Latest / The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell / iAlign #51 - Perfection, Shame, and Coping Mechanisms

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iAlign #51 - Perfection, Shame, and Coping Mechanisms · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Seeking Authenticity Podcast, hosted by Ioline, where you get the practical tools you need to overcome your action paralysis.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We help ambitious individuals end their constant cycles of starting and stopping and take decisive control over their path so they can build the life they want, maximize their potential, and become unstoppable.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's about becoming a leader in the game instead of sitting on the bench, which is where you have to be in order to create or sustain a life that you are proud of.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Flint Mitchell, head coach of Ioline, a coaching and software company aimed at building a more value-aligned world by supporting one billion people to take one value-based decision every day.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the episode.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was raised feeling like I needed to be perfect.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't blame my parents for this.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I won the absolute lottery when it came to my childhood.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, the environment I grew up in was cutthroat.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you weren't going to Stanford University, you were kind of effectively a failure.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that might sound ridiculous, but I bet the consequence of it resonates with how you viewed yourself in the past and still how you may today.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like if I wasn't perfect, I wasn't worthy of love.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: More than that, really, not even worthy of attention or like recognition.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like if I wasn't perfect and everything I did wasn't perfect, then nothing I did would be good enough.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know how it feels to put in your absolute best, but never feel it like it measures up.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: To feel completely and entirely overwhelmed and exhausted from the effort you're putting in, to look at yourself in the mirror and to say, I feel like I'm trying so hard, but I just don't feel like it's paying off.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The heavy arms, tired eyes, the headache from shitty sleep because you went to bed too late after scrolling your phone to cope with the fact that yesterday didn't go as well as you wanted it to.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: The shame of not wanting to tell people that I didn't get as much done as I would have liked to, and then engage in those behaviors like scrolling my phone.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: The guilt of not being perfect.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just here to tell you that it's okay to feel this way.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing wrong with you for having these days.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it's an every week or everyday thing for you.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it also doesn't have to stay that way.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Within the system I've built at Eye Line, I have found the secret to alleviate this suffering.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a pill, it's not magic, though at the end of the day it might certainly feel like it, it won't give you abs in 60 minutes, though not gonna lie, maybe indirectly in six months.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's also not a secret.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's that you need to have a list of unique to you coping mechanisms, tools that allow you to quickly relieve the pressure of these situations, such that you can continue to get your responsibilities done without feeling horrible about yourself or spiraling out of control.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Stay with me if that didn't make sense.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'll explain.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you put a small piece of dry ice in a water bottle, pressure will slowly build up as carbon dioxide gets released until it explodes.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens if you loosen the cap every couple seconds?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: The pressure releases each time.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And though, even though the dry ice is still releasing carbon dioxide, trying to make the bottle explode, it never will, because you keep letting the pressure go in small bits.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually the dry ice will be gone in the bottle.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, maybe there were some moments where it looked like it was going to explode, but because you kept alleviating the pressure, it never did.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, the bottle is the same as it was before.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to have poked a hole in the bottle, the pressure never would have made the bottle explode, but the bottle would forever have a hole in it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Same with you.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: On those days where you feel like you just can't be good enough, where the negative emotions are overwhelming, so much so that you can't even stomach to get work done, where the shame is building and building and building.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You need methods of relieving the pressure without damaging yourself.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, not magic pills, I mean practical, implementable tools tuned to you.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Specific songs, movie clips, meditations, gratitude practices, people in your life, a bench that you sit on, a place where you watch the sunrise or the sunset, a time that you go to bed, a certain shirt that makes you look good, or a shoulder rub from your partner, etc.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: These are just a couple examples.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But when you have a clear list of tools that you can use that allow you to release small amounts of pressure, regardless of your situation or energy level, you can cycle through them until the pressure or shame or guilt is gone without exploding from it, and without damaging yourself, for example, by drinking too much alcohol in order to handle an emotion and then having a hangover in the morning.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly, as you use these positive coping mechanisms and they become more and more tuned to you, as you become more consistent in implementing them, you will find that those days where you just couldn't bring yourself to do anything, because you didn't feel like you were living up to the world around you, will become fewer and further apart.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when they do, they'll be different.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not only different, those low moments will actually become a source of pride for you.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: You will start to recognize them as opportunities.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You'll watch your mind say, Wow, I feel like garbage right now.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: What an opportunity.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll think, what the fuck?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: My mind used to tear me apart in these moments.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this from personal experience.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the reason that this is on my mind is that I had one of these days yesterday.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I woke up and looked in the mirror and just felt horrible, to be honest.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I wasn't living up to my potential, that what I was doing wasn't perfect, that I should just throw in the towel for the day and watch YouTube like I would do in the seventh grade.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me a moment to collect myself, to realize that I wasn't going to have the perfect day because of the emotional state that I was in in that moment.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: But instead of blowing up from the self-induced shame, I went to my list.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I started with something that required no energy.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I sat on my meditation mat.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't meditate, I just sat there, but in a place that wasn't my bed.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly I found a bit of momentum, a bit of relief from the emotion.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I turned on a guided meditation.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Still a low energy coping mechanism for me because it does not require much active energy.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: More momentum.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Next tool.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I put my hand on my heart and recited a mantra that I have been repeating for years.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Easy choices, hard life, hard choices, easy life.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: More momentum.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I went through a list of watching my thoughts to see what was coming up, the emotions attached to those thoughts, and which of those thoughts was actually real and true in this moment.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It allowed me to let go of some of the self-shaming ones that were clearly just my mind making things up.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: More momentum.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Before I knew it, I expressed gratitude to someone I loved.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: More momentum.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Before I knew it, I was going hard in the gym.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: More momentum.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote a letter to another person that I love.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: More momentum.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I talked to someone I love on the phone.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: More momentum.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I went to bed at an early time.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: More momentum.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I feel fucking fantastic.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that I woke up feeling horrible yesterday gave me an opportunity to act in a way that would make me feel great and proud going forward.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you might look at this and go, that's nice, but I don't have time for that.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't sound like you were very productive.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But in between implementing these tools, I was starting to get my work done again.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of the day, I was productive again.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So sure, I didn't have like a 12-hour productive shift.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I did get work done without ever letting the negative emotions push me to engage in self-sabotaging behaviors.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of turning this into a weeklong slump, or more, I know you've had months where this has happened to you, don't lie to me.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was a couple hours in the morning where I wasn't my normal self.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is the power of implementing a multifaceted personal development system, is that it supports you to create greater levels of fulfillment and purpose in your life by using a holistic approach all about becoming more aware of and changing your lifestyle, so that it supports you to take actions more consistently in alignment with the person that you would be most proud of.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And look, I get it, this can sound overwhelming to do for yourself.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if all this sounds like I'm speaking directly to you, use the link in the podcast description.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you have a wonderful day.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.