Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,
A time to feel calm and think clearly.
I'm Claire Downham,
The Queen of Calm,
A Transformational Life Coach.
I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same.
The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state which is calm and clarity.
Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.
There's nothing else to do.
Now let's relax into today's episode.
So today I am talking about perfectionism and it's going to kind of fall into two sections is this broadcast.
The first one is how perfectionism plays a part in how we see ourselves and I know I probably would call myself a perfectionist once upon a time.
It's still there.
Where it comes out right now is things like written documents.
I check and double check and triple check anything that I write that I'm going to put out into the world emails and things like that.
If I'm making a table or a chart like all the fonts have to be lined up quite straight and nitpicky little things like that.
But I would say I'm probably a lot kinder to myself than I used to be.
I mean a couple of years ago there is no way that I would have put myself out there in a broadcast like this sharing my thoughts in the moment really with no script,
No predetermined words that are going to come through me.
I never would have done that a few years ago.
So something has fallen away and that's actually as I'm saying that that's the thing to see.
I haven't put anything in thinking has fallen away and that is such a different subtleness about this conversation.
The aim is not to put back in something is missing so that I something that's missing so that I don't have to be a perfectionist.
It's about what I have let go of what thinking seems less important or real or relevant to me than it used to feel.
And that's what's allowed behaviour to change because that is where behaviour change really comes from.
It comes from us having a lighter relationship with the noise in our heads because it is the noise in our heads that makes us do things because it is our thinking that makes us do things.
As we start to take that thinking less seriously we connect to that which is inside us which by the way is perfect ironically already just as we are right now we're perfect.
So over time I've seen that definitely fall away because the idea that something has to be a particular way is that it is exactly that it's an idea it's a thought it's made up it's not real.
The idea that if we put something out in the world it's going to be judged by other people that's made up too that's not real.
And there is something wonderful that happens when we start to see through that.
Now the other half of perfectionism which I hadn't really seen properly until recently when I've been reading a wonderful book called Painless by Hannah Studley and it is in terms of perfectionism as a source of stress.
Clearly it's a source of stress when we apply it to ourselves but where I think it's a bigger cause of stress for me is my thinking around other people and how they are supposed to be a certain way.
For me there has always been well it's gradually melting away now but there's previously been a strong sense of me being right and other people being wrong.
It's been around for as long as I can remember and what I used to think was I feel terrible I feel stressed out I feel awful because these other people are not doing it right.
They're not doing it my way and my way is the right way.
It is that whole thing it's my way or the highway kind of thing and that kind of thinking that needing everybody else to be perfect to be a certain way to do things a certain way probably didn't create anger although I suspect it did at some point but much more than that it created a level of frustration that probably ended up creating a kind of under level of continual stress continual pumping of adrenaline and cortisol into my system and where it's been interesting in the book Painless that I've been reading is that actually I do have some pain at the moment I have a pain in my shoulder I've got a frozen shoulder and it's been really interesting how just knowing that the pattern is that you you know if you or I don't like what somebody else is doing we think we're right we think they're wrong and even if we don't say anything even if we're just muttering to ourselves or ranting to ourselves about it we are creating stress in the body and stress in the body it gives you more pain more illness more unpleasantness and it really did used to look to me like these people needed to do something different and then I would be okay then I would feel okay and then I wouldn't need to rant would I I wouldn't need to be frustrated I wouldn't need to get angry all I need is for these people to do it right to do it the way they should be doing it and that was that was a truth to me it felt true it clearly isn't true by the way but at the time it felt like a truth it felt like really I if they just stopped it I would be okay now there is still some strong ish elements of that in the way I see the world but now as I know and I know now I really know now that it's not them what's creating my discomfort is the fact that I think they should be different to how they are I've spoken about this before but it's the resistance it's the resistance that I'm feeling to how they are I'm feeling my resistive thinking a person in the world is doing their life their way I don't think that's the way to do it and so I feel that I feel that resistive thinking I feel the resistance it's like a friction really is that resistance because without that thinking that they're doing it wrong there is no resistance there is acceptance and then there is nothing whirring around in my head there is no adrenaline and cortisol being pumped into my system there's no frustration and ranting and angry feeling in my shoulders there's none of that they are perfect they're doing life perfectly as they are meant to they are unfolding exactly as they are meant to and whatever that might mean for me or them in the future it is irrelevant really and having this real strong realization about perfectionism and what part it might be playing in your life because I've spoken a lot about me today but I know as I'm saying this that you too have this experience of people of yourself and people not doing it right not being perfect but you and everyone else is perfect just as you are and what I've noticed since I kind of had this insight a few days ago is the thoughts of other people not doing it right still pop into my head because I'm human and it's a habitual thinking that's been around a long time and that's okay but I just notice how much less I'm engaging with it how much less it's coming out of my mouth how much less it's leading to ranting because it's a bit of thinking I've now got a bit of a different relationship with and that's all this is an invitation to it's an invitation to see the nature of thought to see the nature of being human the truth about being human and then to enjoy playing around in that seeing where it can be released where it can be let go of it's all a bit of a game but it's lots of fun when you get involved and you start to see what can fall away thank you so much for listening there's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm this has been the calm cast with claire downer queen of car take care and keep listening
