
When we learn more about ourselves we start to lean into curiosity and inquiry. It’s a really fascinating journey! It can be confronting and hard but it allows us to tune more into our intuition and it allows us to create a sense of inner wisdom.
It also allows us to stop giving so much weight to what other people think and by being authentic we care more about our own peace over disappointing others. Goodbye people pleasing and hello boundaries! We start to respect our needs more and as a result, we just feel so much better about ourselves - which in turn allows us to live wholeheartedly - engaging with our lives from a place of feeling worthy.
Cultivating Self-Compassion and Letting Go of Perfectionism
Perfectionism comes from a fear of rejection. “Will I be rejected if I don’t get everything exactly as it should be?” “Will I be rejected if I don’t look perfect? Or act perfect?” “Will I be rejected if I don’t get the top results?” Have a think about how this might have played out in your life - most of us have grown up with the idea that we need to be the “good girl.”
This ends up with us putting enormous pressure on ourselves - perhaps subconsciously. We strive to be perfect and so say yes to everything, have no boundaries, allow everyone else to dictate what we should be doing, rest is an absolute no and so we get stuck in a trap of being continually productive. Perfectionism does not make us happy because it’s impossible and exhausting.
The antidote? Compassion.
Compassion is the ability and willingness to empathise without judgment AND at the same time, face pain. Compassion is things going totally wrong yet you can still get up in the morning and tell yourself you are enough.
Self-compassionate people recognise that being imperfect & failing are a part of the human experience, so they tend to be gentle with themselves when confronted with painful experiences rather than getting angry when life falls short of set ideals.
What else does this mean? It means that the weight of painful experiences can be accepted, processed and moved through quicker. It means a lighter touch on life. An ability to move with the waves, go with the flow…
“Pain and dysfunction get passed down from generation to generation. A mixture of genetic inheritance and environmental circumstance ensures that our lives unfold according to a complex web of conditions that is infinitely larger than ourselves. The only way to stop the vicious cycle of reacting to pain by causing more pain is to step out of the system. We need to let our hearts fill with compassion, and forgive ourselves and others.”
Kristin Neff
Next time, guideposts 2 & 3.
Sophie xxx
I love the quote from Kristen Neff.
'The only way to stop the vicious cycle of reacting to pain by causing more pain is to step out of the system. We need to let our hearts fill with compassion, and forgive ourselves and others.'
I feel like it's such a familiar story that there's someone to blame for our current life circumstances and it's so liberating when we release ourselves from that pattern. Even though I no longer blame my main people when things go wrong around me, I've noticed recently that I am quick to judge others when I feel insecure. And I can now see that this is a smaller but more insidious version of projection. I reject others in the hope that I won't feel insecure but I want to move into a space of generosity and compassion. It's just layer upon layer of social conditioning.