Inside: One of the cognitive distortions that keep us stuck is all or nothing thinking. Good or bad, no in-between. If this sounds or feels familiar to you, choosing “all or something” may help.
I’ve come to the conclusion that my message can be summed up in three simple phrases: You’re imperfect; Life is messy; Show up anyway. (I want to help you figure out how!)
I love the clarity and simplicity of this.
I care about each of us deciding to fight or crawl or question our way to freedom. Making peace with the messy truth that we are imperfect and gifted. That we struggle but we are not a failure. We bumble our way through life but we are worthy of compassion. Life is hard and it is worth showing up for.
A friend and I were chatting the other day and she shared a phrase she’d heard, “all or something.” I loved it.
So much of our pain is rooted in the desire for perfection or having it all figured out. We accept an all or nothing mindset because we’ve bought into the lie that to be or do less than “perfect” is unacceptable. Yet this keeps up mired in lack and fear, dejection and never, ever good enough.
The Brave + Beautiful Community is for brave, weary, curious women in the middle season of life. Join us starting January 9th to make space for joy and beauty amid the messiness of life, redefine success + purpose for yourself, expand your mindset + vision to show up with more clarity, self-trust, and ease, and learn to honour your wiring in practical ways.
We want neat and tidy, no questions remaining, fully healed and arrived. But this life is a JOURNEY – and a messy one at that.
Stumbling isn’t the problem. Staying down in the muck is the problem.
Trying and failing at something isn’t a big deal. Never risking or trying is a big deal.
You can’t make your dreams come to life perfectly – take responsibility for what you can control.
Loving and being rejected – that doesn’t make you less than (though the pain is real enough!). It means you risked vulnerability and loving at all.
Not feeling quite made for this world isn’t the issue though it hurts. You get to choose to show up for life in the way you know how with all your glorious quirks and unique gifts.
There’s plenty of room to play between perfection and giving up
Choose more open-ended conversation and learning from each other. Less judgment.
Two steps forward one step back. Just keep dancing.
Permission to be less than great.
Curiosity instead of certainty.
Joyful possibility.
Do you. Offer your small gifts. Offer all or something. Show up and do all or something. Set purposeful goals and aim for all or something.
This isn’t a cop-out. This is a deliberate, purposeful, well-reasoned choice.
Stop allowing fear to hold you back with an all or nothing mindset
Some days you are full of energy and confidence and other days you pull back and hide a while, but you don’t opt out altogether. All or something.
You’re learning to trust and be vulnerable and you let someone in close only to push them away again. You’re practicing. All or something.
One of your goals is to nourish your body well but you can’t always measure up to your own high standards. There is plenty of room for compassion in your life; just do all or something.
We are becoming, growing, stretching, healing and it is often far from pretty. We can choose all or something.
And when we choose all or something and release the story that we always fall short, we may accidentally pick up joy along the way.
Krista xo
