🧠 You're not everyone's cup of tea

Hello, my friend. I hope you had a great weekend. I hope you found some clarity in realizing that every setback you’ve overcome has refined you, not defined you. How powerful is it to remind yourself of that? All that redirection? All that reinvention? It’s an upgrade and it’s FOR you.

Here are three mindsets to start your week.

- Case Kenny (@case.kenny)

1. Forgiveness is the key

"The way you depict your own life is important. For some people, it's either revenge - they're always looking for someone else to blame and to get back at - or it's tragedy because the whole thing is such a bloody mess and they'll never get out of it. But the moment that you can forgive, you take back the power and the healing waters flow." (Jeanette Winterson)

What are you still holding onto in life because you don’t think you’ll get a second chance? Blame? Guilt? Resentment? Watch this video I posted on Youtube about the real reason we hang onto weight that is not ours and how we can actually forgive ourselves and move forward.

Forgive the past version of yourself who held onto people who didn’t hold onto you. Forgive the past version of yourself who didn’t ask for more when you knew you deserved it.

Forgive the past version of yourself who tried to be everyone’s cup of tea. Forgive the past version of yourself who only gave love and never saved any for yourself. Watch this video below:

2. Feeling bad isn’t necessarily bad for you

Listen to today’s new episode of the podcast if you feel overwhelmed by your feelings sometimes. In this episode I reference the psychology behind judging our emotions and why feeling bad isn’t always bad. I talk about “non-judgement” and how we can take back control by NOT telling ourselves a story about the way we feel.

Our emotions serve a purpose and to say “I feel bad, therefore it is bad” is taking away our power completely from acting on how we feel. Our feelings are like the check engine light in your car - it’s useful. It’s telling you something. It’s giving you a heads up to do something. It’s the same with how we feel - if we judge our negative feelings as always being “bad for us,” we’ll never make the most of what they’re telling us.

Listen here: A better way to react to your emotions

3. Dating in potential vs. reality

How do we look at a relationship for what it is rather than what we want it to be? How do we differentiate between what it is and what we project it to be?

The point of dating, early on is to answer questions - do you complement each other, do you understand each other, are you both on the same page, do you offer each other what you're looking for? The problem here is the second we think yes, we tend lose sight of reality and we jump to potential. We stop looking for clarity.

We have to snap out of potential come back to reality. What separates potential from reality is ACTION.

Specifically what separates potential from reality is EFFORT - your effort and their effort and the ACTION that comes from it We find clarity when we focus on how they show up in the relationship vs. how you wish they would. We find clarity when we focus on how we show up in the reality vs. how we wish we would.

Write down what you want in a partner. For instance:

"I want a partner who is kind, honest, motivated, and understanding."

Adjectives. Now let's change those statements to verbs.

What verbs do they do that support them being kind? What verbs do they do that support them being honest? Motivated, understanding? Turn those adjectives to verbs and audit. It's the only way to break through the divide between potential and reality. It’s the only way to break the way you’ve projecting potential onto a reality that might not support it.

What are the verbs they DO? Do they listen to you? Do they show up for you? Are they motivated in their career? Do they share how they feel with you? Do they talk about the future? Do they own up when they’re wrong?

What VERBS align with the adjectives that you say you want in a partner? I hope you’ll find a nice long list for each or moments where you can say they genuinely are trying to VERB. Great. To me that sounds like you’ve found a reality that supports your vision. Or at least a reality that is heading in the direction you want. Great.

The flip side, though, might be an indication that you’ve been locked in on only potential. Find the verbs. Or find the lack of verbs and I think you’ll find the clarity you need to be looking for.

You deserve a relationship that makes you and your partner feel the way you both want because of effort. That's effort that makes you feel loved, supported, and understood.

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

Say hi on Instagram @case.kenny

Listen to my twice-weekly podcast