The Perfectionism Prison

[00:00:01] Today we're diving into the perfectionism prison. [00:00:08] This is a beautiful journey of self compassion. To clear away all the things that have held you back from sharing your gifts, your work, your sacred blessing for the world. [00:00:22] All the things that have stopped you being your full self, that have inhibited you and held you back. We're going to start clearing it all out, gently, calmly healing and releasing. [00:00:37] Because you have something inside of you that needs to be shared. [00:00:43] A gift, a message, a way of helping people that only you can offer. [00:00:56] You've known it for years, maybe decades. [00:01:00] You see it sometimes clearly, that vision that you could create the business, the program, the book, the retreat, the work that would light you up and help people and give you the freedom that you've been dreaming about. [00:01:22] I know you want to wake up excited. You want to live somewhere beautiful. [00:01:27] You want financial freedom. [00:01:30] You want to do work that matters, work that aligns with your soul. [00:01:36] Work that feels like your dharma, your purpose for being here. The reason you came down onto this planet. [00:01:46] You know what you're supposed to be doing. [00:01:50] But here's what's actually happening. [00:01:56] You're not doing that work. [00:02:00] Maybe you start and then you stop. [00:02:03] You get part the way there and then you abandon it. [00:02:09] You think about it all the time, but really never finish. [00:02:13] Or you don't even start at all because you don't feel ready yet. It's not ready. You're not ready. I'm not ready. There's always some reason why it's not quite happening, why you haven't quite reached there yet. [00:02:29] And maybe you look at what you've created or tried to create and you think it's just not good enough. It's not polished enough. I'm not polished enough. I don't have myself together enough. My life is a mess. I made a mistake. [00:02:45] I need to do more work on myself first. [00:02:49] I need more qualifications. I need another course. I need to buy a book. Let me do some research. [00:02:56] Let me talk to AI. [00:02:59] More training, more clarity, more something. [00:03:02] Who am I to do this anyway? Really? Does anyone even going to listen to me? [00:03:08] And then you go on social media and you scroll through and you see all these other people, these coaches with their perfect websites and their perfect Instagram feeds, and authors with massive followings and New York Times best selling books and TED talks and you think they have it all figured out. They're so polished, so professional, so ready. [00:03:33] And I'm not. [00:03:35] What's the point? [00:03:37] There's already so much content out there, so many people are already doing what I want to do better than I could do it, so why should I even bother? [00:03:49] What difference could I really make compared to them? What's the point? [00:03:53] And so you tell yourself that you'll start when you're more ready, when you have your own stuff figured out, when you feel more confident, when the timing is better because you've got other stuff to do, another course, another thing. [00:04:08] When you have more money, then it will be fine. More time, more energy, more clarity. [00:04:14] Maybe next month, maybe next year. [00:04:17] Maybe when things calm down a little bit more. [00:04:21] Maybe when I finish just this one more little thing because I got this other project going on. [00:04:28] But then next month comes and you're still not ready. Next year comes and you still haven't really started. Or maybe you started then. Then you stopped. [00:04:40] And in the meanwhile, there's this feeling growing inside you. A sadness, a frustration, a sense that time is passing, the months are passing by, and you're still not really doing what you came here to do. [00:04:58] And then you watch other people, people who seem less qualified than you, less experienced, less spiritual. You know that they're not the real deal. [00:05:07] And they're out there doing it. They're building a business, they're helping people, they're getting more followers. They're living the life you want. [00:05:15] And you're still preparing, still perfecting, still waiting. [00:05:20] What is wrong with me? [00:05:23] You have the projects. You've got the notes from your courses. They're sitting on your computer. You've got it written down. You've worked on it for months. You've studied. You've lit your candle, done the meditations. You've listened to it more than once, maybe years. All this has been going on, but it's never really finished. [00:05:44] You've got emails written but never sent. You got programs that you've designed, or you've thought about books that you've maybe started but never published or published badly. And it's just not happening because something is always not quite right. You need to tweak this, adjust that, make it just a little bit better, make it perfect, study a bit more, do a bit more research. [00:06:08] But it never feels good enough. Isn't this exhausting? [00:06:12] And no matter how much you improve it, no matter how much you do, there's always something else. And then another month goes by, another edit, another revision, another reason to wait. And deep down, you know what's going on. [00:06:27] You're scared. [00:06:29] You're scared of being judged, scared of failing, scared of being exposed as not good enough, Scared of what people will think your Family, friends, people online. [00:06:44] What if they criticize me? What if they don't like it? What if I disappoint them? What if I'm not actually as good as I think I am? [00:06:54] What if I embarrass myself? What if nobody cares? What if I put myself out there and nothing happens? [00:07:04] So you protect yourself by not finishing, by not starting, by staying in preparation mode forever. [00:07:14] Another book. That's what you need. [00:07:17] One more course, one more tweak. I just need to feel a little bit better. I need to get in the zone. That's it. I need to be in the flow state. [00:07:26] Once I'm in the zone, once I'm feeling good, then it's all going to come through. [00:07:31] And you tell yourself, because you care about quality, I want to get it right. I've got high standards. I want to do this right. [00:07:40] But really, you're trapped. [00:07:46] And just so you know, I'm not saying this to you. I'm talking to myself. [00:07:51] We're terrified of what will actually happen if we finally share the work that we've wholeheartedly put out there into this big, bad world with all this crazy stuff and all these people. [00:08:07] We're trapped in a prison. [00:08:10] Trapped in a prison of your own mind. [00:08:15] A prison where the walls are built from perfectionism and fear and not good enough and not ready enough. And with each passing month, each passing year, each passing day, the walls get thicker and the gap between who you are and who you could be gets wider. [00:08:40] And you look at your life and you think, this isn't what I wanted. [00:08:47] I didn't sign up for this. [00:08:50] This isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. Why am I still in this job? Why do I have to put up with all this stuff? I'm supposed to be helping people. I'm supposed to be creating. I'm supposed to be enjoying every single day in my life. I'm supposed to be living my purpose. [00:09:05] And the distance between your current life and the life you're meant to live gets further and further away. [00:09:14] And that feeling inside, that deep sadness about what you haven't started and what you haven't created and what you haven't become keeps getting heavier and heavier. [00:09:26] And if this sounds like you, and if you've been nodding your head listening to this, I want you to know it's not your fault. And you're in exactly the right place. And it's time to get excited. It's time to get excited. We have to go through a little bit stress to come out the other. [00:09:45] So before you can break free, the first thing we need to do is to really see what staying stuck has cost us. [00:09:55] And I'm sorry you had to listen to all that. But unless we really understand what we're dealing with, another month, another year is going to go by and nothing will change. And I don't want that to happen to you or to me or to anyone else. [00:10:11] So we need to really feel the pain of being stuck in order for us to deeply in our subconscious and in our heart to say, yes, honestly, I'm ready to do something else. As long as we can tolerate this prison, as long as we're comfortable in our little prison of perfectionism and holding back, then we're going to stay stuck. We have to say, I want to break out because you can't leave a prison that you don't know you're in or you're comfortable with. [00:10:49] So let's dive into the cost of staying stuck. And I really want you to go deep with this. This shadow work, this healing work works much better. And it really only works when you feel it deeply. [00:11:09] We can either have the long pain where we just put up with stuff for years and years, or we can have the short pain where we just go deep, face ourselves, shine a light on it, give love to it, and then we can clear it out. [00:11:25] So how long have you been locked away in this prison of perfectionism, of holding back, of thinking something's going to change and fiddling around? [00:11:34] Has it been 2 years? 5 years? 10? 20? [00:11:40] How long? [00:11:41] Count them. Really count. How long have you been stuck in this? [00:11:46] Later, later, later. When? When? When I do this, when I do this, if this, after this? [00:11:54] How many projects have you abandoned? [00:11:57] How many ideas died on your hard drive or in your notes? [00:12:05] How many times did you watch someone else, less qualified, less experienced, break free and do the very thing you wanted to do while you stayed frozen? [00:12:26] And what has living in this prison already cost you? [00:12:34] What does it cost you financially? Think about all the money you have not made because you never launched or you didn't launch fully and crack the code on it. [00:12:46] How much money have you lost? [00:12:49] You could be doing this full time by now if you'd figured it out sooner, emotionally. What about the guilt, the shame, the disappointment, the frustration? How much has that hurt you? And remember, this isn't to feel bad about yourself. This is to liberate yourself from the programs. [00:13:12] So what does it cost you financially? What does it cost you emotionally? [00:13:21] The inhibitions? [00:13:23] I'll just tell you for myself, for Example, not fully living my dharma. Not posting has cost me to feel inhibited, stuck, trapped. Not my full self, not my full joy. [00:13:39] Not like there was a period where I wasn't waking up in the morning, excited to get up. Now I'm excited to get out of bed. I wake up super early. I'm on a mission. I love it, love it, love it. Got so much energy. Hardly need to sleep. [00:13:52] But when I wasn't, I didn't want to get up. I had no reason. I slept in. I was up, down. Everything felt like it was crushing me, Right? What has this cost you emotionally to stay stuck in this state? [00:14:09] And what about your relationships, your family, your friends watching you, stressed out and stuck instead of lit up and free? [00:14:16] And your health? [00:14:18] How is the exhaustion, the anxiety, the depression from years of waiting? [00:14:23] What has happened? [00:14:27] What does it cost you already in your life? [00:14:32] If you want to pause this and really feel it and write it down, you can. [00:14:41] I know for myself, this has cost me millions of dollars. Not that money is the main thing. Money's not the main thing for me, but still, millions of dollars is millions of dollars. I could give it to charity. I could serve people. [00:14:54] It's cost me an enormous amount of stress emotionally. [00:14:59] I haven't been the best I could for other people. [00:15:02] And I've. I've been stressed out. That's the truth of it. Because of perfectionism, because of this prison. [00:15:12] Now, when you're ready, here's the harder question. [00:15:16] Where will you be in five more years if nothing changes? [00:15:22] If you stay stuck spinning your wheels, thinking about later, later, later? Where are you going to be in five years? [00:15:29] What will happen if you're still preparing, still perfecting, still waiting for the perfect time? And this happens, and that happens. [00:15:37] Where are you going to be in five years? [00:15:51] And here's the hardest question of all. [00:15:54] What if you don't have five more years? [00:16:01] I had a friend who I'll share about later, who died suddenly. I spoke to him the day he died, and that was it. [00:16:14] What if we don't have five more years? We don't know the day of our own death? What if you reach the end of your life, realize you never shared your gift, never helped all the people who desperately need what you have to share? And I want you to know you definitely have something that people need or you wouldn't be here. [00:16:40] Everything that has been said has been said before in some way, but they need to hear it from you, because you will resonate with people in a different way than anyone else. [00:16:52] You have something that literally only you can share in the way that you can through your experience. [00:17:02] And people need to hear from you. You are a healing energy in the world. [00:17:13] But what happens if you never share it and you die with your song still inside you? [00:17:22] Because this is what the perfectionism prism does to all of us. It tries to protect us. It steals from us. [00:17:30] And while you're perfecting that program or taking notes, someone is suffering in the exact problem that you can solve. [00:17:40] Your perfectionism doesn't just imprison you personally, it deprives them. [00:17:47] It stops you from sharing your gift, sharing your love. [00:17:52] And it's only when you share your gifts that you will heal and become the highest version of yourself. [00:18:02] I want you to really understand this. Only through sharing with others can we heal your own personal growth. Your own freedom comes in the sharing, the imperfect sharing from your heart. [00:18:19] Here's the choice. [00:18:22] There is nothing we can do about the past, but we can choose a new path for ourselves. Today. [00:18:33] Today is the day. [00:18:40] And we can open our hearts to all the blessings that life can offer us. [00:18:46] And so before we go any further, I want you to do something with me right now. [00:18:52] Take a deep breath. Again. Place your hand on your heart. And just feel your heart beating there. Your heart has been serving you since you were born. It's looking after you. It's a beautiful thing just to feel your heartbeat. [00:19:07] And again, just feel the weight of everything you've been carrying. All those unfinished projects, all that preparing and thinking and taking courses and doing the research and imagining things in your mind and perfecting them and having ideas and then not doing them or starting and all that stuff. Just feel the heaviness of it. [00:19:29] All that fear of judgment, of not being good enough, of failing. And what are people going to think? [00:19:35] Just feel how heavy, how heavy all of that has been, how exhausting. [00:19:43] And just send yourself so much love and compassion, so much love and kindness. [00:20:10] And I want you to really love yourself for being here, for facing this perfectionism prison, for being willing to see what it's cost you. Because it takes a lot of effort to actually see and feel the pain of being stuck. [00:20:35] And to even be aware that there is this prison that you've been living in. [00:20:40] Because most people don't know there are all these things happening. We're stuck in invisible jails. And now you know that it's there. [00:20:49] You've seen and felt the pain. [00:20:52] This allows you on a deeper level to give yourself permission to break free. [00:21:00] This is true self compassion. [00:21:04] This isn't about fixing yourself by working harder, by pushing harder, by doing another course. [00:21:11] It's just by showing up and feeling and noticing, seeing yourself clearly with all the fear, with all the stuckness, with all your humanity and choosing kindness and love. Anyway. [00:21:27] Ah. So let's just take one more beautiful deep breath with your hand on your heart. And this is where the healing goes even deeper. Not with forcing, but with that love and gentleness. [00:21:40] Yesterday you said, I'm ready, I'm ready to change. I'm willing to change. [00:21:46] Now whisper softly in your heart, I choose freedom. [00:21:56] Just speak to yourself, in your mind, in your heart. I am choosing freedom. [00:22:03] I am choosing freedom. [00:22:08] I choose freedom to completely break free from this prison. [00:22:16] I don't need to be trapped in perfectionism, holding back, being stuck any longer. [00:22:33] Feel that truth in your body. [00:22:39] That's your soul remembering who you are. [00:22:46] And I want you to know I see you, I'm with you. [00:22:52] I know this is a tender experience to really break free from this. This has been going on a long, long time and it's going to still happen a little bit along the way, and that's perfectly fine. [00:23:12] We're going to keep going. One day, one breath, one imperfect act, one imperfect practice at a time. [00:23:19] Gently, gently. [00:23:22] And so today, what I'd love you to do is just keep reminding yourself, I am choosing freedom. [00:23:30] Just be aware of the prison. Be aware of the patterns. You don't have to do anything else. Just be aware of what's going on inside of you and keep reminding yourself that I choose freedom. [00:23:46] Just the awareness of how much it's caused you pain and how stuck you've been and how dangerous this has been for you in your future. [00:23:58] Just knowing this is healing. Just sending love to yourself is healing. Just saying I choose freedom is opening the doors to more and more freedom. [00:24:13] I'll talk to you tomorrow in the next session. Thank you so much for being here, for sharing your gift, for being willing to go deep. [00:24:23] Talk to you soon.