Want to listen to this instead? Read or listen below…
The saying, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”, originated in 1538, in a letter from Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, which stated, “a man can not have his cake and eat his cake.” It is supposed to mean that one cannot simultaneously retain possession of something and consume it, as doing so would deplete it.
The saying has of course evolved over time, with various versions appearing in different cultures and languages, but the idea behind the phrase is, and I quote, “the mutually exclusive nature of certain desires or actions, emphasizing the need to choose between them”.
In my opinion (probably obviously to most of you) that phrase is just another outdated concept that people took on without questioning and believed and passed down. This idea that, essentially, you have to choose, and you can’t have it all. 🎂
This phrase is based on the perception that certain things “are just the way they are”. But I do not hold that belief or perception. That is a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset. It is closed mind rather than an open one. In my perspective EVERYTHING is shiftable and changeable, and as long as you identify what particular aspects of a certain desire or action you want to keep, you absolutely CAN have your cake and eat it too.
If you’ve been around here long you know I love to re-think conventional wisdoms and alter them into things that serve and support me. That is the only reason such wisdoms were originally created after all, they were created to serve and support SOMEONE and their wants and needs, or their beliefs, but not mine. That wasn’t their job, that’s my job! And I take that job very seriously. lol 😂😜
So let’s take the example of someone wants to work AND raise a child, or someone wants to be super successful in their work AND have a private quiet relaxing life. Conventional wisdoms like this saying would encourage you to believe you cannot have both, at least not truly. That you will always have to sacrifice one or the other, at least to some degree. And that might be true but ONLY if you don’t identify and address the specific things about each that are of most importance to you.
So for example, if I value having a family, and having quality time with my family, and connecting deeply or with lightness and joy with my child/family, and I also value my personal ambitions and passions, then I can find support for the times I am not there with my child so that I can more fully and presently and joyously be there there with my child in those quality time moments that I have set up and have been able to set up more of BECAUSE of my allowing myself to follow my passions in work and create my success. I can also decide what parts of my work and schedule I love and enjoy and what parts I don’t and I can make arrangements and create compatible situations that allow me to get the best of both worlds. Now if GUILT is the issue here, as it so often is! That’s a separate issue, see last week’s article for that. lol
And in the case of the wanting super successful in your work or passions AND have a private quiet simple relaxing life, if you don’t believe those two things are mutually exclusive you will find what you love the most about each and then you will be able to create practical solutions and support for each one of them. You will also find and see evidence for how this is done in the world by lots of people all the time. But when you believe the opposite, when you believe you can’t have both, your mind will search for and find lots of evidence for THAT. Our minds will search for and find and re-enforce evidence for what they believe. But now that we know that we can use it to our advantage lol 😂 ❤️ And look for what we WANT to find.
Again, this is where an open mind comes in handy. I do not struggle with that part a lot, as I have an open and undefined Ajna and Head Center in human design, I very easily question and release viewpoints, if anything I struggle with holding a viewpoint, lol, 😝 but I’d rather have that then get cemented into one view.
But because my mind is open I will find ways that allow me to have the parts of the success I am wanting – which is to share my work, to see and feel its impact in a positive way in peoples lives, to do what I most love, to create and to connect around things that light me up, and to have all the resources I need for my own version of my most beautiful life – and I will find ways to keep my life simple, and private and quiet. Which might include things like saying no to interviews, setting my courses and offerings up in ways that feel simple and easy, and posting and creating in ways that feel like an extension of my most natural self instead of something that feels like a chore, or getting help and support for the parts of the business that I cannot handle as soon as I get to that point, and a number of other things.
The thing is all of those solutions reveal themselves to you only AFTER you have decided that is what you want and what you’re going to do. Because when you are believing you have to compromise, all you see is compromise. When you are believing you can thrive and always keep the parts you love the most, and help them flourish and work together to support eachother, then you begin to see all the evidence for THAT. Then the solutions for THAT start showing up.
So, my darlings… you CAN have your cake, and eat it too. 🎂🍰
Which reminds me, there is another meaning here that I did not see before I actually looked up the definition, the part of the definition that states that you cannot both possess something, and consume it. Which essentially is saying you cannot HOLD something and ENJOY it. And my GOD how rampant that is in our society!! Saving our joy for later!!
Not getting our joy at all because we need to HOLD IT just in case, hold it for later to protect us, to keep our protections, instead of EATING LIFE UP and enjoy every minute! And when I say that I do not mean that sad times and hard times do not happen, but that you are fully alive when they do, that you have thoroughly drank up the cup of life in the in between to sustain you during those challenging times or moments.
We hold onto things out of fear there will not be more, fear of losing “possession” and thus safety, as this saying points out, and thus do not eat our cake. Do not let ourselves enjoy as it won’t be safe to do so. As doing so is a LOSS, instead of part of the PROCESS OF GAIN. Which is a repeating process! There’s more cake! (Which is tied into scarcity perspectives too, but my goodness, that’s a whole other can of worms 😜)
So I’m happy to leave this old saying in the past, and to define something new. Which will eventually also be outdated as well! That is life, that is change, and we love to see it! ❤️💕 Change is the spice of our lives. Nothing wonderful we have would be here without change having brought it to us. So let us embrace it, and LET US EAT CAKE. lol 👸 😂😜 🎂
And if you would like to metaphorically eat cake with me, try a delicious bite of one of my experiential courses right here, or one of my guided oracle journeys, workshops, or books. 🎂 🍰 🧁 ✨
xo,
Sunni
