Latest / The Rooted Woman Podcast / Ditching the All or Nothing Mentality: Finding a Middle Ground
Transcript
- Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Hello and welcome back to the Mission for More podcast. I'm your host Courtney, the face behind her mind on Mission on social media. And I am so honored to have my friend Kristen on the podcast today. She was actually the very first person to have me on a podcast. And so it just feels like a full circle moment to bring her in here. She encouraged me so much in my journey in getting started here and just really has been a mentor in this area of my life. Okay, Kristin, the tables are turned and now you are a guest on my podcast. Thank you for being here. Thank you for also allowing me to be a guest on your podcast in the past. I'm so happy that get to speak to my audience now. Truly such an honor to have Kristin on the podcast today. I hope that you enjoyed the conversation and that you will go and check out her Overcomers podcast. I'll also link all of her social media in the show notes. And just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for sharing the podcast. Thank you for engaging, subscribing, and just being here along for the ride. means the world to me. And I will see you back here next week. Kristen Bruinius: Yeah, thanks for having me on. And I was just telling Courtney that, first of all, being in the guest shoes is a little bit nerve wracking. But even as the host, you never stop being nervous. And today is no different. So it's an honor. And I'm so glad to be here. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Kristin has been on social media sharing a lot about the all or nothing mentality, which is something that we've talked about here often. And I would love for you to glean from her perspective and the wisdom that she has to share today. Let's welcome Kristin. Yeah, and I have just seen this different shift that you've been making on social media, and that's where I really wanted to pull you in today. So Kristen's on social media and shares, Kristen, I'm going to let you talk about how you do this. You share that you are like a little bit crunchy, but then you also still love like a soda sometimes. So talk a little bit about your mentality on social media and kind of how you share that. Kristen Bruinius: Sure, sure. Well, I mean, I think it came out of calling myself out on being a liar. And I mean, I'm not going to, I'm not going to mince words. And it was, I had the opportunity to be part of a mastermind, a 12 week mastermind that just really, really pushed me out of my comfort zone. ⁓ And it an application process and it was ⁓ women all over the world. And ⁓ I like, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: It's great. Kristen Bruinius: what do I have to lose? I'll fill out the application and I have no idea why they picked me. And it was obvious even in the group because I don't have a huge social media presence. My account hasn't even hit 1K. And I looked at, I'm talking on Instagram, and I looked at the other women in the group. And these are women who have tens if not hundreds of thousands of followers, but. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Wow. Kristen Bruinius: I think the Lord uniquely placed me in that group so that the mentors in the group could call me out and say, there's the version of Kristen that's right here on this Zoom call, and then there's the version that you're portraying on social media, and I didn't think I was lying, but I really was, and I was also lying to myself. And so I got called out on that in the most beautiful way. ⁓ What came out of that was the realization that I was putting the pressure on myself to be this perfectionist. And I was also portraying myself on social media as someone who's completely holistic. I do these supplements, I drink these green drinks, I buy organic and all of that. But in reality, I'm not 100 % organic and I don't do everything holistic. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Hmm. Kristen Bruinius: And there were some life circumstances that kind of surrounded that where I felt some shame and guilt put on me by the holistic community and I felt what that felt like. And I said, I don't want to do that anymore. So out of that, I started a new social media account, which brought my number all the way down to zero, which is why I've been fighting to get to that 1K. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yep. We'll get there. Kristen Bruinius: Yeah, and it doesn't even matter to me, honestly. ⁓ And so I started from zero and I started to try to speak to the women in encouragement that you can move mountains in your health, you can make changes, you can be a good Christian in quotation marks, and it doesn't have to look perfect because mine never has, I'm just finally admitting it. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: That's the platform. I use taglines like I'm somewhere in the middle of green juice and or green drinks and Coca Cola or you know I'll say realistically holistic but basically what I'm saying is that I try but I'm not perfect and if you were really really willing to look at your life you're not either. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Exactly. In so many areas, not just in the holistic area, but... Kristen Bruinius: Okay. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: That is what kind of drew me in to bring you on because I've been waiting for the perfect time and I always knew that you would be on the podcast. I think we both knew that. But just really the perfect time. I feel like there has been this shift in the holy habits challenges and so many women who feel that they're fighting for consistency and we miss the mark of consistency when we're aiming for all or nothing because shame comes in, tells us we're not enough, knocks us off. And then we feel like we have to start over on Monday. And I see this time and time again, the more that I've seen it across women, I'm like, I've got to be able to pull in some resources to talk more about that. So that's the direction that we're going in today and you do it so well on social media, but I know that you've balanced it in all the areas of your life as well. But thinking about the all nothing mindset, like how does that tend to show up most in your life or a theme that you see in women's life without just talking about the holistic side of things? think your healthcare, your routines, your faith, and why does it feel like it's so easy to just to fall into? Like I'll make the plan, I'll start over again on Monday. Why do we do this? Kristen Bruinius: Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's because we're right? And we're constantly trying to achieve this level of perfectionism. I mean, please show me in the Bible where it says you must be perfect. And I mean, I'll wait because it's not there. What the Lord says over and over and over again is that we need grace and grace has been extended to us. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Mm-hmm. Kristen Bruinius: you know, through Christ, through him dying on the cross. But grace also, we need to extend grace to others, which I kind of feel like we do more, you know, more willingly. Like I can, I can give you grace for being, I don't know, five minutes late or something. But for some reason, when it comes to ourselves, we're so leery of extending that same amount of grace. And I think that ended up being kind of a snowball of events after, and I call Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yep. Kristen Bruinius: I say that she called me out as a liar. Like that's a very dramatic way. She was just helping me to identify. And once I could identify that in my business and more like holistic wellness, I started to see it in other areas, ⁓ including in my faith. And I had committed to reading the Bible recap. And for those of you guys who aren't familiar with the Bible recap, the intention is that you read the entire Bible in 365 days. And what I found was, let's say I wake up late, I'm rushing, I'm trying to check that box, I'm trying to read it really fast, and then I wasn't getting anything out of it. ⁓ Or if I was in a Bible study and one of my kids is sick, all of a sudden, we literally had this happen, the garage doors wouldn't open. And I'm still like, what do you do? You can't get the cars out of the garage. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: And so that morning I didn't get to the Bible study and then I didn't want to go to church and meet with these women and have to admit that I had fallen behind. And so I started to identify that it was falling into other areas of my life. And so I stopped myself and said, Kristen, give yourself grace. And so, no, I didn't do the Bible recap in a year. I don't even know if I'm going to do it in two years, but it's okay. It's okay because I'm still spending time with the Lord and maybe it's not that formal. Like I'm sitting down and I'm doing day 256, but it could be that, you know what? This morning the garage doors didn't open and then the kids were late for school and then they forgot their lunch because they were late and whatever. And I'm giving myself that grace to say, you know what? Maybe today time with the Lord means no music in the car and we just have a conversation. I don't think that he cares. I really don't. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: I don't think that there's like a measuring stick that says like, Kristen didn't do the Bible recap today, so she's a bad Christian. ⁓ And so I started to see this bleed into lots of areas of my life. I mean, even with my health. ⁓ Outside of the holistic stuff, we'll talk more about like exercise and stuff. ⁓ You know, the whole, you and I have a history with Beachbody. So for those of you guys who aren't familiar, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Kristen Bruinius: So I'm trying to think, 14 years ago, ⁓ I was a Beachbody coach and was for five years. Best workouts on the planet, I'll still swear by them. ⁓ However, ⁓ if you missed a and were in a Beachbody accountability group, what happened? I would tell people is I say, well, double up the next day. Just do to the next day because you missed. And so ⁓ it gave me like this feeling of perfectionism that like, ⁓ my goodness, if I ⁓ if my kid has vomiting and I miss three days in a row when I back at it, I'm have to do three workouts. And I did. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah, ⁓ no. See, we would do them as challenges and that's where my like perfectionism came in because it was like don't miss a day, this is a challenge and like at the end whoever does it all and like also recruits these people is gonna get this prize and it was an incentive because then the person at the top was also benefiting from it, right? And that... for working out also created that mindset in me. I think when we get, again, when you relate that to anything, okay, I missed a day of the Bible reading plan. Now I have to read three days. Now all of a sudden I'm overwhelmed because I'm putting all this pressure on myself to do more than I could ever even do in the one day. I didn't even make the one day. So why am I trying to do three in one? It doesn't even make sense. And then this quietly and slowly, because that's how the enemy works, will creep into every area of our life. But the most important one that it comes after, that he comes after, is our relationship with the Lord. ⁓ All of a sudden either we're all in or we're like, I feel like God is so far from me No, honey You're far from God because you feel like you have to be perfect in order to show up and you missed one day of the Bible reading plan or one workout and now you think like I have to figure out a plan to be able to catch up so that I am good enough to show up and you don't have to be Good enough to show up. You just have to come as you are and we miss that it's so anti biblical So I love that you touched on that Kristen Bruinius: Well, in news flash, you'll never be good enough. So stop trying. You know, I mean, you're trying, not you specifically, but people are trying to achieve something that is unachievable. And you're never gonna get there. And quite frankly, like what I found for myself on the days when I was like, ⁓ my goodness, I'm gonna quick cram in the Bible recap. Let's use that example. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Kristen Bruinius: I'm going to quick cram it in. I've got five minutes. I'm going to check this box. I wasn't getting anything out of it. I was just rushing through it. I was just checking boxes. And so there was really no purpose. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Right. Same thing, I mean, if you're doing three workouts, you're overworking your body, it's too strenuous, now your body needs more time to even recover, you're so sore the next day you can't do the next one. It really just does domino effect. It's when we listen to those lies. So I don't know if you have a couple of lies that you want to share just as an example to resonate maybe with some of the women, but when we listen to those lies, it really does begin to hold us back. ⁓ Are there some that are consistent themes in your life? Kristen Bruinius: Yeah, think something, you know, I'm a mom, I have three kids, my oldest is 16. And I think a consistent lie that I would tell myself over and over again is I'm not a good mom. I'm not a good mom. Because, ⁓ you know, I would magnetize the, because we're gonna mess up. And I would magnetize like these micro moments of. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Mm-hmm. Kristen Bruinius: when I made the wrong call or when I lost my temper or when whatever happened and instead of it just being a micro moment, it started to fill the whole screen. And ⁓ that is something that I've struggled and continue to struggle with because I don't know anyone who's a mentally healthy mother who doesn't want to be a good mom. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: And so that all or nothing approach can seep into everything. ⁓ Even like with my husband. Like he left his socks on the floor. Well, he doesn't appreciate me. I'm not a good wife. He doesn't see all the things that I do. And it's just so, we are so quick to let that lie bleed into every part of our lives. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: I mean, you me to keep going? could go on and on. They've not eaten the dinner. I mean, it could be anything. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Well. Yeah, it can. And I think I always have an encouragement for the women. Like if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't even know where to begin with the lies, then pause the episode and write them down. Or if you're in the car, get the voice memo out and use the voice memo and say it out loud so that way you can come back to it and you can go through and sift through those lies. Because by the time this episode comes out, it'll be two or three episodes back where we talk about combating the lie. So you can literally use this in conjunction and then take what Kristen's going to give us next because I think that's going to be the most important part. have to replace those lies and then walk it out and find the middle ground and apply that to our lives so that we don't stay in that place where we are stuck in the all or nothing. Because yes, there's lies that take root that we kind of play into based on our identity. But then there's the all or nothing mentality that has its own little lies attached to it. And if we are not perfect enough, we feel like we're failing or if we are perfect, we're so prideful that we're still just silencing the voice of the Lord. And there's a middle ground that is so good to find. because it's that balance that keeps us, in my opinion, so close and connected with the Lord, and that's where we are going to begin to thrive. So, Kristin, I saw you do this with your thyroid, with your health, with your workouts, with the way that you've shown up, with the way that you took a break from your podcast, and I am so insanely and incredibly proud of you, and also grateful to call you a mentor and just somebody that I look up to. So I want you to share how you found that middle ground and what it has done for your whole life and your health. Kristen Bruinius: ⁓ Well, before I go there, can I share just like a concrete example of what lies can look like in real life? ⁓ it starts with the snowballing of the little things. And so last weekend, my husband and I, ⁓ it was Sunday morning and he looked around the house and we had had a busy Saturday. So usually on Saturdays, the five of us. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Nah, please do. Kristen Bruinius: and whatever random children are sleeping at our house, we all combat the house and we clean it. And we didn't do that. And he looked around the house and he said, this house is disgusting. And if you guys are listening, you know what that feels like. And I'm looking around the house and I'm like, I did my best this week. And I took that as like a personal offense. Now, mind you, there's three houses. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: behind us are all under construction. The windows were open. There was visible dust on the kitchen table. We have dogs, have teenagers, whatever. And then fast forward, I made tacos for dinner and we didn't have the right kind of tortillas. We had corn tortillas. And so I get a complaint, ⁓ my goodness, there's no flour tortillas. And I'm like, no, I didn't have time to run to the grocery store. is what it is. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Okay. Kristen Bruinius: And then one of my children comes in and is, I'm not eating this. What am I supposed to do? I don't like corn tortillas. Mom, if you can't handle dinner, then just ask for help. Now, mind you, this is a child who is very helpful. So she was saying it as an ask for help. I could have run to the grocery store. I could have helped you prepare dinner. But the lie that I had already had planted in my head from the it's disgusting. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: was you're a failure, you're not a good mom, you don't know what you're doing. And granted, there was lessons on the other side too, that their words are also powerful, but what we were able to do is come together and say, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: that wasn't appropriate, also I was able to say. ⁓ How do I say this? I was able to say as a mom, you're not a failure, that you didn't fail them, and that that was a lie that I was hearing. Does that make sense? Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah, yeah, to discern whether it's this gentle thing that's like, hey, I could have done better in these areas or like noted for next time, right? We always want to grow. We always want to do better. We always want to show up and serve to the best of our ability. But the other end of that is the voice of the enemy saying like, I can't believe you would miss this mark. And when we sit in that place and we discern one from the other, then we have a choice to make. Am I going to vote with the side of the enemy and agree over here? Or am I going to vote with the side of the Lord and say, all right, God, help me to remember these things. Help me to show up. Help me to add to the grocery list. Help me to call on the troops when we need to do a refresh of the house, whatever we need to be able to do or help me to release this and not care about it as much. And voting on that side will help us to be set free from that overarching theme that we need to be perfect in order to show up for the people that we love. Because really, if it's unconditional, reciprocal love in our lives, which we do have with our husbands and our children, then they're not looking for me to be perfect. And they're allowed to voice their concerns the same way that we complain or, you know, stomp our feet around the house sometimes when we don't see that they've picked up the mess that we asked them to make. pick up, we have to allow them to say the things and be human too. Kristen Bruinius: Right, right. Yeah, it was definitely a moment and it was definitely a moment of growing on both of our ends because it opened up a lot of conversation. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah, Okay, ⁓ So lead me into this middle ground that really did bring you so much healing. And I mean, thyroid picture that you recently shared, that was huge. And I know before it be really hard to get there if you're like, all right, all or nothing, cut out gluten. So you had to have walked this road that kind of bridged from one end to the other. And I want to hear more about it. Kristen Bruinius: Yeah, yeah, and I guess I could start by sort of defining what middle ground means for me. And we kind of touched on it already, but middle ground for me means, it means grace and letting go of control. And what I have found through this whole process is that I am the world's most controlling person. I, yeah, and it, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, own it or own it. Kristen Bruinius: It was definitely a process. I even used to really, really be crippled by anxiety. going through, that was really kind of like my first real transformation was getting to the root of anxiety and what's really going on there. And ⁓ even in that, I found it was all about control, that I would fear the outcomes because I was trying to control them, which we never really have control anyway. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: you Kristen Bruinius: And so once I sort of got a handle on that and that kind of started to, you know, it pops up every once in a while in certain situations, but I think it does for everybody. We have certain worries. if I have a driver now, like you want to talk about anxiety, like it's a good thing we have life 360. Cause I'm like, why is she still in target parking lot? She was supposed to be home four minutes ago, you know, like, so I think some anxiety and some. wanting to control is normal, but the word for me with the middle ground is grace. And so sure, I'm always going to try to do my best because I believe that the Lord gave me talents. And the Lord gave me talents and I'm going to approach those talents and I'm going to try to produce the best podcast episodes possible as are you. I'm gonna try to... Courtney Her Mind On Mission: events. Kristen Bruinius: show up on social media my best face forward and so are you and I'm always going to try to do my best but allowing that let letting go of control and giving myself grace for me has allowed myself to let go of that all or nothing thinking and I really started focusing on the 80 percent and so I I even had a mentor tell me recently never fill your calendar to 100 percent and Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yes, Kristen Bruinius: And as someone who time blocks everything down to take a shower, eat breakfast, bring my son to school, know, get dinner ready and clean up the house. Like I do that because I run a business. have a podcast. I have three kids. My husband has a business. I have two dogs. Like if I don't do that, my life will go somewhere. And so when this person said to me, don't ever fill your calendar over 80%. I didn't get it, but the thing is if you fill your calendar to 100%, you're not leaving room for the Holy Spirit. And those moments like I had happened this morning, as I'm blow drying my hair to get ready for this, I get a text that says, hey, do you have time for a quick phone call? Yes. Yes, I do. I have time for a quick phone call and it ended up being a 54 minute quick phone call. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. Kristen Bruinius: But had I jam-packed this morning, I wouldn't have been able to have that phone call. And so some of that, and so then I apply that across my entire life, that I'm trying to do my best. So when it comes to eating healthy, I'm gonna eat healthy 80 % of the time. 80 % of the time, I'm probably a fairly good mom, but 20 % of the time, I'm terrible. 80 % of the time, I make my bed, I'm trying to think, did I make my bed today? I'm not even sure. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: And so if you start giving yourself grace and letting go of that control, you find yourself a lot more at peace. And I think that that's what happened for me. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: I that. I love that. We need to lean into grace. And I think when we don't, it's out of a place of pride or out of a place of we've shamed ourselves so much into a place of perfection that pride has taken over and we don't even realize it. And it came from a root of shame. And I know so many times in my life I did that, the 100 % calendar full, because I didn't want to say no to anything. If I said no, what if I missed an opportunity? Well, the Lord's not going to let me miss an opportunity that He set out before me. And I will know more and better and with more confidence if I would leave room to sift through it with him and to pray through it with him. But if I have to go go go go go all day long I'm not gonna have that room and it's not gonna feel good at the end of the day when I know that I've missed the mark because I'm not leaving room for him. you have to be able to receive grace. ⁓ And if you are stuck in the all or nothing mentality, you won't receive it. You won't understand it because you're like, it doesn't make sense. Either I failed or did it. ⁓ There's no middle ground. But when you recognize his grace and you know his love for you, ⁓ you see the middle ground and you want to stay there because know it's better than either opposite end of the extreme. Kristen Bruinius: Yeah, yeah. And I just wanted to touch a moment on division as well, because I think a lot of being in the middle ground in the more time I spend in this area, the more division that I see amongst people. And I mean, if you're anyone living in the United States or the world, you see the division in politics and it's it's person versus person. And you see division in people. I Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: What breaks my heart the most is when I see division among Christians. ⁓ But what I was starting to find was that I just couldn't find myself in anywhere and I wasn't seeing anybody speak up for me. it was either if I follow all, and I'm speaking in holistics at this point, if I follow all of these holistic people, they make me feel bad. But if I follow all these other people, I don't belong either. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Mm-hmm. Kristen Bruinius: And there's nothing that Satan would rather do than seek and divide, especially amongst Christians. ⁓ And that's really what Paul warned the Corinthian church about was to not divide amongst each other. And so along with grace and letting go of control, I'm also trying to bring somewhat of a unity to people that it's okay. If you want to drink your diet coke, drink your diet coke. there's room for you here. There's room for you at my table. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah, I love that. And you can see that you're portraying that online. So I want to encourage you that the message that you're trying to get out there is being sent out. And I know as more people find your page, they're going to be like, finally, I feel so heard. And it's just a beautiful thing. I love seeing the shift in your content there. So talk to me a little bit about how to... Kristen Bruinius: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: take some steps to kind of get out of slipping into this all-or-nothing mentality or slipping back into it. What do you normally do? How do you catch yourself? Kristen Bruinius: Yeah, and I love this question ⁓ because I really had to ponder how do I catch myself? And I think the first thing is to have people in your life. And so have people who are your true friends, the people who will really hold you accountable. And I think having a conversation with them and ask them to hold you accountable when they see you slipping into this all or nothing mentality and Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Kristen Bruinius: I mean, I have those people in my life. I just had a conversation recently where I was being hypercritical about a local church and I was falling into some of this all or nothing thinking like, well, they should blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, know, the shoulds and the coulds in the woods. And this friend had the maturity to look at me and say, but are they learning about Jesus? And I was like, whoo. So I think the first thing is to Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: have people in your life that will hold you accountable. And then once they do call you out, I think there needs to be a little bit of a heart check. And the heart check is what I mean is like, what are you trying to accomplish? Like for example, parenting. ⁓ Courtney and I were talking earlier in this episode about like the reality check that comes with teens of like any kind of perfectionism that you were trying to. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Okay. Kristen Bruinius: know, uphold will kind of come crashing down because they're their own individual and you really do lose control once they start to hit those teenage years. But do a heart check in that perfectionism of, I so concerned about this because of what other people are going to think? Am I so concerned about this because that was my redemption story, that that was my story that my family was going to look like this and my kids were going to do this and they were going to, you know. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: do a heart check. it about you? Is it about your perception? Is it about this portrayal that you're trying to put up on social media? And now that has come crashing down because what you're portraying isn't the same as what people are seeing in reality. And those heart checks are hard. They're super hard. But you have to do them. And so that's what I would say. would say have the people that hold you accountable to help. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: point them out if you're not able to yourself. And then after that, go through the process of is it because I'm trying to measure up to something and what am I trying to measure up to because there's only one. I call it the God-sized hole, okay? And I envision in myself that I have this hole and it always reminds me of that like little toddler toy where it's like that, ⁓ it's like a square and it has all the shape. What are those things called? Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yes, the shapes orders. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: Yes. And so it's as if I have this circular God-sized hole and I'm trying to put a triangular shape in it. And it's like it doesn't fit. I'm getting so annoyed and I fill it with pride, control, addiction, anxiety, ⁓ you name it, perfectionism. And it's never going to fit because it's not meant to fit. And so that's always a Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: a giant gut check for me to see is it because I'm trying to fill myself with something and it's just not going to fit. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. ⁓ that's so good. That's so good. And it's good to take an inventory of the things that are in our lives and how we are setting ourselves up to how you mentioned like don't have your calendar at 100%. What is God trying to tell you? Are you leaving room for him? Do you have that person? And also, can you receive from that person? Because you have to be able to hear the hard extra, you 10 % that they're giving you. I know that I've gotten that with a couple of my friends and one, we pray together every day, like just voice memo back and forth. And I will literally be like, hey, this is where I'm at today. I don't know why I'm feeling this way. I'm irritated about this thing. This is what's going on. Check on me in like two or three hours. I don't want to stay here. And I will work during that time to be like, okay, I'm releasing this. I know she's going to check on me. I want to be in a good place. And sometimes I'm not. I'll be like, I'm a little bit better, but I'm still just like in a funk today. I don't know what's going on. I appreciate your prayers and I'll let you know how I'm doing tomorrow because there are times where it's just like weird things happen all day long and you just feel like you're falling behind all day long or you get comments about the house and then about the tortillas and you're like, I don't know if I can come back from this because I was already not in a great place in my mind starting in the morning. And you have to understand like God can work in a minute, but he can also take you through this throughout the night and into the next morning and then reveal something to you as you're still processing. Sometimes we need the slower process to really understand the fullness of what he's doing. Don't rush the Holy spirit, but stay in step with him. And so if you know that he's asking you to leave room or to set something down so that you can go a little bit deeper into maybe that extra 10 % feedback somebody gave you, sit with it and really ask and that's where the heart check comes in. Like Kristen said, am I doing this because I want to show and perform? Am I doing this because I want my kids to say great things about me once their friends come over later today and try to make up for the bad attitude I had yesterday or whatever it is that we do to try to cover up the sin in our life because that's really what it is. mean, it started in the garden. They ran and hid because they were naked and they were ashamed. And I talk about that all the time because it's it's been happening. for all of history and that's the point I'm trying to make there. ⁓ And just recognizing like it is in our human nature to fall victim to those lies but it's also in our human ability, our God-given ability to make a choice, to choose to then get back up inside with the Lord and not go into stressing and striving and controlling and all the things that we kind of mentioned here. Kristen Bruinius: Yeah, yeah. I have a friend who calls that Adam and evening. Like she uses it as a verb and she's like, would you stop Adam and evening this? You know, that's, that's not for you. And she reminds me, you know, we're commanded to take every thought captive. And so when we do start down this whole, I mean, another example, we had an event this morning at school, it's called muffins for Mrs. And it's, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Okay. Yeah. Okay. Kristen Bruinius: what it sounds like. The moms come with the kids and they serve us muffins. And as much as I have tried to grow in this area, I struggle so much with self-comparison. And I went in there and I'm like sweating through my shirt, looking for anyone who's a safety net. I mean, my kids have been going to the school for collectively 12 years. Like you think I would get over it at this point and I haven't. And I'm just sweating and Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: I get in the car and I think to myself, that is so silly, Kristen. But we get stuck in that comparison and she's younger than me, she's prettier, skinnier, nicer, whatever. ⁓ those thoughts are not right and I had to take them captive. And then I got on Instagram and I shared a little story about how nervous I was. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: And now my inbox is full of all the other moms who felt the same way. So we have to stop ourselves. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah, you do a great job of making people feel seen. I'll just say that. Yeah, I know so. And I can say that even in my season right now, I know we're kind of opposite seasons, but the lies are still the same because the enemy has the same schemes. It's just in different ways, different seasons and through different lenses because of what we've experienced in our own lives. Yeah. Okay. Did you have something that you wanted to go into? Cause I feel like you have a note. Kristen Bruinius: I so. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ I do, I do. So ⁓ this very worn out piece of paper I wanted to talk about, it has been on my desk for a minimum of five years. And it's a checklist of cognitive distortions. And number one is all or nothing thinking. And then it goes into other ones. But ⁓ I wanted to particularly talk about this one and it's Courtney Her Mind On Mission: ⁓ yes. Kristen Bruinius: jumping to conclusions and it breaks it into two subcategories. It's mind reading, which is where you assume that people are reacting negatively to you when there's no definite evidence and then fortune telling, where you think that you can predict things that will turn out badly. And when we get stuck in this all or nothing thinking, quickly we can go to all of these other cognitive distortions. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Nothing else. Kristen Bruinius: There's should statements on here where you start to, once you get into the all or nothing thinking of, know, I must be a bad person. I should do or I ought to or I must or I have to. I should do two workouts today because I missed yesterday. I should read three days worth of the Bible recap because, you can should yourself to death. ⁓ So just be careful that not to let that snowball start to happen because once you start with the one you can keep going. ⁓ Another one I like on here is discounting the positives. You insist that your accomplishments or positive qualities don't count. I could do that all day long. I mean sometimes I'll look at even in the podcasting world I'll look at the analytics and be like well I should be farther along. I should have more followers. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: I guess I stink, I guess I'm not good, I don't have any accomplishments, nobody wants to listen anymore, why do I keep doing it? I'm just gonna quit. And we can quickly spiral. It starts with perfectionism, but it spirals into all these other things very quickly. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. very quickly, we have to catch it. And I always say that it's like, why does the Bible say that we need to take the first thought captive? Because God knew we would struggle with it. He gives us a direct truth for all the things that he knew that we would struggle with. And if we would just recognize that it's okay that we struggle with it, and yes, maybe even normal, but it's just not okay to stay there. And we have to work out of that. And that's, that's what breeds the process of sanctification in our lives. And what breeds a closeness with the Lord when we recognize it and we say, okay, what am I going to with it because that next choice after the first thought is so important too. Yeah okay I would love to talk about ⁓ your favorite verse or verse that you're clinging to in this season and any resources that you have in this topic or any other that you're like this is gold you have to check it out. Kristen Bruinius: Right. I would agree. Absolutely. So I thought of two different stories. They're not particularly verses. I have joked with my friends that I feel like at some point around 40, 41, 42, I felt like I crossed this magical line as a mother where all of a sudden it was like, I'm supposed to know what I'm doing. I still don't, but I really, you know, and Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Okay. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: It came back to some of that all or nothing thinking and one of my friends said to me, Kristen, this is when you get the opportunity to be a Titus II woman. Have you heard of Titus II? Yeah. So it's based on Titus II versus three through five and it talks, it is about the woman in the middle. And that is exactly where I am right now and that's exactly where I hope that some of your listeners will be in. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. Mm-hmm. Kristen Bruinius: all types of your life, all areas of your life, not just in your age. I mean, I'm in my 40s, so I can chronologically also be in the middle. But it talks about how you sandwich yourself between women that mentor you and then the mentoring of other women. And so that was something that I really wanted to encourage your audience to, that it goes both ways. I can think of so many women in my life Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: for no reason whatsoever when I was a 24 year old mom, like decided to hang out with me. Why? Like I'm sure they, I mean, they were probably in their forties or late forties, early fifties at the time. Like why did they take time ⁓ out of their very busy schedule? But they saw something in me and to remind myself to do that to other people. ⁓ Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: So that is something that I really cling to a lot. Women like you in my life, you're a little bit younger. Maybe some way, shape, or form I can give some wisdom. In the same way, you're actually giving wisdom to me too, and so we can learn from each other. And then the other one that has really been speaking to me lately is the whole book of Ruth. I just love the story of Ruth and Naomi because it was Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Mmm. Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: Kind of accidental, not blood related. So for those of you guys who don't know the story, Naomi is Ruth's mother-in-law. Did have that right? Yes. All of sudden I had a brain fart where I was like, oh my goodness, am I telling this right? So Naomi was Ruth's mother-in-law and the husbands had passed away, she had lost her sons. And so technically Ruth could have just been released from the situation. But the two of these women decided to stay together and ⁓ they just set a great example of what we can be as women. And so those are the two things that I'm really clinging to this season of being in the middle of finding purposeful relationships. Relationships that maybe don't even make sense. ⁓ Friendships that are kind of odd. Like one of my favorite people to talk to is 63. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Love it. They're like, me all the wisdom. Kristen Bruinius: And I talked to her all the time and so Yes, right and What what they do is they just give you such perspective. I'm another one of the cognitive dissonances distortions is Magnification or minimization where you things way out of proportion? ⁓ or you shrink their importance. And something about wisdom helps you to keep those two things in balance where you're not magnetizing the things that don't deserve the magnifying glass, but you're not minimizing the things that actually are important. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Ooh, I love that. I need to start using that. And we just read Ruth and Naomi, so I come up with this like homeschool stuff every single week. just change it up and it comes out of nowhere and it's sometimes. just pulling ideas to make things fun. But I did. So we're talking about all the things spring. And so I'm talking about being watered by the word and then growing in the light and why we need both. We need to grow in the light that we know of Jesus and be able to carry out the word. But we also need the word to be able to water us and to help us to grow because otherwise we're growing based off of experience and not sifting that through the word. So really trying to teach the kids why we do the certain things that we do. And we've had like little raindrops for our Bible tracks. for this week that we've been coloring in and they've each chosen a story to read or wanting me to read out loud and my daughter wanted me to read the story of Ruth and Naomi and so I just read that on Tuesday but it is so true and I think it is so important too we cannot mirror the image of Jesus, mirror the image of God in our lives if we are not close to Him. And when we are close to Him and then we go and do that, we can be the tightest two to somebody or somebody else can be the tightest two to us because we can receive and we can give because we're already getting all of that from the Lord. And I know some people thinking like, I don't know what I have to offer anybody. You have something to offer because the Lord has done something in your life. And even if it's a small thing, if you put the magnifying glass over that, that is something we want to magnify in our lives, right? Because if you go and you share it with somebody who's like, I don't know how I could ever... blank, blank, fill in the blank. And then you share how you did and it was an unlikely thing, but it was a big testimony of the Lord. Then you just gave that person encouragement. You don't have to know every single Bible verse to encourage somebody or to be a light or to share the gospel. So I think that that is just such a beautiful picture. I love that so much. ⁓ Any other resources that you wanted to share today? Kristen Bruinius: Not a particular resource, on that note, was thinking of a, just interviewed a guest, his name's John O'Leary, and ⁓ he was a burn victim. And he was burned on 100 % of his body. And he had the top surgeons in the world. And at one point during his story, everyone was applauding the surgeons for saving his life and all of that. And the surgeon had the humility to say, Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Okay. Wow. Kristen Bruinius: I am the least important person in this room. And they were like, what? You're like a world renowned surgeon. he, I can't remember the man's name, but he called this guy over who was in the hallway and it said, so-and-so come here. And he was mopping the floor. And he said, this guy right here, he's the most important person in this story because what's the number one thing that burn victims die of? Infection. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Action, yeah. Kristen Bruinius: So he was the janitor. And so like the most lowly position, you know, from our human standards, but he was the one who kept the room clean and the monitors and all of that. And had he not done that, John probably could have, should have, would have died. And so to your point that I think when we get stuck in perfectionism, we think, what do I have to offer? Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah. Kristen Bruinius: I'm not Courtney with a podcast who's leading a group who has all these followers like who am I? You do, you do. And you can do it to the person at Aldi, you know, by the simplest things. And so you don't have to have a podcast, you don't have to have an Instagram following, you don't have to have any of those things to use your talents and you matter, and you matter a lot. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yeah, that's beautiful. I will also link Kristen's podcast in the show notes along with her social media so you can tune into all that she's doing there because it is really beautiful and you've had some amazing guests on your podcast which I think will be a great resource for others as well. Kristen Bruinius: Awesome, thank you. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Yes. Okay. All or nothing mentality. We've talked about the middle ground. We've wrapped up with a ton of grace. Can you pray that over all the listeners today? Because I know that there's at least five of them, if not more, that are probably shaking their heads with the whole entire episode. Kristen Bruinius: lol Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's ⁓ Dear Jesus, we just want to lift up these women that are listening. I can guarantee that 100 % of them have heard some nugget in here where they're saying, they're raising their hand and saying, yes, Lord, that's me. Yes, Lord, that's me. And I just ask that you fill them with the knowledge that there's no requirement to be perfect, that, you know. We are sinful and we're gonna mess up. And if you go into it with the expectation and you go in with the attitude of giving your 80 % or you sometimes it may not even be 80%, but whatever you give that the Lord will be happy and he will see your efforts and he will bless the fruits of those efforts. And so for those women who are listening to this that are struggling and I just, challenge them to pick up their Bible wherever they left off. pick up those weights, do those workouts, whatever it is and just rest in the knowledge that whatever you're doing is enough and you are okay. And I thank you for Courtney and I thank you for her platform that she can have the strength to be an encouragement to these women and all who are listening are so lucky to have her. In your name alone we pray, amen. Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Amen.