Hi there,
My name is Wendy.
Welcome to my short talk on the perfect egg.
In this talk,
I will share something that I use to try and let go of perfectionism,
Starting with that first egg in the morning.
A quick egg-splanation is that I love eggs,
Boiled,
Basted,
Poached,
But my favorite way is sunny up.
I've never been a fan of scrambled or omelet style.
I mean,
I'll eat them,
But my perfect egg was always a runny yolk with cooked whites.
Now,
In my old world,
That first egg could really steer my whole day,
Week,
Or longer to a bad place of self-loathing,
Feelings of complete inadequacy,
And thoughts of not being good enough.
Needless to say,
I used to really struggle with zooming out.
Meaning,
If a very small thing did not go perfectly,
I couldn't see it as a small thing.
It had to correlate with all the lives I've been telling myself.
I'm not good enough to do an egg right.
I'm a horrible person.
Even this egg can't go right.
These kinds of lies.
I've always struggled with perfectionism,
But nowhere was it more noticeable than in the kitchen.
I could refuse to eat a whole dinner that didn't come out perfectly.
I could have a complete meltdown over two lumps in the mashed potatoes,
Or the veg steaming just one minute too long.
Then,
A great teacher here on Insight Timer named Carlos Devenick put forth a commitment challenge on one of his lives.
Now,
In this challenge,
He allowed for any commitment you wanted to achieve,
But to commit to it fully for 100 days.
Some folks chose no sugar,
More exercise,
Daily writing,
No alcohol,
No caffeine.
I decided to try to allow imperfections in the kitchen.
I tried to let go of any judgments of perfectness.
So for me,
That meant starting with let go of the idea of the perfect egg.
It was so difficult that first day,
As right on cue,
The second egg yolk broke.
I told myself,
It's okay,
Wendy.
You've got one runny egg and one not.
I had a full conversation with myself that first morning,
Mostly on how this yolk will not ruin my breakfast or my morning.
And two days later,
I burnt my toast and had a complete meltdown.
But it did not get into my head where I could sign a month-long lease,
Because I remembered the hundred days.
I had committed to doing it,
And I wanted to let that part of myself go.
During that time,
There were many imperfect eggs,
Lumpy mashed,
And burnt pieces of toast.
I practiced zooming out each time a non-perfect thing occurred.
When I wasn't able to,
I gently remind myself,
It's just a bad moment,
Not a bad hour,
Day,
Or week.
Over time,
I started to add gratitude into the kitchen,
Being grateful for having eggs cooked any style on burnt toast.
Each day,
Letting a little more go of the need to be perfect,
Because perfectionism is really just another judgment.
My idea of the perfect egg is my opinion,
And it's not tied to my life as a human.
It was harder for me at times when others were involved,
If I was preparing food for them,
Or if someone was helping me in a non-perfect way.
And a hundred days was a long time.
When I thought I had let go of that darn egg,
It would break on a morning when sleep had eluded me.
And I thought that I needed that perfect egg to say I was good enough.
I practiced over and over again during the hundred days.
I was surprised that around day 73,
I wasn't even thinking about that so hard.
I just made the eggs.
Little things that used to be huge were actually little or non-existent now.
I finished the whole hundred days and felt so much more at ease in the kitchen,
And just in general.
To not start off my day feeling like I needed to have perfectionism as a judgment anymore,
It just felt lighter.
So here's my invitation to you to let go of your perfect egg.
Pick an amount of days that you feel comfortable with,
And something you really want to focus on,
And fully commit to it.
Feel free to put in my group or even send me a message of what you decide to commit to.
It has actually been proven that vividly writing our goals is strongly associated with goal success.
It doesn't have to be a hundred days.
For you,
That could look like a month of making your bed,
60 days of walking after dinner,
20 days of self-love.
Whatever you feel is a good place to start.
A serious commitment to yourself,
Because you are so worth it.
We have committed ourselves to school,
Family,
Work,
Friends,
But rarely to ourselves.
Let's begin here,
With a commitment to you,
For you.
Good luck out there,
And remember,
Be gentle with yourself.
It's a practice,
Not a perfect egg.
Thank you so much for listening.
Until next time,
Remember,
I love you.
