Living Life Wholeheartedly
And finding your potential.
What is potential?
I have recently been talking a lot about control and the subtle ways in which control can cause us so much pain and stress. I now want to flip the conversation on its head and talk about living life to your full potential - which of course means letting go of control!
Potential is the place we get to where we are no longer making decisions from fear but instead we are living life wholeheartedly. Brené Brown describes living wholeheartedly as engaging in life from a place of worthiness which has always resonated with me since I am all about self-worth. She says:
“It means cultivating the courage, compassion and connection to wake up in the morning and think, 'No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
If you haven’t watched Brené Brown’s TED talk then click here. I think it’s one of the most watched TED talks of all time!
What’s really interesting about reaching your potential is that it’s not something that just happens - it’s something that is cultivated over time as we learn the skills needed to move us forwards in an expansive direction. You don’t just stumble into potential - it’s a tangible process that we can all learn the road map for.
We often look at others and compare ourselves thinking “they just got lucky, they can have it all.” The truth is, yes there can be some elements of luck, but often the most unlucky people end up making their lives the most impactful, inspiring & empowering lives of all! There’s a saying that luck is “preparation meets opportunity.” The preparation part is where we can all choose to do the work on ourselves and learn the skills in order to reach our full potential. So many of us don’t because it feels terrifying. As with everything, the more we lean into the fear, the easier it gets to face. So I am here, to keep encouraging you to lean in just that little bit further.
Over the next few weeks I am going to dig into Brene’s 10 Guideposts for Wholehearted Living:
Cultivating Authenticity and Letting Go of What Other People Think
Cultivating Self-Compassion and Letting Go of Perfectionism
Cultivating Your Resilient Spirit, Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
Cultivating Gratitude and Joy, Letting go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith, Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
Cultivating Creativity and Letting Go of Comparison
Cultivating Play and Rest, Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth
Cultivating Calm and Stillness and Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
Cultivating Meaningful Work, Letting Go of Self-Doubt and Supposed-To
Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance. And Letting Go of Cool and Always in Control
See you next week,
Sophie x
I love the distillation of both cultivation and letting go here - it's very helpful to think of bringing in something at the same time as releasing something else. Such a wise owl is our Brene Brown. And thank YOU for taking the time to break it down further.