Breathwork for Perfectionism

Do you find yourself... 

• Setting unrealistic standards for yourself
• Experiencing anxiety or uncertainty about your skills
• Overreacting when you don’t meet your people's standards
• Experiencing excessive distress, self-criticism, or self-doubt
• Taking everything personally

I feel you. Let's explore perfectionism through words and/or breath!

• 0:00 - 17:17: Types of perfectionism and 10 Perspective Shifts to Help based on "The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control" by Katherine Morgan Schafler
• 17:17 - 20:41: Introduction to the 3-part breath
• 20:41 - 51:23: Grounding nasal breathing, 15 minutes of guided 3-part breath and a special poem based on the theme

Transcript

Exploring Perfectionism Through Words and Breath

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, welcome to Breath Word episode six, where we are exploring perfectionism through words and breath. This will include 10 mindset shifts that recovering perfectionists can use to help them in their day to day. So, just to get started, I wanted to ground us in this quote that I really liked from the book that I will be discussing you don't heal by changing who you are. You heal by learning how to be yourself in the world. I just want to take a second before we jump into the content, to close your eyes really quick. Let's do a little bit of a grounding meditation, gently breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth. In through your nose and out through your mouth, showing up however you are, in, whatever state you're in, because that's absolutely perfect. One more breath in and out. Okay, let's jump in. So the theme came about because of the last new moon in Virgo, which inspired me. Virgo is all about precision, order and perfectionism, and I realized that a lot of people are perfectionists in some way or another, myself included, despite being kind of a messy person in certain areas of my life. So I decided to read the book the Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, which I would definitely recommend if you find yourself getting hung up on the details sometimes and beating yourself up about certain things. And one of the really interesting things in the book that I think a lot of people could resonate with are these different types of perfectionism. So there is a quiz in the book as well as online. It is by Catherine Morgan Schaffler. She is a psychotherapist and she came up with these five different types. So intense perfectionists those are the types of people that you might work with, who expect nothing but the best, and the downside is they can be kind of strict in meeting their standards and talk down to others, and then classic in meeting their standards and talk down to others. And then classic perfectionist is the friend, maybe, who is the one in charge of the road trips, allow the snacks and the plans and the directions. Very detail-oriented, very stable person, but sometimes they're rigid and it's hard for them to step outside of their routine.

Speaker 1 3:03

Parisian perfectionists are the people pleasers, but they also have a lot of empathy and are really great at understanding the power of interpersonal connection. Procrastinator perfectionists excel at preparing a lot for things, but that can also make them unable to actually move forward past the preparation. And then there's a messy perfectionist. So they have a million different ideas all the time, but they get so overwhelmed by them that it's also hard for them to make progress because their energy is spread too thin. And when I took the quiz, I scored as mostly messy perfectionists no surprise there as well as procrastinator and a little bit of Parisian.

Speaker 1 3:52

So everybody has probably a mix of the different types of perfectionists that they are, and it helps you to identify what your strengths and weaknesses are. What mine looks like personally is obsessing over certain things, especially the things that people can see, and then allowing that complete mess in the corner that I never bothered to. I mean, I did deal with this it's not in my car, but that little mess in the corner having mean tons of ideas and it's really hard for me to pick one and then also beating myself up all the time that I am not doing enough, even though I'm trying a million things. And there can definitely be great parts of perfectionism, like I was saying about the friend who is really detail-oriented and can plan the perfect trip. But when you're thinking about your perfectionism, we want to think about how it's showing up adaptively and then the maladaptive part. So the adaptive parts are the good aspects or the beneficial aspects in our lives. So setting high goals and standards, working hard to achieve those goals, being satisfied with performance and then maladaptive is when you allow those things to cause dissatisfaction or feeling down because you set unrealistic standards and then that causes anxiety and uncertainty about your skills, really questioning yourself and experiencing distress, self-criticism and self-doubt. And so these are the 10 perspectives for highest impact shifts for perfectionists to focus on. So 10 mind shift 10 mind shifts that I wanted to share from the book. Like I said, there's a lot of great parts of the book, but I thought that these could help really anyone, whether you identify as a perfectionist or not.

Speaker 1 5:53

Number one counterfactual thinking is a cognitive reflex, so it's completely normal for us to think about after an event has happened, whether it was positive or negative, for example, having a car accident. You could say I walked away unhurt or you could say I could have died and focus on that. So a good example that they had in the book was this contrast effects and counterfactual thinking, where a lot of times actually the silver medalist is the one who feels the worst, even though they did podium, they did beat out a ton of people, they excelled, but the obviously the first place person is excited that they got. They did the best and then the bronze medalist is just excited that they got on the podium. So the thing to remember here is that how you can track meaning around what happened is really up to you. You can't be your best at all times and so it's all about how you're framing what happened and you have control over that.

Speaker 1 7:01

Number two support comes in every color. Number two support comes in every color. So this is a pretty obvious one. But the big thing here is that support doesn't just add up, it compounds, it multiplies when it's layered on top of each other. So you know, you shouldn't be embarrassed to ask for different types of support to hire a cleaning person, because that's really helpful for you, while having a therapist and reaching out to your friends and having your community All of it really compounds and makes a big difference. Number three maintenance is a triumph.

Speaker 1 7:38

So it talks about the five stage model of change. So it talks about the five stage model of change, which is pre contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and then maintenance. And so often we don't really focus on the maintenance part and we think that we can just coast along when really you want to be celebrating those old goals that you've achieved and that you're keeping up, and so a lot of times we ask ourselves am I doing enough? And the thing to remember here is that it's not always about the new goals that you're setting, but also those old goals that you continue to do, which is a total win. Number four swap better or worse for different Another one that we know, but it's a great reminder, especially when it comes to comparing yourself to others, which is a waste of energy, and the book uses this little analogy of comparing something like I put Myrtle Beach, because that's where my family vacations when we were little. And if you were to compare Myrtle Beach to Paris, most people would say that Paris is better, but my memories of Myrtle Beach were wonderful and it doesn't make Paris is not necessarily better than Myrtle Beach, it's just different, and that's how we all are too. So reminders from the book is keeping your world small as a protective mechanism enacted by the part of you that does not understand that when you're connected to your inherent worth, it is built in protection. What hurts me more than feeling is not being my full self.

Speaker 1 9:28

Number five happiness is experienced in three stages, and so is stress. So those three stages are anticipation, the event and recall. So an event like a first date can end up having a huge impact on us because of not just the event but also the anticipation and the recall afterwards, and you can either experience anticipatory joy or anticipatory pain, which impacts your memory, planning and, obviously, anxiety about the event. So the thing to remember here is that we are capable of minimizing negative events and prolonging joyful events by shifting how we are thinking about something when we're anticipating it and then also controlling, maybe just recalling more of the great experiences and less of the negative ones. Number six a feather weighed more weighs a lot. So this really just means that change is incremental. Healing is often minute and silent, most often happens without a witness besides yourself, which is so true and a great reminder. And a lot of times for perfectionists there's this tendency to be radical or extreme, to try to go hard and fast and look for those things that are big and bold and sexy, and a lot of times that powerful change, even though it's boring and unceremonious, is so effective, these incremental changes. And so the thing to remember here is that subtlety is powerful and there's no shortcut, but doing the work is the one shortcut.

Speaker 1 11:23

Number seven the difference between a challenge and a struggle is connection. So this also seems like it is very obvious, but I love the framing of it and the reminder that connection is what builds energy. So you could be going through a hard time, but the support system that you have around you and all the relationships in your life can either make it feel really painful or something that you know might be tough, but you're going to come out the other side stronger. So something to remember here is that being isolated is never healthy and isolation is very different than being lonely or just being having alone time, and being isolated is more cutting yourself off from people. We don't feel safe when we're isolated. Safety requires connection, and when you're isolated you make every decision from a posture of defense and are fear-driven rather than operating from your whole, secure self. So the question here is how can we better connect to each other?

Speaker 1 12:38

Number eight simple isn't easy, and the truth that the book explains is we could dramatically change our lives if we did the simple things. But the simple things are really hard and it's worth celebrating those little things, because when we think about the small things, when we think about them as being easy, then we feel like a failure if we don't do them, or when we struggle to do them, and perfectionists really love to tackle complex and complicated things and expect the other ones just to come easily, and we don't give ourselves enough compassion when doing those simple tasks. I've seen this a lot with myself and working out, which I think I always just took for granted as something that was easy, and then when I deprioritized working out and came back to it, it felt really hard, and the truth is it's always been hard, and now that I've reframed it in that way, it does feel more rewarding when I do a workout. So just things to remember here is recognizing simple isn't easily allows you to acknowledge your strengths more, and some things that are easy for you might be harder for others, and so what do you do? So naturally, that you don't even realize is a gift, just something to think about.

Speaker 1 14:09

Number nine energy management beats time management. This was a wake up call in the book when she reminded us that we are in the post industrial revolutionrial revolution and we do have time, whether we want to admit that or not, and we just have a lot of things that we want to do also. So it really comes down to bandwidth management, and that's a little bit different than time management, and that means really preserving your energy and being smart about it. And something that I've been really working on lately is emotional regulation one of my biggest challenges, but that is definitely the way here for energy management. And patterns of numbing and avoidance is a problem for perfectionists and most people, because perfectionists are obsessed with productivity and beat themselves up about these patterns of numbing and avoidance. So true, so things to remember here. We are not on earth to complete tasks and die. Giving and receiving is what maintains energy. So allow yourself to receive, to do the fun things, because that allows you to have the energy to do the other things that you need to do. So something to consider is what energizes you without hurting you?

Speaker 1 15:38

Number 10 closure is a fantasy. Don't we all love closure, especially after you break up with somebody and you want it to just have this pretty nice little package that you can sit on the shelf. But the book reminds us that that's a fantasy. We want to think that our pain is justified, that we can catalog it away, that we're in control, and grieving is usually what we are doing when we want closure. So we need to give ourselves permission to hurt. And sometimes there's not an answer for everything. And I love the reminder that our relationships can be diametric. You can be glad to be out of relationship with someone and miss the person as well, so that could be romantic a friendship, family member. And we are all grieving something all the time because life is always changing, there's always beginnings and ends and always saying goodbye to something. So the things to remember here is it's okay for something to be fuzzy on the ever evolving experience of being human. Letting go of the idea of closure is the ultimate closure getting really comfy in that gray zone.

Speaker 1 16:55

And then I'm going to end with this quote, which we will explore more in the breath. This is a quote by John Steinbeck in East of Eden, saying and now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good. So food for thoughts. And now we will dive into the three-part breath and explore our perfectly imperfect breath. If you have done the three-part breath with me and you are familiar with it, you can use this time to make yourself cozy or skip ahead. And if you are new to the three-part breath, it is a connective breath, active connective breath that is all through the mouth. There are two inhales, one exhale the two inhales are one through the belly and one through the chest and then exhale. So it will look like this You'll bring the air inhale into the belly and then inhale into the chest and then exhale.

Speaker 1 18:08

And on this recording I am exploring and I urge you to maybe explore the inhales being like you're inhaling in through a straw and then the exhale is like you're sighing out, so you're just filling up that belly with air, then shifting the inhale up into the chest on that second inhale and then completely exhaling not forcing, just letting the air flow out and keeping that connected throughout the entire session and what this can do. We'll be doing about 15 minutes of the three-part breathing and during that time we're increasing the oxygen intake and altering our breathing pattern, which stimulates the brain and activates certain part and suppresses other parts and it releases endorphins and other neurochemicals. So it promotes a sense of calm, sometimes an emotional release, and also allows us to unlock deeper parts of our psyches, so parts of our subconscious that we are not always able to access in our day to day life. Some things that can happen physically is you might feel tingly and tightness around the mouth. Cramping in the hands is usually the big one If you are a first timer, don't worry, it might be uncomfortable while you're breathing, but it will definitely go away after.

Speaker 1 19:53

And if it becomes too uncomfortable within those 15 minutes, just take a couple nice easy inhales, exhales through your nose and mouth, but I encourage you to lean in because the discomfort will certainly go away and you could get hot or cold I typically get cold, which is why I encourage you to have a blanket or sweatshirt nearby and mentally, like I said, it allows you to shift towards some of your subconscious thoughts and have those insights that sometimes maybe you only have when you take a shower or something, and emotionally, you could laugh, you could cry or just have a nice calming sense of peace.

Speaker 1 20:37

So let's breathe, get cozy in your space, hopefully somewhere that is free from distraction. We're just going to be taking some nice gentle inhales through the nose and out through the mouth to get started, just letting that air gently flow, letting your body lay heavy against the ground wherever you are, maybe rocking your head side to side a little bit, shifting your hips, and letting your body just be heavy, relaxing your face, inhaling a little bit of gratitude for this time that you get to spend just focusing on yourself, a time for self-care, a time to tap in to what lies below the everyday thoughts, being gentle as we gear up for 15 minutes of the three-part breath. That will challenge us, but we've got it and the reward is on the other side. But for now we're allowing our mind to quiet, focusing only on the breath and letting go of anything that is bothering you from today or yesterday. Those things don't exist right now. It's simply the present, generating a little bit of heat as it flows through our body, warming us up and laying your hands by your side or on your chest and on your stomach, getting ready to move that air through our belly and into our heart space.

Discovering Perfection Through Breath

Speaker 1 23:32

Now we'll begin the three part breath apart breath Belly chest, release Belly chest. Exhale Belly chest.

Speaker 1 24:15

Let it go, belly chest release belly chest exhale maybe taking those inhales like you're sucking through a straw or open mouth, whatever feels best. Chest exhale, moving that air, cycling it into the belly, up into the heart, letting it go, belly chest ribs, picturing it flowing like an infinity sign through your body, letting go of any right or any wrong. Whatever you're doing is perfect. Chest release, belly chest release, belly chest release, inhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, inhale. Let it go In in surrender, keeping up this pace, letting any resistance come up, knowing you're bigger than it. Chest exhale, belly heart release. You're doing so good. This song is called golden, just like you. It's called golden just like you. Belly chest release, belly heart, let it out. Getting curious what would happen? Just keep going With each exhale, letting go of something that's been bothering you, letting it flow, making space in your belly, making room in your heart, In, in out, in, in, out, in, in out.

Speaker 4 29:34

Ow, yeah, yeah, this one's for you, baby. Ow, I put my trust inside of you. Concussion perfection when it's standing right in my view. I'm not the one who's out here dealing in twos. I swear that something's got me feeling that I feel it with you. I put my trust inside of you. Can't catch your perfection when it's standing right in my view. I'm not the one who's out here dealing in twos. I swear that something's got me feeling that I feel it with you. Belly Chest Rib Quicker piece of a song Nice. Steady breath Quicker piece of a song Nice that he writes, though You've got it A little bit more room for love.

Speaker 4 30:54

Letting go of that fear, trusting yourself, trusting the breath. I'm not the one who's out here dealing in tools. I swear that something's got me feeling that I feel it with you. Alright, how could I describe you?

Speaker 3 31:22

Let me count the ways. It's impossible to sum it up, I can't calculate. I would buy the world for you if it would make you smile today, cause I don't mind investing in my blessings, I think I should pray. I've been down to see you smile. I could take my frown away. I've been around and you've stayed down. So I think I Bend Chest, bend, bend, quiet, let it go. Bend, bend, bend. That when you wait for on the radio all day till it's on, and then the pain, now that stress built up from your day is gone, I pray this message finds you well, until I'm back in your arms, just pray this back when you feel like I've been away for too long. I'm gone. Yeah, I put my trust inside of you, can't question perfection when it's standing right, in my view.

Speaker 4 32:12

I'm not the one who's out here dealing in twos. I swear that something's got me feeling that I feel it with you. We're going to take a few more breaths until we transition.

Speaker 1 32:36

Catching the beat In and out. Belly chest, release In and exhale, losing yourself a little in the rhythm. This song is called Lovely Day. We're making space for everything lovely. I know it's hard, I know you're probably feeling the sensations.

Speaker 2 33:54

But just lean in you can do it.

Speaker 1 34:25

Ride the wave. No one's told you recently You're really great, keep it up. Last couple breaths Before we enter the final song. Let's see if we can lean into the breath a little bit deeper, a little bit fuller on. This final song of the three-part breath can do is gonna bring me down bang on that drum.

Speaker 5 35:34

This is me proclaiming my throne. I finally figured that I too am beautiful. I'm perfectly perfect. Anything is possible, cause I know I'm worth it. A warrior invincible Any mountain I'm moving, I can do all things, just rise above it all. I'm perfectly perfect. I know I'm worth it. I'm perfectly perfect. Beauty is a thing that is natural, and all my imperfections are wonderful. That is natural, and all my imperfections are wonderful. And under it all there's a power you can't see. This warrior loves every quality in me. I'm perfectly perfect. Every quality, any mountain, mountain I'm moving Perfectly perfect. I'm perfectly perfect. I know I'm worth it. I can do all things. I'm perfectly perfect. I know I'm worth it. I'm perfectly perfect. Everything is possible. I know I'm worth it.

Speaker 1 38:08

Last few breaths of the three-part breath. Keep going to the end. I can do all things, but I'm still part of it all Going to the end. 5, 4, 2, 1. Transitioning to your nasal, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Speaker 2 38:39

you made it. I'm going to take a deep breath, thank you, so no-transcript.

Speaker 1 43:37

The summer sun softens into an autumn glow. As a warm breeze gently brushes your skin, the air begins to dance across your face and whispers. Hello, my friend, I am the wind. You feel the wind shift softly through your fingers as it invites you to release and to let go. With palms lifted up towards the open sky, you allow something greater to take control.

Speaker 1 44:11

You worry that you're not perfect. It says. But what if I told you perfect isn't real? Being your full, authentic self is the only way to truly live and heal. For as long as the sun has warmed the earth, I've carried the words of countless souls and never have I heard a message that's exactly like yours and yours alone.

Speaker 1 44:43

The warm wind swirls lightly all around. I've carried bits of sand, but never stones. Your plate is full and heavy. Right now, let me and your loved ones lighten your load. Just like the birds who preen each other's feathers, Giving and receiving feeds your inner flame. They anchor you and steady you amid the constant winds of endless change.

Speaker 1 45:16

The wind's voice fades and then you hear laughter, a sweet sound that you know dearly. It's coming from someone who you love, and in your mind's eye you see them clearly. Their smile brings you warmth and safety. Their laughter, an anticipated surprise. Sure, others might see them as flawed, but to you they're perfect in your eyes. Flawed, but to you they're perfect in your eyes.

Speaker 1 45:47

The laughter softly fades away. In its place, a new sound begins to gently rise. The familiar rhythm lifts your spirit and each chord makes you feel alive. It's an expression from someone you've never met yet. It feels like they know just what you need, much like all imperfectly perfect art that fills our souls and lets us feel seen. The wind now asks you to give up those old ideas of how you should be. I will scatter them across the forest, it says, and feed them to the sand and sea. You are whole as you are, it whispers. Go forth without the woods and shoulds, and now that you don't have to be perfect, you can simply be good. Thank you. Continue to lay back and enjoy this last song and take it easy on yourself no-transcript.