Listen, I know it’s hard. Most of us were not taught to be kind to ourselves. If you’ve been reading along this month and trying out some of the ideas in these posts, show yourself a little appreciation! Shifting ingrained patterns is tough. Especially our mental ones.
Mindsets are patterns of thinking and seeing the world. We’re often unaware of them. They just hover in front of us like a permanent Instagram filter, altering our perceptions of what is coming through. That filter can help us out or keep us stuck. Once we’re aware of our mindsets, we can have a little more choice about what actions we want to take and how we want to respond to stuff that happens in our lives.
Unhelpful Mindset One: Scarcity
Now I’m not denying that some things are finite and limited. Time, fossil fuels, the number of Sour Patch Kids in a bag….these are all limited. They can run out.
What things can’t run out? Love. Compassion. Appreciation. That kind of stuff.
Yet many of us act like these are finite. As if being compassionate to ourselves would mean less compassion for someone else. Like if we accept a compliment, it somehow deprives the other person of something. Or if we are having a happy moment, it means someone else won’t be able to be happy.
That’s just not true. In fact, it’s the opposite of true. If we gracefully accept a compliment, then the other person gets to feel good about giving it, gets to feel connected to us, which multiplies the good vibes. Our being happy does not mean that we made someone else sad because we snatched up all the happy that was available that day.
What’s an antidote to scarcity? Gratitude. We don’t have to change this mindset right away. We can change our actions and see if anything shifts. In this case, we can try thanking that person for the compliment. We can keep a gratitude journal (I know everyone says it, but it’s because there’s so much research backing up the effectiveness of gratitude journals!). Gratitude could look like focusing on appreciating the happy moments more instead of focusing on guilt.
Unhelpful Mindset Two: All-or-Nothing Thinking
When we’re overloaded with information and stimuli, it’s so easy to fall into binary, all-or-nothing thinking. It’s simpler to put things in one of two boxes. True or false. A or B. Night or day. Hot or cold.
Besides being totally unrealistic, this mindset can tear us down, shredding our sense of worth. Sure, we might be classified as “good” or “successful” one day, but if we make one move that’s anything less than perfection, this mindset whisks us into the “bad” or “failure” box faster than we can blink. There’s no room for being our messy human selves without being deemed terrible. (We can turn this mindset towards other people too, throwing them up on pedestals just to knock them off soon afterwards.)
The antidote here? Finding the spectrum. Remembering that there are sooooo many colors between black and white. The other part of the antidote is separating our behavior from our core sense of self. Instead of jumping to “I’m a horrible person,” we can shift into “I did something horrible.” We can always change our behaviors. There’s wiggle room there. There’s hope there.
Pay attention this week to the thought patterns that seem to keep you stuck or being mean to yourself. Is there a way you can decrease their power? Make more mindful choices? And be gentle with yourself in the process? If you need help figuring out how to do that, drop me a note. Until next week, be sweet to your spoonie selves!
