🧠 You are lightning in a bottle

Hello, my friend. A couple days ago I posted the following on Instagram and it’s since gone viral: Life isn’t about being perfect; it's about being so ridiculously passionate that people think you're a little crazy. Passion in life doesn’t need to be a skill or a hobby. It doesn’t need to be music or art. It can simply be the enthusiasm you have to seek out joy and the curiosity that guides you as you do. That is passion and it’s what opens you up to the gift of life.

Here are three mindsets to inspire you. Let’s go.

- Case Kenny (@case.kenny)

1. The biggest red flag…

The ultimate red flag is when someone doesn't understand you. Specifically it's when someone refuses to accept THAT you feel the way you feel. You say you feel a certain way - I feel hurt, anxious, overwhelmed, frustrated - and their response is to basically require you to validate WHY, to provide a thesis statement to explain yourself, and to make sure they agree with how you feel.

That is the red flag and it's all about that one word... THAT.

You deserve someone who offers you straight forward empathy THAT you feel a certain way. Nothing more required. The opposite is a red flag - they refuse to understand THAT as a starting point. They need to know WHY for it to be valid to them. They need to agree with it.

The red flag is when they refuse to understand that their words hurt you - no matter how small or trivial they were. They refuse to understand that you need certain things in a relationship - even if they don’t need the same things themselves. They refuse to understand THAT you have certain insecurities - even if they don't relate to them. You deserve someone with empathy who listens and accepts what you say and how you feel at face value without needing you to validate it to them.

2. Pain vs. Suffering

Today’s podcast episode will help you put an end to the role you play in your own suffering. It will empower you to realize the difference between pain and suffering in life.

Pain: what happens TO you

Suffering: the story you tell yourself as a result

Far too often in life we experience pain (a normal part of the human experience), but we allow our human nature to then take over and turn it into a story to fit the pain: I’m unlovable, I’m weird, every relationship I have fails, I’m a disaster, I’m too ___. That story is what YOU tell yourself and it doesn’t need to be repeated. Doing so doubles the hurt you’ve been through. It projects pain to suffering and as tough as it might seem sometimes, it’s entirely up to you what story you decide to tell yourself.

Put an end to your own suffering by asking yourself, what if I’m wrong? What if I don’t have proof that those stories are actually true?

Listen to this episode here.

3. You are lightning in a bottle

Have you ever talked yourself out of something because you were afraid of coming off as "too much?" Too eager? Too sensitive? Too young? Too old? Too loud? Too quiet? Too ambitious?

I'm convinced that the key to living life on your terms is to no longer look at yourself through the eyes of others - "what will THEY think? I don't want to scare THEM off. THEY might laugh at me."

We have to look at ourselves through our own eyes. Those are eyes that see the full picture of our life's many chapters - where we came from, where we are, and what we're capable of.

Make that your intention for the rest of the year: see yourself through your own eyes... not the eyes of others because they don't know the full picture. They don't know WHY you have the goals, dreams, standards, or boundaries you have. They don't know your journey to getting here.

A listener of my podcast once told me the following and it’s been in my head ever since… Lightning in a bottle should never be taken for granted.

* If this speaks to you, check out my book That’s Bold of You, a mindful guide to being “too much”

My name is Case. I believe in the power of perspective.

Say hi on Instagram @case.kenny

Listen to my twice-weekly podcast