How To Heal Perfectionism by 10% This Week – Tips From A Trauma Therapist for Entrepreneurs

In this episode you’ll learn: 

• The reason your attempts to regulate are create more stress
• How remove self-criticism using the most effective tool we have – our body 
• What to focus on today to heal perfectionism by 10% this week 

Next best listen: 

Episode 135 

This episode addresses the fact that the answer to lack of motivation isn’t to go look just for something that will get you motivated, it’s actually to look at the ingrained nervous system patterns that are creating a lack of motivation. Click here to listen. 

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] If you’ve been working really hard on your mental health, but it feels like nothing is working, you’re beginning to get more anxious, you can feel the tension in your body and you’re looking at your bank account and you’re thinking, that’s not where I want the numbers to be. Perfectionism might be the reason that things are feeling so hard.

[00:00:17] In this episode, you’re going to learn the reasons that your attempt to regulate are actually creating more stress. And the science behind that, how to remove self criticism by utilizing the most effective tool that we have our body and what to focus on today to heal perfectionism by 10 percent this week.

[00:00:51] Cool. This episode is inspired by a couple of clients of mine who are currently enrolled in body based business, which is my six month one on one coaching [00:01:00] program that Utilizes somatic strategies and business strategies to basically build a business that is aligned with what your nervous system needs to feel successful, to feel satisfied, to feel fulfilled, and to have financial freedom Alongside of that and.

[00:01:18] It’s this pattern that I have seen come up in clients, individuals, and even in myself, related to having a perfectionist attitude to our job, to our business, to ourselves. We put these extremely high expectations on ourself. We think like, Oh, I’m going to listen to this podcast, I’m going to learn this thing, or I’m going to do this program, and I have to always I have to always do this new tool.

[00:01:50] Like I said that I was gonna, I don’t know, do a body scan, uh, twice a day or twice a week. And now I have to do it. Or I said that I was going to check in with my coach once a [00:02:00] week and now I have to do it. Or I said that I was going to prepare for all of these meetings and now I have to do it. And if I feel like I have trouble sleeping or if I feel like, I have tension in with my relationship with my partner, or if I don’t make more money this month than last month, then that means that I have failed basically, and I didn’t get it right.

[00:02:24] And I’m wrong. Your hormones inside of your body, create your thoughts, but your thoughts also create your hormones. So when we’re in this perfectionist loop, we’re having these perfectionist, like I shouldn’t have, I could have, I, um, this could be better, um, kind of self deprecating thoughts that are even uncomfortable to say out loud.

[00:02:44] And. That puts the body in a stress response, which creates cortisol. And we all know that, well, we don’t all know necessarily, but cortisol actually creates more stress. And cortisol is what can lead to really long term health problems, [00:03:00] um, peaks and valleys in your emotions. It can lead to depression long term.

[00:03:05] It increases belly fat. Um, it can lead to heart disease and things like that. So cortisol then, so now that we have cortisol, we had some thoughts of perfectionism and we have cortisol inside of the body, which means that it’s in a survival state now. It’s like, okay, well there is presence of cortisol, a stress hormone, which tells me that I need to protect myself from something.

[00:03:31] And that means that we’re moving out of safety, out of feeling safe in the body, safe to be ourselves, safe to connect with other people, safe to take on challenges and tasks. And we’re moving into a state of protection, protection from ourselves, protection from other people, protection from the mountain that is our work or our business or the uncertainty of the future.

[00:03:54] Because we’re in that state of, can. Of protection. Our body is not concerned [00:04:00] with things like self-compassion. It’s not concerned with understanding, you know, things are hard. You’re doing something new. It’s not, it’s just concerned with criticizing you. It’s, it’s operating under this conditioning, which is very much a, a female conditioning and an estrogen based conditioning, and something that a lot of females in particular experience, which is under, operating under this belief of like, if I can get this right, if I can be perfect.

[00:04:26] Then I will be safe if I can perfect myself and my business and I will be safe That’s what your nervous system is saying if I can be perfect and my business can be perfect Then I will be safe, which is really hard because it’s not true so your attempts to regulate and you trying to get your regulation, right?

[00:04:43] and you trying to get your business right are putting you under expectations and That you are, that are impossible to me because it’s impossible to be perfect all of the time. You are always going to change. We can’t know everything about ourself immediately, which is then creating a stress response inside of your body, which is

[00:05:00] then activating more self criticism because it’s bringing upon that same state that we’re activating a sense of, I need to protect myself.

[00:05:09] Therefore, I think I need to protect myself or I think, okay, if I’m going to criticize and just kind of attack either myself or others. Therefore, Did that make sense? Because there’s a danger now and I need to attack and then we kind of go into this cycle and I keep attacking myself and then I keep trying to do better and then I keep attacking myself and I keep trying to do better and it’s freaking exhausting.

[00:05:27] So tiring. What we need to do is we need to break that chain and you have probably tried to break that chain by thinking positively or being grateful or doing mindset work or being less hard on yourself. I wish you could see the way I’m saying this, it’s like, ah, we’ve tried those things. We have tried those things.

[00:05:47] And sometimes they are helpful, but most of the time they are not because they, they do not effectively, efficiently, and quickly address the levels of cortisol inside of your bloodstream that are telling you that there is a

[00:06:00]threat. However, there is one thing that science shows. My personal and professional experience over many years and hundreds of people shows and also that of literally thousands of other professionals and even thousands of years.

[00:06:23] It shows us that we connect with a curiosity and a growth mindset of learning and compassion. Curiosity and learning and compassion. These are actually states that bring the body into regulation. So yes, I want you to go and I want you to do your body based practice for regulation. I want you to do like your assignments.

[00:06:47] You’re a sympathetic sigh. Um, I want you to go out into nature, but also could you just find today, today, could you find curiosity? Could you be curious? Ooh, what [00:07:00] does this mean? What am I learning from this? Could you find compassion?

[00:07:05] And then you will increase, and I’ll teach you how to do that in a second, but by activating curiosity and compassion, you increase the amount of time you are regulated, you decrease your cortisol and you experience less perfectionism. You activate an upward spiral of wellbeing instead of a downward spiral of stress.

[00:07:25] Here are some tangible ways that you can activate curiosity and compassion. And it’s by really coming into number one, that growth mindset, which is, I kind of hate that, but I like to think of it as what am I learning? So it’s understanding and positioning yourself through your entrepreneurial journey of, I’m always learning something.. What am I learning at the moment? And so when you notice that things go differently to how you expect it or different to your higher expectations, the question you can ask yourself, what did I learn 

[00:08:00] that I want to keep doing or keep with me? What did I learn that I would change?

[00:08:08] What did I learn about myself?

[00:08:09] And then how can I implement what I’ve learned next day, week, month? The second would be to validate the emotion below the thoughts. So this is when we’re talking about really being with your emotions. So find the emotion and learn how to validate the emotion without affirming the thoughts.

[00:08:36] This is something. That inside of all of my group programs inside of my one on one, you will learn how to do, and we have supporting resources to help you do that. You’re validating the emotion below the thought. So we’re getting into the body and we’re changing the chemical makeup of the environment that we’re in.

[00:08:53] In the body by addressing the emotions, the energy in motion inside of your body so [00:09:00] that cortisol can reduce so that you feel less need to protect yourself and less need to be self critical. That’s it. Two things, growth mindset. What am I learning? Number two, validate the emotion below the thoughts. And voila!

[00:09:16] Doesn’t that make sense? That’s so good. So go ahead and take those two actions. , if you notice that perfectionism is something that you struggle with on many different fronts and it’s impacting your ability to make money, I would recommend that you listen to episode number 135.

[00:09:34] It’s called making money, feeling hard lately, listen to this for the real way to get motivated. during a slump. So this addresses the fact that the answer to lack of motivation isn’t to go look just for something that will get you motivated. It’s actually to look at the ingrained nervous system patterns that are creating a lack of motivation, address that at the root, and then [00:10:00] Utilizing less energy, we can move forward and you can do the things that you’ve been putting off because you haven’t been motivated.

[00:10:06] I’ll put the link to that episode in the show notes. So that’s number 135, making money, feeling hot lately. Enjoy.