3. Embracing Imperfection: Overcoming Perfectionism and Healing Naturally

In this episode of 'Becoming Sunshine,' Madeline shares her journey of personal growth, grappling with imposter syndrome, and the pursuit of perfection. She emphasizes the importance of cultivating the right mindset, embracing authenticity, and giving oneself grace through struggles. Madeline opens up about her experiences with hormonal imbalances, particularly PMDD, and the holistic approaches she's adopted for healing. She discusses her challenges with mental health, the impact of rapid weight loss on her body, and finding balance through natural interventions like acupuncture and herbal medicine. Madeline also touches on overcoming societal pressures, validating personal experiences, and the profound impact of vulnerability and service to others. Join her as she navigates life's messiness and celebrates the beauty of imperfection.


Chapter Markers
00:00 Introduction: Embracing Imperfection

01:10 Welcome to Becoming Sunshine

01:45 Struggles with Imposter Syndrome

04:31 Dealing with Hormonal Imbalances

08:28 Exploring Holistic Health Practices

14:09 The Impact of Semaglutide

20:50 Navigating Setbacks and Finding Clarity

25:13 Trusting the Journey

30:41 Conclusion and Call to Action

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All content of the Becoming Sunshine Podcast reflects my own personal opinion at the time it was spoken and may be subject to change. NOTHING I say on this channel should be taken as legal, financial, safety, health, fitness, nutrition, mental health, or investment advice. Please seek out the guidance of professionally trained and licensed individuals before making any decisions. 

Transcript

Madeline: 0:00

I'm really working on giving myself more grace and part of being a leader and leading yourself is having the right mindset, even if you don't have the right emotions and having a mindset that is going to propel you forward having the mindset that's going to move you through the difficult times, I think that is really powerful, and it's a work in progress, and it's going to take time, but, the messy and the struggle is just as important to show as, when I feel like I have it all figured out, or everything is sparkly and shiny, and I feel like I'm thriving. being authentic is gonna lead me to the right people I feel like oftentimes I want to wait to be perfect or wait for things to be perfect but if we wait for perfection the world's gonna pass us by if we wait for perfection the stuff we are talking about isn't going to be relevant anymore. It's not going to be authentic to us and It's a disservice to ourselves and to the people that we're helping. Welcome to Becoming Sunshine. For those of you that know me, you know that sunshine has been an alias of mine for almost a decade now and sunshine also is me becoming my highest self and that's what this podcast is about. I'm here to help you understand yourself better and maybe learn some more about myself along the way. Thanks so much for joining me, I'm excited. Hey guys, it's Madeline. So lately I've been struggling a lot with imposter syndrome and perfectionism. Nothing new here. it's taken me a while to record new episodes. I've been doubting myself a lot. I've been doubting that my experiences are valid enough for me to speak out about them and to have the audacity to speak out and have a voice. Silly, I know, but I think it's something that's really relatable. I feel like I follow so many other leaders and figures in the space that have these huge platforms and all these accreditations and I'm just not as polished and I don't feel qualified but I had a mentor not that long ago tell me that my experiences are absolutely enough and she's absolutely right she had some really great advice and she said all you have to be is a couple steps ahead of somebody going through something that you went through. You don't have to be the expert, you don't have to be anything. Your experiences are completely valid and you can still help someone else just by being a couple steps ahead of them and if I can pave the way for someone that's going through things that i've gone through or I can help someone feel validated or feel like they're not as alone then that's enough for me I've also recently learned that sometimes when things feel scary, it's easier to come from a place of service as opposed to a place of ego and that way, my responsibility to help others is more important than the ego stories I have around fear or other doubts or limiting beliefs. I'm going through this program right now where the first four months are really about deep transformation and one of the things that they mentioned in one of the pre course classes was that yes, there's so many spiritual leaders out there, and there's so many people in this space that we can learn from and be helped by, but there are people that can only be helped by me. There are people that can only be helped by you, and you've been called to this work for a reason, and there's already people with karmic contracts to you and the audience and the community that you build. just hearing that was so validating. So I want to say that again here to validate anyone else who's going through a similar situation or a similar internal struggle. I feel like we're always in our heads way too much and one of the things I'm really working on is to just be afraid and do it anyways, I think that's where the real courage lies I've also been struggling with my hormones lately and I feel like whenever my body is not feeling well, my mental health kind of suffers. I'm very in tune with my body and my mind body connection is very strong and I feel like that's very normal to struggle with your mental health when your body is sick, or your body is out of alignment and yet, sometimes I'm so shocked and so confused by it, and I'm just like, wait, why am I sad when my body is sick? and somehow, it still comes as a surprise. so something that's been bothering me over the last few months. I feel like I've been struggling a lot with PMDD for those of you that have never heard of it. It's premenstrual dysphoric syndrome. So dysphoric is the opposite of euphoric, you don't feel good, you feel very low, you feel depressed, you feel overwhelmed, you feel sad. I feel like a week before my period started, I would have these symptoms start and I know that. PMS has been normalized in our culture, but it definitely is not something that needs to be normal and I feel like PMDD is like extreme PMS symptoms so much so that I felt that that week before my period started would throw off my entire month and as much as it was annoying. I feel like after a certain point it was kind of unacceptable and I have a functional medicine doctor that I've talked about on the podcast and that I meet with quarterly and I mentioned these symptoms in passing and he's a very good doctor. I feel like he kind of knows me better than I know myself in a lot of ways, or he can read between the lines when I'm saying something. and he even was like, I feel like this is bothering you a little bit more than you're leading on and he was absolutely right because women deal with so much and I feel like we're conditioned to kind of just deal with things, which I'm working on and I think we're working on as a collective right now, but having our whole month thrown off because of our hormones and because of one week of like extreme mood swings and sadness and disassociation like that's not okay, and we shouldn't have to just suffer in silence and so he actually ended up prescribing me something to help with those symptoms and basically, it was like a type of Prozac for PMS and I don't think anyone should ever feel shame around mental health or taking medication for mental health or mood stabilizers. I think that as a society there's a lot of shame around it, but I think we should normalize that because life is hard and if we need to take something that helps us feel balanced I think that that's okay, and we should be able to talk about it. For me personally, I did not react well to this new medication It just made me feel really sick. I had really bad insomnia, and I was nauseous and It didn't help make me feel any better so I think for some people it's a really good tool and I'm really lucky that I have a doctor and I have the resources to access these types of tools but for me personally I didn't react well and he suggested some other interventions, but I was like, okay, let me get back to basics. Let me get back to what I know and what has healed my body previously. I love the more homeopathic route, and I think that our bodies are designed to heal themselves, I tried it. a medical intervention, hoping for a quicker fix, sometimes I think medication is necessary, but in my case, I think I needed to just go back to basics and some tools that I really love are the flow app. and cycle syncing getting back to my spiritual practices I feel like when my body doesn't feel good getting back to my spiritual practices is the last thing I want to do, but that's when it's the most important. So getting back to my morning meditation practice, making sure I feel grounded in my body, taking advantage of herbal medicine and Chinese medicine, more Eastern practices. So for me, it was about getting back to basics. I used the Flow app for those of you that don't know. It's this amazing app and they explain how to cycle sync, what foods to eat, what kind of exercises to do, depending on where you're at in your cycle. It tells you the best time to plan dates, the best times to be social. It's really helpful. I actually decided to go to an acupuncturist and a cupping specialist and it was one of the best experiences. I had only done it one time and she told me it might take a few times for me to feel a difference and I immediately felt, a difference. even that next period my PMS was so much better and I think doing more of these natural holistic practices sometimes can help our body get back into homeostasis a lot quicker. I really do believe that our bodies are designed to heal themselves. We just need to give them the tools and the space to do so. if you've never done acupuncture or cupping before, I highly recommend it. With acupuncture, they're able to pick certain pressure points that do different things for your body and with the cupping it just released all these toxins I felt like my whole back released and I've been getting massages and stuff for years but I've never experienced anything quite like that. I love it. I think it was so amazing I also love that she sat with me for about an hour before we even got to the work to talk about everything with me. We talked about my hormones. We talked about my health history. We talked about everything going on.The practitioner I worked with was so educated and so thorough and it made me feel like she really did care and she was invested in questions that, she asked me about my skin, my diet, So many things. I'm drawing a blank now, but literally so many things and she actually diagnosed me with a blood disorder, which I didn't even realize until I stopped getting my nails done, but I definitely do have some kind of circulation issue because the bottom of my nail beds are kind of blue. So I'm actually really glad that I stopped getting my nails done so I could see this and notice this. So for you girlies out there that are cold all the time and you think it's in your head, maybe stop getting your nails done. you might see there's actually something else going on. another holistic intervention that I've tried that has really helped is I started taking Chinese herbs in the form of a tincture. So there's a couple of brands that I've seen online and the one I'm taking is actually made by a local girl here where I live, it tastes kind of bad, but it helps so much. I already feel so much more balanced. It's only been a couple months since I started doing these natural interventions and I just wanted to come out here and speak about them because you don't always need medication and sometimes, if you want a quick fix by all means try, but I think it's always better to address root causes and to give our body the support that it needs so that it can work well on its own, so I'm really excited about that and it's just so validating that when you get back to basics and you get back to taking care of yourself, that your body really does support itself and heal itself really effectively. I also feel like when my body feels better, my mental health is improved exponentially. I don't have any of the symptoms really like this past period, I didn't have any of the symptoms that I normally do. I didn't really have PMS. like I said, it's only been a couple of months since I started these interventions and for me, that's amazing because I was struggling for like six months and you don't have to live like that. You can absolutely heal your body and your hormones and it's super exciting, I feel like it's hard to get ahead when there's one week out of the month where you feel so detached and disconnected from yourself and everyone else and anxious and depressed and we don't need to live like that anymore. we don't need to deal with that. We can do these natural things to support ourselves and it makes me feel really good that these are ancient practices that have been working for women for thousands of years and I think somewhere along the line we got lost and forgot about these ancient ways to heal ourselves, it's just so amazing reconnecting with ourselves, reconnecting with the earth, reconnecting with our ancestors in the way that we heal ourselves. It's really beautiful. I think one of the reasons why my hormones were so out of whack, despite me having my thyroid problems, I started taking a medication earlier this year. it's semaglutide, ozempic, and for me, it has been life changing. I know there's some controversy about it, I know celebrities have used it, but I think there's a way to use it responsibly. For those of you that don't know, it's a diabetes medication. I do not have diabetes. A lot of people that use it do not have diabetes. But it controls your, blood sugar, and it helps you lose weight by slowing down your metabolic rate. it delays gastric emptying, meaning it takes your body longer to digest its food, so you feel fuller longer, so you're not eating as many calories, you're not eating as often. It also helps by lowering your blood sugar, and that's how it helps people with diabetes for me personally, it actually helped me a lot with my disordered eating and my relationship with food in general. I think over the years, especially with all the different diets I've done trying to do competitive fitness competitions. I developed a really weird relationship with food I was doing these really restrictive diets and then I would binge eat and it would just take away all my progress and I also just think being a woman in society these days, like a lot of us just have a really, unhealthy relationship with food and so taking this medication kept me fuller longer. So I wasn't thinking about food all the time I feel like that's one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle is you're not constantly thinking about what you're gonna eat what your next meal is how many calories you ate that day? I didn't restrict myself at all I didn't take too big of a dose so that I was never hungry. I still ate a normal, healthy amount. I just stopped snacking and also I would eat whatever I wanted. I wouldn't restrict myself. If I wanted french fries or cookies or whatever, I would eat the french fries, I would eat the cookies. It just helped with portion control, so I wasn't overindulging, but because I wasn't restricting myself, I wasn't overcompensating by eating so much of something else, I never felt like I was punishing my body, or depriving myself of something, and I think that's really important, and I know I have some friends that have a different mentality than me, and I think being really in tune with your body is really important if you're going to take a medication like this. There's definitely ways to abuse it and overdo it and be unhealthy, but I think if you're doing it properly and then, I now only really do it for maintenance. I don't take a dose every week. I take one maybe like once a month and it just helps me stay at a healthy baseline for myself and it helps me keep my weight under control and at a place where I'm comfortable with having a thyroid problem It's definitely something that I always have to be conscious of and this tool has really helped me so that I don't really have to think about it anymore and I feel a lot more comfortable in my skin but one of the things about the rapid weight loss is that when you have less body fat, you have less estrogen, and so I think the last few months my body has been trying to even itself out and balance and figure out what this new hormonal balance was, so I'm actually really happy that I decided to go with a more natural intervention to balance my hormones because I think that's what my body really needed. That's the kind of support that my body really craved. During this time, it just goes to show that health always is fluid and, there's going to be things that happen, things that come up, but having the tools to get back to baseline, like with my thyroid, with my weight with whatever. It's so important. Having these tools in our tool belt is really such a gift and being able to share with you guys, what's worked for me and help other people is really so important. I am so thankful that I feel better now. and my mental health is better. So I feel called to share. I think sometimes when I'm not feeling well. that's the last thing I want to do is share and share my art and share what's going on with me I want to like be a recluse and keep it to myself and pretend like everything is fine, but that's not reality I think oftentimes we see people that are leaders in this space that are so polished and I think It's important to find beauty in what's imperfect and in the mundane and to share when we're struggling and that's what's really gonna help each other the most. I can't just share my wins, I need to share the L's too and how I brought myself back. I think that's what this was really all about. I'm really working on giving myself more grace and part of being a leader and leading yourself is having the right mindset, even if you don't have the right emotions and having a mindset that is going to propel you forward having the mindset that's going to move you through the difficult times, I think that is really powerful, and it's a work in progress, and it's going to take time, but, the messy and the struggle is just as important to show as, when I feel like I have it all figured out, or everything is sparkly and shiny, and I feel like I'm thriving. being authentic is gonna lead me to the right people I feel like oftentimes I want to wait to be perfect or wait for things to be perfect but if we wait for perfection the world's gonna pass us by if we wait for perfection the stuff we are talking about isn't going to be relevant anymore. It's not going to be authentic to us and It's a disservice to ourselves and to the people that we're helping. I connect the most when people are being real and talking about their experiences. I'm an imperfect person and perfection isn't real. I know a lot of us have these stories in our heads about how things need to be perfect but, it's a fantasy and the sooner we can accept that and accept ourselves, the sooner we can put out our words and art into the world and connect with the people we're meant to connect with and help the people that we're meant to help. I'm going through a lot of deep transformation right now and as someone who's been working on themselves for almost 10 years now, it just goes to show that we're always peeling back new layers and there's always new things to heal, but at the same time, I think it's easy to get caught up in the loop of healing and constantly working on something and having to be at a certain level of healed before you can do X, Y, Z, et cetera, et cetera but healing is a journey it's a lifelong thing, but that doesn't mean we need to be constantly working on ourselves or we can't accomplish our goals or we have to always be healing something, working on something. It's okay to take a step back and just see how far we've come. In fact, it's necessary to come up for air and notice, wow look at the progress I've made, look at how far I've come. I feel like I have had a lot of shame this year about not being where I thought I should be, not having accomplished as much as I should have, not having moved through enough shadow or enough blocks and then I sat and reflected recently. and realized that everything that happened this year was for a reason and everything happened exactly the way it was supposed to to prepare me for what's to come. for the better half of the year, I was pursuing a more conventional career and I felt a lot of shame when I decided to quit that but it gave me a lot of clarity around what I'm actually passionate about and what I actually want to do and what's right for me and I needed to go through that to figure out what it is I want to do. I think it's just as important to realize what we don't want to do as it is what we do want to do and sometimes I know it can feel like a waste of time, but it's a completely necessary part of the process and we should never feel bad or shame or guilt about that and then when I did figure out what I wanted to do, I shared and opened up to the wrong people, which is fine but it's also why people say keep things close to your heart don't talk about stuff until it's done and I used to not fully understand that sentence, or that phrase i'm not sure what I used to think it meant honestly but it is easy to get discouraged when you open up about your goals your dreams to the wrong people and they're not supportive even if they don't really matter to you. people pleasing is a big part of our culture even if it's subconscious and it's easy to feel discouraged when someone shits all over your dreams or shits all over your goal and you're like, oh wait, is this really what I want to do? Am I really going to be successful doing this? So I get that but I also think and it took me some time to bounce back after that. I'll be honest, but I think that was preparing me for when not everyone aligns with my message when not everyone understands what I'm trying to do and that's okay I needed to experience that to prepare my nervous system for when it happens again and it will so I'm grateful and grateful for that setback and another one this year a former friend of mine was actually spreading lies about me on the internet and it was incredibly hurtful and that was also preparing my nervous system for when I undoubtedly receive hate from strangers on the internet because that's just a part of the world and that's just a part of putting yourself out there. You're gonna get rejected, you're gonna get told no, that's just how it works, but that's a necessary part of reaching the right people. You have to reach so many people in order to find your people and so I'm grateful for that too. without this perspective, it did feel like a lot of setbacks. It did feel like a lot of time was wasted, but it was all so necessary and I'm so grateful and that's another thing being grateful and reframing these circumstances or reframing things that happen, they can all be gifts. They can all be gifts to move you forward. Bad things that happen, setbacks, mean things that people say, it can all be a gift if you choose to look at it that way. I think just having so much self compassion and so much grace for yourself is so important. Just knowing that you're exactly where you're meant to be. If you feel like you're behind on your path, you're not. If you don't have clarity, it's because you're not supposed to and just trusting and surrendering to the universe and goddess and what's meant for you. Just knowing that and believing that truly can give you so much freedom. Just know that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. Everything is going to work out exactly the way it's supposed to. Nothing can throw you off your path you can't miss anything that's meant for you everything that has happened is only to prepare you for what's to come I heard this really good analogy on a podcast not too long ago. She was talking about why can't we just make the wood that we need to build houses in a warehouse? Basically, what they were saying is they need the wood that's been weathered, that's been outside, that's been through everything, because that's the wood that's going to be strong enough to hold up these houses. I don't know if I'm remembering or regurgitating this metaphor perfectly, but basically what it means is that We had to have grit and we're not gonna get it by not going through the hard times, by not having these trials and tribulations and these struggles, and if it weren't for the bad things that happened, we wouldn't be strong enough to take on what's to come. Our nervous systems wouldn't be prepared for all of the success, So next time you feel upset about something or like you've been set back on something you can't catch a break just know that the universe is only there to guide you and to help you and of course there are circumstances that are out of our control that are unacceptable. The world is not a fair place and I'm not talking about those types of things like the cruelty and the abuse in the world not talking about that kind of stuff because that is a reality and that is unfair and that is not okay and in no way did you bring that on yourself, in no way are you deserving of that kind of treatment I'm just talking about when life gets hard sometimes it's okay and if we're able to take a step back and reflect and reframe these circumstances we'll see that it was all in divine timing and There was a purpose for all of it so for those of you that struggle with perfectionism and imposter syndrome, just know that your experiences are 100 percent valid. You are an expert on your experiences and that is enough. It's so important to have the audacity to put yourself out there because you don't know whose life is going to be touched by your story and who's going to be helped by your art or by your voice or by you putting yourself out there perfectionism is not real it is a fantasy and, the sooner we accept ourselves for exactly where we are, the sooner we'll be able to propel ourselves forward and feel empowered by everything that's happened and get to that next step. I think sometimes when we feel stuck, it's the universe's way of putting pressure on us and making us re evaluate and decide to put ourselves out there or do something that we've been holding ourselves back with I have another mentor and she was sharing her own origin story how she channels, she's very intuitive and she was saying that the universe basically told her she would never have success until she put her manifestation work out into the world and shared her gifts and I definitely feel resonated with me a lot because I've had a lot of fear around being seen, fear around putting myself out there and putting action behind my passions that I've had for a long time and the work that I really feel called to do. I think sometimes the universe puts pressure on us, our other resources dry up, etc, etc because it's wanting us to take that next step and I think sometimes if we're not listening, things have to happen in order for us to take that jump and I think just getting in tune with yourself and really listening to that inner voice and that inner guide and trusting It's so important and it's what's gonna lead you to that next step and having faith in yourself and trust that everything you want is already on the way and I don't mean the spiritual bypass old manifestation rhetoric, of course you have to align your subconscious beliefs with what you want and do the work, do the shadow work, do the reprogramming, and take the aligned action but I think a big piece of that is just trusting and not being afraid. I think letting go of these egoic stories and coming from a point of service has really helped me so thank you guys so much for listening. I really appreciate it and I hope that this episode has been helpful. I hope it resonated with a lot of you and if you enjoyed today's episode, remember to comment, like, and subscribe. Share it with your friends. It really does help me. You can also go to my website at becomingsunshine. com and subscribe to my newsletter. You can support the podcast there. Thanks again. I appreciate you guys so much and we'll talk soon. Bye!