Episode 146: Embracing a Life of Imperfection and Acceptance
In today’s episode, I’m talking about how to deal with our Monger who is constantly pushing us towards the impossible, and ways to embrace our humanness.
Does this sound like you?
Your to-do list is a mile long—yet, logically, there’s no way you could complete it; you drive yourself so hard, pushing, hustling, head down working toward a goal—and beat yourself up when you don’t reach it.
You might even sacrifice sleep and your own well-being in pursuit of this goal.
If so, then your Monger might be running the show and holding you to an impossible superhuman standard.
Your Monger convinces you that you have to do these things. There is no choice. You push yourself day in and day out in pursuit of a goal or fantasy version of what your life is “supposed to be”—because if you don’t attain the life your Monger is pushing you towards, then you just don’t have what it takes to be happy.
If you gave yourself permission to pause and reflect on how your Monger holds you to these impossible standards, you might ask yourself: who set the goal I’m hustling so hard for? And if it is actually my goal, is that goal still serving me or even something I want to be pursuing?
When we have spent our whole lives with the belief that we can be superhuman if we only hustle harder, how do we embrace a life of imperfection and acceptance?
In this week’s episode, I’m talking about how to deal with our Monger who is constantly pushing us towards the impossible and ways to embrace our humanness.
And, if you missed last week’s episode, we kicked off this month’s conversation with Tara McMullin who shared her experiences with Being More Human in her business. Go check it out.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
How our Monger and our BFF keeps us in such rigid thinking that we miss the possibilities that being human brings
3 ways being human is more helpful than the quest to be superhuman
Why self-loyalty is the ultimate act of being human
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
Nancy: Your monger hold you to an impossible standard. I'm continually amazed by my own monger's ability to encourage me to go beyond the bounds of time and space. Your to-do list is a mile long and logically, there is no way you could come up. And yet your monitor convinces you, that you have to, you don't have a choice.
And even though you can't bend time and magically create 27 hours in a day, you still beat yourself up for failing to finish. You drive yourself so hard, pushing, hustling, and head down, working toward a goal, sacrificing sleep and ignoring your own personal discomfort in the form of physical pains and mental anchors.
And we do it all in the pursuit of some goal or fantasy version of what our life is supposed to be. We have built our whole lives around these delusions, the idea that we are superhuman and that we need to keep going and we can't change course, you're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the new to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.
If you gave yourself permission to pause and reflect on how your monger holds you to these impossible standards, you might ask yourself who set the goal I'm hustling so hard for? And if it is actually my goal is that goal still serving me or even something I want to be pursuing.
Our monger convinces us that looking around and asking questions is dangerous and scary. So she keeps serving as a task master for a goal. We might not even want to be pursuing any. And in the end, we start to believe that if we can't be the superhuman version of ourselves, that our monger has tasked us with becoming, we just don't have what it takes to be happy.
This is what I want to talk about. The simple act of being human. I want to explore the complexities and importance of just being human. Especially for those of us who swallow the lie that we have to be superhuman. Last week, we kicked off the conversation with Tara McAllen, sharing her experiences with being more human in her business.
And next week we'll be hearing from Sarah Kathleen Peck, who talks about bringing your humanness into your next project and helping you get out of your own way and try something. She even coached me through my own stuckness. In this episode, I want to talk about how our monger and our BFF keeps us in such rigid thinking that we miss the possibilities that being human brings.
Now, the benefits of being super human have been sold to us our whole lives in comic books, in movies, in fantasy novels, maybe you've dreamt of reading minds, having the power of flight or just being really smart, like Sherlock Holmes. So what's so great about being human. Here are three ways being human is more helpful than the quest to be superhuman reason.
Number one, being loyal to yourself rather than beating yourself up for feeling unmotivated. You can say wow. Feeling unmotivated is so freaking hard, especially when I have so much to do. I'm going to be gentle on myself today. What is one small thing I can start right now? And then I'm going to check in again, later.
Reason. Number two, making mistakes means trying something new and risking failure, rather than just sitting there and fear risking raising your hand in the zoom meeting to share an idea and rather than getting lost in the fact that your idea didn't get picked, noticing that your idea inspired another idea that was more on target.
Had you not risked that wouldn't have happened. Reason. Number three, being kind about your limitations, recognizing that as much as you want to be superhuman and as good as that feels, initially, it leaves you feeling tired, depleted, and anxious, knowing that you are not a good worker after three weeks.
You can do it, but pushing yourself to achieve a bunch at that point, it just isn't going to work in essence, being human is at the heart of being happier and being more peaceful. When we have spent our whole lives with the belief that we could be superhuman, if only we hustle harder, how do we embrace a life of imperfection and acceptance, especially when our mongers and BFS can actively sabotage our efforts.
Let's start with trust. Or a lack thereof. Many of my clients are slow to trust themselves, slow to trust other people, slow to trust our humanness. We trust our rules, our rigidities our schedule, our to do list our ways of doing things because those rules rigidities and ways of doing things, they keep us feeling super human.
We have learned over time that if we keep our head down and do the next thing on the list, we will feel all power. And in the past that has worked. But what if those rules rigidities and ways of doing things they're just not working anymore. What if these rigidities, aren't making us superhuman, but making us feel like crap.
What if you're tired of trying to bend to the time-space continuum? What if you're tired of being physically exhausted and stressed out, constantly working towards a nameless goal? What if you want to feel good about your. And not like you're constantly failing, no matter how hard you work, what if you want to do it differently?
And we all scream. Yes. And then we go to take action to look up, to listen to our biggest fan and design a life of acceptance and imperfection. And in swoops, our mongers saying no. You have to keep pushing. You have to keep hustling. Here's the thing with these superhuman habits, they are well-worn, they are comfortable.
They are our defaults like water running over a rock. It will always find the well-worn path. Change is hard, not just because of our default paths. Those can change one small conscious step at a time, what gets in our way more, our inability to be human, to trust that there is a different way to be wrong.
To not have the right way to not know the answer to question, to be curious and sit in the unknown that is downright terrifying for many of us, with the belief that we are superhuman. This is why we take on more than we physically can. We work mindlessly towards a task. We might not even care about. We treat ourselves as superhuman.
It's also why we know a lot about how to change. We just don't make any of the changes because being superhuman is freaking exhilarate. Especially if we only look at the praise and accolades and avoid our mental and emotional health, it is ironic. We crave less hustling, less pushing. We read and learn as much as we can about accepting ourselves and embracing our imperfections.
And then our Monger steps in to say, you'll never be able to do those things, or who do you think you are or whatever her mean, belittling go for the juggler commentary. Is that right? She convinces us that doing more accomplishing more and staying far away from those feelings that will be best. And our BFF supports her talk about the BFF as much as the monger, but she is that voice of false self-compassion.
So whenever our monger gets too loud, she jumps in to say, you're fine. No need to change. You're doing great. Or we already know this stuff. Change your attitude. Love. Yes. And be kind, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Our BFF lets us off the hook. This is her misguided attempt to protect us. She is that petulant teenager, attempting to protect us by telling us we can stop listening to everyone.
And we're fine. In fact, notice how the BFF Petula child's voice shows up. As you're listening to this very podcast, my BFF voice would probably roll her eyes and tell me to stop listening. All this already, she would whisper you might know this already, but are you implementing it in your daily life?
Because after our BFF tells us, we're awesome and amazing, and we don't need to change anything. We then returned to business as usual and the cycle repeats. So to summarize, we're tired of living with so much rigidity. We attempt to make a change. Our monger belittles us for not hustling and wasting time.
Despite our monger, we make some feeble attempt at being kind to ourselves and then our BFF steps in to tell us we're fine. And we don't need to change rinse and repeat. We went to live in a space where we were open to being human, where kindness and compassion are at the top. We're drawn to that way of thinking and yet practicing and with ourselves on a daily basis is hard and difficult.
And not a default. We have learned from our monger and BFF that in order to feel superhuman best to keep a tight control on any of that messy love stuff. It's way too inconsistent. And. And yet we are also the first to tell our loved ones and friends, all that we've learned by reading psychology, we will advise them that they should set a boundary, speak in need or be kind to themselves.
We really believe this stuff. And yet it's there's a giant hard boundary in our heads saying, Nope, that works for everyone else. But for you, you have high expectations. You need to be superhuman. You are different, but I'm here to tell you. You can't bend the time-space continuum. You can't be all things to all people.
You can't do everything on your to-do list. You can't keep plugging along. Single-mindedly towards a goal you might not even want anymore. It will wear on you physically, mentally, and emotionally, because here's the fact you are a human being. Let's start embracing that first. We have to honor this disconnect.
We have to notice the difference between what we know and what we live. I know that being kind is key. I know that giving myself a regular breaks, honoring my body, treating myself as a human being rather than a human doing are all key to my inner peace and happiness. This is why I love the idea of selfless.
Self loyalty is the ultimate act of being human. It's not turning our back on ourselves. It's being willing to dive into all that messiness and say, wow, look, what's here. Instead of yuck, look, what's here. We know how to be loyal to family and friends. We accept their flaws. In fact, we will bend ourselves like Gumby to make up for their flaws, but for ourselves, hell.
Being human is something we strive to overcome. Maybe that's why we struggle so much stepping into the unknown of being kind, honoring ourselves and practicing self loyalty are messy and imperfect. And the one thing we hate is messy and imperfect. While I was researching the idea of being human. I came across this quote by Edith Weider and American scientists.
Exploring is an innate part of being human. We're all explorers when we're born. Unfortunately it seems to get drummed out of many of us as we get older, but it's there, I think in all of us and for me, that moment of discovery is just so thrilling on any level that I think anybody that's experienced, it is pretty quickly addicted to it.
I don't have all the answers, but I do know that being an Explorer of your heart and soul is an excellent place to start and can be exhilarated. Rather than believing the lie of our monger, that we are flawed human beings who need to be whipped into shape. What if we looked at our internal world as something fun to explore a messy, abstract painting that we can look at with kindness and empathy, rather than a painting we need to redo.
So it looks perfect as we continue to explore being human this month, challenge yourself to embrace imperfection and being kind to yourself. No matter. What notice your three voices notice when your monger chimes in to say how you're broken and then how your BFF chimes in to say no, you're fine.
When you see that dynamic challenge yourself to bring in your biggest fan, that kind voice who says, okay, people let's settle down. What do you need right now? Sweepy pause for the answer and then honor it. That is the key. Honoring what comes up, being loyal to your heart's request. Maybe it is to keep hustling.
Maybe it's to get a drink of water, maybe it's to take a nap, learning to listen and honor what comes up is messy. You will do it wrong. And yet every time I finally put down the superhuman shield and embrace being human, even just a little tiny bit, life gets easy. Which is the exact opposite of what I think is going to happen this week.
Let's embrace being human one tiny activity at a time.