EP25: When Things Don't Go The Way You Think They Should | A Lesson in Perfectionism

Today’s Tuesday episode is a little different. No guest this week—just a raw, honest conversation about what happens when things don't go according to plan. 

I’m opening up about a technical glitch that forced a choice: scramble to maintain the illusion of "perfect," or lean into the messy truth of my reality. As someone in recovery from perfectionism—I’m choosing the latter.

In this solo heart-to-heart, I’m sharing:

• The Perfectionism Trap: Why my need for control often gets in my own way and how I’m learning to notice it before it kicks in.
• The Weight of Perception: Staying grounded in who I know I am, even when others misinterpret my intentions or my work.
• The "Messy Unfolding": A reflection on trusting the process, giving myself grace, and knowing when to just order the pizza. 

If you’ve ever felt the exhaustion of trying to ‘fix’ how everyone sees you, this episode is a reminder to give yourself some much-needed grace.

Transcript

Embracing Authenticity and Vulnerability

Netanya 0:00

There are moments in life that split us open. Quiet unravelings, sudden breaks, or truths we didn't know we needed. Until we had no choice. This podcast is about those moments. It's about the turning points that change us. The things I wish someone had told me that I only understand in looking back. Come on in. You belong here. And we're gonna talk about all of it. I'm your host, Natanya, and this is what I didn't know. Before we begin, a quick note. This podcast explores themes such as mental health, addiction, trauma, and recovery. While the stories here are honest and heartfelt, they're not a substitute for professional advice, therapy, or medical treatment. Please listen with care and pause any time you need to. Take whatever resonates for you and leave the rest. Every so often I sit down to record something just for you. A short reflection, no script, no guest. It's where I share what I've been thinking about lately, straight from the heart. Today's episode is a little bit different than my normal episodes. When I committed to making a podcast, one of the things that I committed to was authenticity and vulnerability. And those two things are really important to me in general and how I live my life. And I promised myself that if I was gonna do this, I wanted those things to be a part of this experience. And in one of the in the way that I record these episodes, it's not perfect. I do not have a studio. I record from my apartment. And guests are often, I have recorded just phone conversations and hit record. I record in an app usually that is set up for things like podcasting. And uh occasionally my guests on the other end are in all sorts of different places. Sometimes their audio doesn't work or they get disconnected or they don't have headphones, um, or it's just bad quality. I recorded my episode with Alan that we released back in December, had uh he was standing outside recording on his iPhone from like he was like literally in the pouring rain. Um and I just have decided that for me to do this, for me to make it possible, that has to be okay. And because the the alternative is, you know, to try to find a studio to make it perfect, to adjust audio all the time would exhaust me. I work a full-time job. And so these episodes take me about maybe about eight to ten hours each every week on top of my full-time job, and then on top of other things I do extracurricularly and just in my life. And so I can't, if I do any more than that or try to make it more perfect, I wouldn't do it. And so it was something I had to decide on when I built this that this is just gonna have to be okay. And what happened this week, I was editing the episode that I had recorded, and uh the audio of myself and the audio of the guest somehow got overlaid. So you so we're like talking over each other at one point. And I don't know how to fix it because I recorded it inside this program, and so I had to ask their chat support for help, and they said they would look into it, and so far it has not been fixed. And so I could,

The Journey of Recovery and Perfectionism

Netanya 3:35

you know, try to cram another episode in here. I have another one I could edit, and I don't have the time. I'm trying to honor myself and that had a long day today, and then I had a board meeting after work, and I had to eat during my board meeting so that I could record this afterwards. And all of that is okay. But what I want to talk about in this process is that I am in recovery from many things. And the thing that I think the lens that comes up the most on this on this show is substance abuse, because that's the lens through which I personally see the world and many people that I have on here see the world. But one of the reasons that I built it to be the way that it is, which is I don't just want to talk about substance abuse. I want to talk about boundaries and how to say yes and how to say no, and being brave and taking a risk and accountability and healing from wounds and forgiveness and all of these other things are is because that beginning level of like substance abuse for me was just the bottom. And all of these other layers on top of that are what are what has has been the thing I'm actually healing from. And so one of these things for me that I am in recovery from is perfectionism. I've just learned in many years that part of my perfectionism gets in my way. And I try, I have to notice it and I have to work with it for a long time. It would be something that I noticed afterwards. So I would be perfectionist about something and choke it to death or try to get it right and be exhausted in the process and then really have to look at that on the other side. And as I got, as I worked with it a little bit more, I started

Navigating Control and Expectations

Netanya 5:18

to notice it when I'm in the middle of the process instead of after. And then other times now I'm a little bit better about catching it before it kicks in. And so tonight was one of those grand examples where something is happening that I care about so much. I care about this podcast more than I care about a lot of things. Um, it's my favorite thing. I genuinely love doing it and creating it with guests on the show. But I also, this is such a heart project for me to be able to make a space where we can talk about recovery in all forms and all the things that we're healing from. That is, you know, not from a book. It's not, I try not to stay too hard in the deep wounds that people have been in, but focus on what have you learned and how can we use that to help other people. It's my favorite. I could go on very long tangents about how much I love this podcast because um I love conversation. When people have different, different mediums that they work with, conversation is my favorite medium. And so I love this. And I also, you know, in making it a gift, it's for you. I want it to be perfect. I want it to be consistent and reliable. I want it to be something that you can count on, that you know that every Tuesday that there's going to be another episode for you to listen to. And it's just your choice whether you listen or not, but that you know that it's there if you want it. And I don't like that this episode is a solo episode on a Tuesday when I think it should be one with a guest. I do have solo episodes I randomly implement in here, but it's more of like just when I want to jam on something or when I have an inspiration or or something off the cuff that I want to talk about, but it's not meant to be the the bulk of of what this is about. And so when I ran into this today, it was it was a little push for me of hitting up against my perfectionism. And I was upset, and then I had to talk myself off a ledge of just like this is not a do or die thing. And then I had a choice. Well, what do you want to do with it? Because it's not gonna be that other episode's not gonna be done in time. I can skip a week, that was not an option. I can I have a couple like old episodes that I recorded that are solo episodes in the bank that I could just use instead, which is fine, it would be valuable, but it just wasn't true. What's true is this is messy. And I wanted to talk about the fact that it's messy. The the space of creating anything is messy, and then add in technology and other humans and all the things at play, and there's gonna be things that don't go the way that you think that they should. You know, perfectionism is a lot about control. You're trying to control a situation, you're trying to control an outcome of something, you're trying to control a perception of what someone thinks of you or thinks of the way that you are in the world. And that can be difficult. I've had to work on that too. I had for many years, even I used to write on social media. That was the a way that I expressed myself. And so I would write things, inspirational things, just whatever was on my on my brain. And people would respond all sorts of different ways, and you get I got a lot of positive responses, which was great. But I got a handful of people, it was usually the same people each time that would comment things that weren't negative, but just like they sort of missed the point of what I was talking about. And so the part of me that wants to go explain it to them or fix it or show them the thing that I meant so they saw it the way that I wanted them to see it, got my feathers ruffled a little bit. And so I had to practice that like my the way I am in the world, my intention, how I try to be, may not always land with someone else. And that can be in something I'm creating in in the written word, in this world, or speaking about, or the way I look or where I live, or any decision that I make. And I actually had to talk with a a team member about this a week ago because we had a client that was sort of she was working with her client and the client was going around her and sort of condescendingly keeping her out of things and talking around to her and including other people and things that were above her. And it was um, she didn't feel great about the experience that she's having, and she wanted to do a good job, and she couldn't do her job when this person's keeping her out of things, and it just didn't feel good to her all the way around. And so we were talking about it and kind of coaching through the experience of that just because someone doesn't think that you're doing your job or doesn't think that you're doing a good job or knows what you're doing or has an opinion of you based on wherever they formulated that opinion from, which most likely has nothing to do with you and a lot to do with them and their past and their history and the lens through which they see the world, just because that may be true in their perception of you does not make it true. And for you to, for her to keep standing in who she knows she is, that she knows she does a good job, that we all back her, that we all think she does a good job and have no doubts about that, and to keep going in the face of someone whose opinion of you may not match your opinion of yourself. And that's been difficult and frustrating. I had a different conversation with someone else personally about something like that similar, in which they saw me as being a certain way. Um, they saw was kind of a negative thing, and I thought that it was a compliment. And so I got quiet and allowed it to exist in this space where I'm not gonna correct this person about how they perceive me to try to get their perception to match my perception of myself. I just let it be okay.

Trusting the Unfolding of Life

Netanya 10:55

And I listened and said, I see, I see what you're saying, and I see I see where you're at. And I didn't try to fix it, which is uncomfortable for me because the inside of my body wants to fix it and be like, No, but this is what I meant. No, but you're not seeing what I was trying to say or why I did or didn't do something. And so that's been a journey that I've been on for a really long time, but it shows up in all these different interesting places and is forever something that I'm noticing in myself and how to be better about. And so what I want to leave you with today is I said earlier that I used to write online on social media. It started after I got divorced. It was for self-expression and just for me. And then it just I kept going with it because I enjoyed that so much, and it was again helping people, which I was a great side effect of me trying to help myself. And so this is something I wrote in December of 2023, and it's called When Things Don't Go the Way You Think They Should. I am always trying to trust the unfolding of things. This sounds much prettier than the very real and uncomfortable experience of being inside a messy unfolding when the outcome is unknown. Life moves. I actively try to let that be okay. It's like playing chess. I can only control my moves and my response to the moves of others. When detours happen, I do my best to trust that I'll be rerouted. I'm literally always learning. Always. There are times I'm learning more about something I already know a lot about, other times I'm just brand new altogether. Some days I'm better at life than others. I'm in the driver's seat, I say the thing I meant to say exactly when I meant to say it, my hair looks damn good, and I genuinely refer to myself as a ninja. On days that are not so great, when I don't have a seatbelt and I'm getting whipped around in the backseat, I try to be gentle and give myself grace. Remind myself again that I'm still learning, pizza for dinner, leave the dishes for tomorrow, and go to bed early. I'm working on not needing to always understand everything. I generally like it when I can see a perspective, why someone did or said something, why a situation unfolded the exact way that it did. Sometimes I get the satisfaction of seeing the why right away. Other times, hindsight doesn't come until many years down the road. For others still, I may never understand. This requires me letting go of my need to control and remembering that it's above my pay grade. Trees have strong foundations rooted in the ground, but their branches are flexible and they bend in the fiercest of winds. I try to be like that. Most days I like to think I do a pretty alright job. Trust, surrender, let go. And days I just can't quite hit the mark. Well, pizza. Thanks for being here with me. That made me a little emotional. Um it's just a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. All of that's okay. And I love so much sharing this with you and letting you into the world that is is something that I'm I'm creating for myself and continue to, and I hope so much that you're doing the same. Please know that I believe in you, that I believe in this process, that I think we're all getting better. And that I think we're just here to change and to impact and help each other, uh help each other on the road. So thank you for being here with me through this process and the messiness of everything, and hopefully I'll be back next week with a regular episode that may or may not have great audio quality. Talk to you soon. Thank you so much for being here. It means more than you know. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a quick rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more people find the show. If you want more of me, head on over to natanyahallison.com and enter your name and email for behind-the-scenes updates in between shows. New episodes air every Tuesday. We'll see you next week.