Pep Talk: Being Strong Is NOT Hiding Your Weaknesses

A quick pick-me-up pep talk for those bad days when you're not feeling strong - we are reframing our challenges and difficult emotions in a positive and empowering light because you truly are stronger than you know.

Whether you are feeling triggered, discouraged, or being hard on yourself for how you are feeling or acting during a challenging time, I got you. <3 

We will discuss:

• The strength in vulnerability
• Advice and guidance for bad days
• Pretending we are fine
• Putting on masks to hide our emotions from others
• The impact of social media on mental health
• Pretending life is great on social media
• Putting on an act for others
• Striving for perfection
• Beating perfectionism
• Perfection doesn't exist
• Chasing after perfection
• Learning how to be vulnerable
• Radical acceptance
• What strength looks like
• Living authentically
• Living wholeheartedly
• Vulnerability is hard because it requires strength
• Learning how to ask for help
• Being comfortable with accepting help
• Building a support system
• The benefit of crying
• Crying is not weak
• You can't do it all
• You shouldn't have to do it all
• We all deserve help

Episodes mentioned:

• Overcoming Perfectionism

You can find today's show notes on Root and Rise Blog.

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Special credit to Purple Planet Music for the background track, https://www.purple-planet.com

Transcript

Let me start this off by making one thing very clear - we all have bad days. We all experience uncomfortable and challenging emotions. We all make mistakes. And we all struggle from time to time. That is just part of the human experience.

So how did we get to a place in that very human experience where acknowledging that truth has become so rare? We lie on our bad days and say we are doing “fine”. When really we don’t feel fine at all. We put on a mask to conceal those uncomfortable and challenging emotions, hiding them from the world. The struggles that we face are nearly impossible to see through the filtered, curated, and staged photos we share on social media.

Think about mentors, bosses, or people in power. If they act untouchable and like they have perfect lives and like nothing is wrong, you won’t feel comfortable coming to them when something is wrong. You will strive for their perfection. And will continually be disappointed.

Because t’s all an image - an act. The social media, the masks we wear, and the words we say to pretend we are ok. And for what? To convince others we have a perfect life? The perfect body? That we are the perfect parents, spouses, or perfect women? 

But perfect doesn’t exist. I’ve talked about this in so many of my podcasts - perfect is a completely unattainable goal. If we chase after perfection, we will live our lives in a constant state of disappointment. 

Because we will never reach perfection. And not for lack of trying. Not for lack of determination. Not because we aren’t good enough, talented enough, or lucky enough. Simply because we are human. And as humans, we are by nature, imperfect in our own beautiful ways.

So imagine how freeing would it be to just ‘be’ in these challenging moments. To not be continually spending our efforts on covering up, masking, or convincing others of something that doesn’t exist. What if we really just accepted, acknowledged, and shared these challenging experiences with others?

We label our struggles, bad days, and any other expression of the natural emotions that come up in difficult moments as ‘weak’. And it’s not our fault. We’ve been conditioned to believe these parts of ourselves need to be hidden away - rarely seen or heard. Whether that is to portray an image of perfection and positivity or just simply to protect others from feeling uncomfortable in the presence of our emotions.

We are taught that we can have it all, be it all, and hold it all together.. but that’s not strength. Strength is talking about the challenges- acknowledging them, being vulnerable, and yes, I’ll say it - crying. A weak person could not face those thoughts. And a weak person couldn’t allow themselves to feel those feelings. They would not ask for or accept help. 

I say this as someone who has been both a weak person and a strong person in life. When I was weak, I spent so long trying to appear strong. I was completely incapable of crying - I didn’t allow myself to. I didn’t talk about my struggles or my human experience. Just put on a mask for the world to see in hopes they would think I was #thriving. When I was anything but.

Now that I’ve healed and consider myself a much stronger person - I’m the opposite of what I envisioned strength for myself would look like. I talk about my challenges openly. I am vulnerable. And I cry - without much shame. It takes a massive amount of strength to do all of these things.

And it takes a lot of strength to ask for and accept help. Listen, strong people need support. Not because they lack anything but because they are smart enough to know they can’t do it alone. No one can. And the people who try, can’t get as far as they could with a little extra help. 

And strong people are vulnerable. They share their struggles and pain. They are capable of crying and allowing those difficult but temporary emotions to exist. And you know what these strong people show to others? That it’s ok to be human. It’s ok to be flawed. It’s ok to struggle. We all do.

By allowing yourself to exist honestly in your very human experiences of struggles, mistakes, and failures, you are allowing others to do the same - without as much shame.