Ep.65 Perfectionism is Just Anxiety | Calm Your Nervous System with Hypnosis

If you wake up every morning already knowing how the day is going to go, bracing for the same feelings, the same version of you, the same feeling as the day before, this episode is for you. You haven't run out of options. You've run out of permission slips. And that's exactly what we're talking about today.

EPISODE SUMMARY: What if the thing keeping your anxiety alive isn't your schedule, your relationships, or your past — it's the version of perfect you've been quietly chasing since someone else decided what that meant?

In this episode, Sari shares what an unexpected movie day with her daughter  taught her about optimism, worthiness, and how deeply we shrink ourselves to fit into someone else's idea of who we're supposed to be.

She gets real about waking up as the anxious version of herself: the one who started bracing for the next panic attack before her feet even hit the floor. She talks about what it looks like to break that pattern, not with a 10-step routine, but with 1% of willingness to do something different.

If your anxiety is wrapped up in perfectionism, needing approval, or a quiet belief that the way you are just isn't quite right.... this one will open something up for you.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

• Why waking up expecting the same day keeps you locked in anxious patterns
• How perfectionism and anxiety are more connected than you think
• What your need for control is actually trying to protect you from
• Why your uniqueness isn't the problem, it might be the exact thing that sets you free
• Whose rules of "perfect" you've actually been following (and where they really came from)
• The 1% shift that can start changing everything — starting tomorrow morning

TIMESTAMPS: 

00:02 — Sari opens: being human and using her tools every single day 

01:27 — Letting her youngest take a mental health day; the STAAR test; being in her luteal phase 

03:54 — The UglyDolls movie story begins; why she said no to it years ago 

06:19 — Waking up expecting the same anxious day; bracing for panic attacks before getting out of bed 

07:18 — The optimist UglyDoll character; being a pessimist from anxiety and stagnation 

09:20 — Judging by the outer layer; how control showed up in a simple parenting moment 

11:57 — Reflection: how did you wake up this morning? 

12:48 — You get to decide right now; shaking up your morning 

15:16 — Are you willing to stand up and do something different? 

15:26 — Worthiness of a new experience; the perfect doll vs. the ugly doll 

17:50 — How anxiety shows up when you feel like you don't fit in; birthday suit metaphor 

19:54 — Stop being ashamed of how you look 

20:13 — Question what perfect even means 

20:18 — Changing your idea of perfect = a permission slip to be yourself 

21:43 — The insecurities behind the people who built these standards 

22:15 — Finding real freedom by letting go of what other people think 

23:51 — How perfectionism kills your ability to have fun; the painting class story 

25:15 — Your uniqueness is what makes you shine

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

• Where in your life are you waking up expecting the same thing — and quietly believing you're not worthy of something different?
• Whose definition of perfect have you been carrying around that was never yours to begin with?
• What would it look like to give yourself a 1% permission slip today?

5 Minute Nervous System Reset

And if today's episode hit and you just need something that helps right now, grab the free 5-Minute Nervous System Reset. [https://thegrowthgoddess.net/free-meditation]

You're not broken. 
You're not behind. 
And you're not alone. 
If you made it here, that means something.

5 minute nervous system reset ad for midroll

Transcript

0:02

Hello, everyone. Welcome back. Um, first off, I just want to say while I am recording this episode, I just want to first and foremost let everybody know here that I am a human. And I, while I sit here and I have all of these tools, I also know what it feels like to have a human experience. And it truly is about using the tools that I've gained, that I have learned every day to bring myself back to my greatness, my power, my possibility. Because if I didn't use those tools every day, I wouldn't be here. I'd still be suffering immensely in my own anxiety. God knows where I would be. And while today I was struggling to find inspiration as to what I wanted to share today, and this happens a lot, I really have to open myself and trust that the right thing is going to show up for me to share with you. And it definitely happened today. And I just kind of want to share about that a little bit. So I let my daughter, my youngest, who is about to be 10, play hooky today from school. And I've let her do this. Well, both of my girls do this a few times. And I call it, we're taking a mental health day, because sometimes we just need that, right? Even as adults, we need that. Kids need that. Like there's a huge, um, if you live in Texas, there's a huge standardized test that the kids have to take called the star test. And, you know, my oldest has no problem the way her mind thinks. Um, she does great. And my youngest, she just has a very creative mind and is not a standard child, um, doesn't fit in the standard world. And so that test is kind of hard for her. And um, that's all they've been focusing on kind of at the end of the year. And so I was like, okay, you know what? Yeah, I'm gonna let you miss. Um, and I'm also very close to my moon cycle, and I'm in my lodial phase, and I'm just kind of blasé a little bit and not super inspired. And so I was struggling to record this week. But, you know, one of my intentions every day is to be surprised and delighted by what the universe has in store for me and be open to it to really open that door. And it happened today. And it's pretty funny how it happened. So one of the deals was I told my daughter, I was like, okay, you can't just sit and fry in front of the TV all day. Like, we can watch a couple movies. Um, and so there's this one movie that I think a few years back, she had asked if she could watch, and I said no. And the movie is called Ugly Dolls. And I can even remember the version of myself that was present at that time when I heard Ugly Dolls. And I think even when she was watching it at the time, I'd walked into the room and it was um the characters shaming and just being really mean, like the the cool girls at school. And I was just like, no, you're not fucking watching this. You know, I feel like so much of our television and things of that nature, what our kids are watching, like this is supplemental programming. And so at the time I was like, you're watching a show called Ugly Dolls. And here these characters are being so fucking mean. Like, no, I don't want to condone that behavior. Um, and so she's like, Mom, do you remember when you wouldn't let me watch this? She's like, Do you think you could let me watch it now? And I was like, Okay, we'll play the trailer. And the movie actually has a really amazing message. So I was like, Okay, let's watch it. And the first scene of the movie is these ugly dolls, and they're like made kind of in the factory, like imperfectly. And so they get thrown to like this other conveyor belt, and they go into this little area town that they call Ugglyville. But everybody in Uglyville is really fucking happy. And the main character, she is waking up, and she is super excited about the day, about like what could happen. And she wakes up every day, like, what could happen today? And you think of like these characters are stuck being the ugly ones, the ones that were rejected, and all of these things, and they're still like choosing to live amazingly. And so it kind of got me thinking of how we wake up every single day, kind of in the same thought process and the same behaviors, right? Like, how many times do we wake up on the same side of the bed with the same alarm? We get up, maybe we go to the bathroom, maybe we take a shower, maybe we go make some coffee, maybe we get our kids up. And, you know, I definitely like get up zombie fired up, wake up my kids and start the day. But one of the first things that I do is really, like I said, opening up to the surprise and delight of the day. But the old me who was really stuck in my anxiousness, you know, I would wake up actually preparing for a panic attack and preparing it for it, whether it was right that second, the minute that I woke up, woke up, or an hour later on the drive to work, or even later throughout the day, and like how many days I woke up expecting things to be the same. And the amount of anxiety that that itself causes to wake up and to literally not expect anything to be different. To expect to have the same fight with your partner, perhaps, to have the same conversations with your clients, with the people around you. This was a world that I was living in. I was like not willing to be surprised by life. And I guess if I was, I was like, okay, but like I had no expectation, but like even worse than that, low expectation that nobody changes. And what I loved about this character is she wanted to be with a child. She was an ugly doll that didn't have a child, and she wanted so bad to be with a child. And she woke up every day being the optimist instead of the pessimist. And I would love for you to even just reflect in this moment where you might be the pessimist versus the optimist in your life and being the peps pessimist because of anxiousness or because of stagnation, or because you're just used to getting up and doing the same thing every day. And it feels like groundhog day because maybe we don't feel worthy of more, maybe we don't even know that. But I just I it's so crazy to think that the version of me a couple years ago that probably told her she couldn't watch this movie. Back then, I I was actually the pessimist because I was looking at it, glass half empty. Like this is bad versus, oh, I actually don't know fully. I'm just creating an opinion based off this like little minute blurb that I saw and the title. And by watching it today, it opened me up to even be inspired to share this podcast with you today. And so, with that, also just going back to the title and seeing this little blurb that I saw years ago, I want to also bring in where we create ideas or opinions based off the outer layer, right? It's the idea of judging a book by its cover. And a few years ago, because of, and now this was after I had kind of really healed my anxiety, but I was very much living life like, oh my, if it's not all love and joy and happiness, like don't give it to my kids because I didn't want them to be programmed in that. But that's not reality either. It's the very things that we don't desire that we need to see and experience so we can actually figure out what we do desire. And I think that sometimes we think about the downfalls or the harder times, or maybe the dark nights. And we think that we don't want to experience those, but it's those very things, the days where it's the hardest to get out of your anxiousness, to get out of your fear, to get out of your control. Control is a big one. And I think that control was actually showing up that day that I told her she couldn't watch this movie was that I was saying, I don't want you to watch this because you're gonna get some idea of how mean girls are. And I don't want you to be that version. And if you watch this, then that might get into your mind. But what I wasn't allowing her to experience, even in that moment, was for her to decide on her own, I don't actually like the way these characters are being, and I don't ever want to be that. And because I had my own control, I was blocking that very thing from being open to her. Now, granted, she's a really good kid. And even today, when I was writing some things down while we were watching the movie, and she was inspired, and she was having her own little aha moments at nine years old. And it was super beautiful that we got to experience that together. So I want to, again, really open the door for you to look at your day, even today. How did you wake up this morning? Did you wake up snoozing on your alarm a few times? Did you wake up rested? Did you wake up exhausted? Maybe you had a conversation with someone that didn't feel good before you went to bed. Maybe that was on your mind all night. Maybe you didn't sleep well at all. Maybe you were scrolling till two or three in the morning. Maybe you're binging TV. Maybe you had the best sleep ever and woke up still feeling exhausted. That was yesterday. How do you want today? And if today you've already woken up, number one, you get to decide in this moment how you want to continue your day. But how do you want to wake up tomorrow? And what if we shook things up a little bit? What if you got up on the wrong side of the bed? What if in pr instead of pressing the snooze button, you actually got up and got productive because maybe that's what felt good. Or maybe you had a slow morning because that's what felt good. Or maybe you rolled over to your partner and cuddled with them instead of snoozing for another five minutes. How could you wake up differently? How could you do your morning differently and be willing to change the way you woke up as the optimist, as the I am ready for something big to open up? Because I will tell you, the more that we wake up every day and expect the same thing and live the same way, we're never gonna experience something new. The literal, maybe not Webster's dictionary of literal, but the literal definition of insanity is doing something the exact same way and expecting a different outcome. We are the creators of our life. And I say that to give the power back into your hands instead of giving it to someone else outside of you. That the experience you want to have, while it might not be that exact experience tomorrow, it can be a step in that direction. I'm rereading a really great book called Ask and It Is Given. And they say if you just point yourself in that direction, you're going to head in it. But if you don't even know what that direction is, how are you gonna head that way? You're kind of just like the GPS system recalculating, but never having a destination. And we bitch and complain about how our life is. But what are we willing to do? What are you willing to stand up and do something different? To have a new experience. To decide that you're worthy of having a new experience today. I think that this movie also just taught so much about it was it was like you were either the perfect doll or you were the ugly doll. And the perfect dolls in this movie were the main character that was perfect was mean. It was basically kind of like the villain of the story. And this whole idea that if you're not perfect, you're not wanted, you're not loved. And what the ugly dolls were actually sharing was our uniqueness and how each of our uniqueness is actually the thing that makes us so beautiful. Who would want to live in a world of walking, talking, looking the same, robotic humans? And yet we see someone on a social media ad or a post, and they have the perfect ass or the body or the clothes, and we want to look exactly like that, right? Like it is our job to be on this earth and be unique. And this is the body that we came with. This is what we get. And someone decided that this way of being wasn't perfect, and then the messaging goes down the line and down the line and down the line, and everybody just believes it that we're not enough. That's the subliminal programming. That the way that you are, the way that God brought you into this world is not enough. And that's bullshit. We are each individually unique. We came here to look like we do. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My idea beautiful is not my husband's. My idea beautiful is not my daughter's. My idea beautiful is not my best friend's. And that's okay. There are, I'm sure, some ideas where we come together on, but that's what makes us unique. And not being that way is actually the very thing that's giving us anxiety, right? Think about how maybe you've showed up to a family dinner or an event or a school, and you weren't wearing quote unquote what other people were wearing. Maybe you were dressed down, and all of a sudden you just had this like flood of emotion of like, oh my God, I didn't know, or I'm supposed to look like this, or, but like that's anxiety. That's a piece. That is like that very thing of like, uh, I'm not fitting in in some way, versus just owning up that you showed up the way you did, right? Like we were all born in our birthday suit. Nobody expected us to not be born in our birthday suit. And so why are we holding such high expectations of how we show up and letting it be unique to you? What is your style? What is the way you see the world? What's the way you want to experience the world? What do you want to let go of? What ideas of perfection do you want to let go of that are no longer serving you, that you feel like you're under strict ideas of what that is in your life and your childhood? Believe me, and I've said this on this podcast so many times, as a dancer growing up, I thought I was supposed to have the perfect little ballerina body. And that was, and will never be my body type. And I was fighting against that for so much of my life, to the point to where one of my teachers in high school told me that I would never be in a professional company because of my body. And this woman was short and overweight. And how dare her say that to a child? I was 17 at the time. And yes, I still call that a child because we're still suggestible. And I lived so much of my 20s not knowing who I was because someone told me that I wasn't right. And I can guarantee that most of us have experienced a similar situation to that and how important it is to not be shameful of how you look, to question what is perfect. And I think that the more that we change our idea of what perfect is or perfection is, the more it gives us a permission slip to truly be ourself. And and and who came up with the rules of what perfect is? I love that question when I think about it. Who came up with the rules? What is perfect? And maybe it's not in your body, maybe it's in your work ethic, maybe it's in your job. You were born with a certain set of gifts. And to even when our in our line of work, right, where our parents maybe think that we're supposed to take over the family business or they want us to become a doctor, a lawyer, or things of this nature. But our certain set of gifts that we came into the world maybe don't fit fit that career. And can we allow ourselves the permission slip to find what those beautiful, unique set of gifts are and where they do work with us, because that's where we find the most joy in life. Not doing things because other people think we're supposed to do them, or they it's their idea that this is the right decision. And I also just want to add that people who created these paradigms, these ideas of who we're supposed to be, how we're supposed to act, what we're supposed to look like, how we're supposed to show up. The people who decided this, to me, already had the insecurities. And they're the ones who created the rules in ill will for them to have power. It came from their own insecurities, their own unworthiness, and their ego needed to be right. And that is the ugly truth. But how many people are willing to see these people that have created these very strict, rigid ways of being? And when are we going to decide that it doesn't work for us and we're willing to do something different? This is so much when I found so much of my freedom to let go of what other people thought because it was bringing me pain and suffering. And also, perfect doesn't allow you to have fun. I think about my oldest. I used to take her to painting with a twist, where they would have a certain painting of the day, and you would basically follow the teacher and do the painting. You know, they it was very, I thought it was fun. My oldest hated it. Because she had become a perfectionist. She couldn't even have fun because she needed it to be exactly like the teachers or look exactly like mine. And she would always look at mine. And granted, you know, this was when she was 10 years old, things of that nature. I'm like, it's okay if it's not perfect. That's not what this is. It's meant to be fun. And so I stopped taking her because she couldn't let herself have fun because of this idea of perfect. So where are we being perfect or holding strict perfect ideas for ourselves? And because of that, we're not allowing ourselves to have fun. Because it's not messy. Right? Think of a, there's like a well-kept home. You know, I tell anybody that comes over to my house, we live in this house, just so you know, we do our best to keep it clean. Now, that doesn't mean that it's disgusting by any means, but it also doesn't mean that it's squeaky clean 24-7 either. And my daughter comes home sometimes and she loves to like tidy up. And I tell her, I'm like, look, you know, we live in this. It's gonna get messed up in like two seconds. I just hope you know. And, you know, that's just the way that we live. I can't live constantly picking up after people because that drives me insane. And that comes from an idea that we have to have it a certain way. And I'd rather be a little bit messy and happy than squeaky clean and stuck in my perfection, but also just having stressed the fuck out of my nervous system. So remember that our uniqueness, our differences are the very thing that make us shine, are the very thing that make you drawn to someone, right? When have you ever really felt drawn to someone who has it all together like perfection? But maybe around them you feel this kind of energy that like it feels closed off or it feels snooty versus someone whose energy presents as open and loving. And maybe they don't have it all together, or maybe they do. But what makes them unique? I guarantee you their energy is going to speak way louder than words, than what they're wearing or who they think they need to be. And could you allow yourself to tap into that? Thinking of the person, maybe that you even like, I wouldn't say idolized, but somebody in your life who you think has it all together. Where are you judging that book by its cover? And if that person was willing to open up, what might be on the inside? And can we let go of perfect life ideas we have and give permission slips to ourselves? So I hope that today's episode inspired you. Because this movie inspired me. It inspired me to get on here today and to record this. And I hope that you leave today having a different experience than you had yesterday. And it's okay if that doesn't happen. You can start tomorrow again and keep waking up, trying something new every day. Even if it's just one percent different. Could you give that permission slip to yourself? And maybe on other days it'll be 5%, but start with 1% today.