Perfectionism as energy - where does it come from with Joy Truscott

When we look deeply into our perfectionist behaviour and the Energy behind our motivations it becomes clear that we are simply searching to reconnect to who we truly are - beautiful beings of Light and Love. This crazy world of ours if filled with distortions and contradictions and our desire to restore beauty, ease and grace is actually our True Nature calling us to show up in this Life Journey from a different perspective.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, recovering perfectionists. I'm Claire Riley, and it's here on the show that I connect with some incredible people to have the big conversations about what it means to be tangled up in the web of trying to do everything perfectly and not really stepping into our aligned ideal way of living and doing business. Being a professional Virgo and the list making freedom seeker, I love getting to the bottom of what's really going on in various places where perfectionism rears its ugly head and focus on some practical tips and tools and tricks to move past it and get out of our own way. Today I'm super excited to be joined by the beautiful Joy Truscott all the way from South Africa. And Joy and I we've been in each other's worlds in a fairly distant kind of way for several years, and we've known about each other and we've bumped into each other at virtual things quite often. But we were lucky enough to connect at a virtual uh networking event with Suzanne Kohlberg a couple of months ago, and we kind of just hit it off and fell a bit in love with each other while we had our little 10-minute chat, didn't we? So um we've had a couple of chats since then, and I'm really excited to have a chat with you about the energetics behind perfectionism and how that all shows up because we haven't really talked about that on the show. So welcome, Joy.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Thank you so much, Claire. It's just wonderful to be here. And we were just saying it's early in the morning, six o'clock in South Africa for your time. But I love these timelines because we can do it, you know. Cyber, we can do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Very cool, it's very cool. So thank you for getting up so lovely and early. It's mid-afternoon here, so it's kind of windown time for me. They're totally different energies. But yes, tell us a little bit about you and the work that you do and the people you work with, and a bit of a bit of an insight into your world.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

My world revolves around energy. I absolutely love working with energy. I can see energy in people's fields, I can see their trauma um blockages or imprints which kind of hold us back. And my entire awareness of who we are really moves around that experiencing ourselves in our own life and as witness to our own life. So I really do a lot of teaching to um like you know, helping my clients to get a sense of who they are within their own world and come to terms with who they are and know that who they are is perfect, they don't have to be anything else in this whole wide world because they were designed in this most unique and magnificent way to be exactly who they are. So that's part of the gifts, some of the gifts that I bring in. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

So I'm gonna start right there because I think it's a really interesting jumping off point and conversations that I've had recently have um had a very similar theme around finding who you are and being okay with who you are and standing in that in a really authentic way and not uh feeling like you have to be a chameleon and fit in with all people and be all things to all people and that sort of thing. So, can we just delve a little bit more into that about you know, being who you are is completely okay? But how do we find out who that is, especially if you know there's a people who've gone through big life changes, becoming a parent or you know, um, you know, any other sort of things that you sort of uh that what I hear a lot from um people I talk to and my clients is like I don't really know who I am, I don't really know what I want, I don't really know what I like anymore. I know what I liked when I was 20, but I'm not really sure if I'm still into that or if that's just a habit. Like, how do how do you kind of go about helping people to refind or refine or define who they are?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I think then the first way we just got to go back and look at who we were when we were that child. And I was a teacher in my first occupation, my first part of my life, and I remember teaching this darling little red-haired creature, Natasha. Oh my gosh! And she would stand there at all of not even three, and hands on the hips, and then she would say, 'You're not the boss of me!' And I just love this child. And she's still walking around this amazing world, being her own free spirit, because she would never allow herself to be suppressed or cajoled or pushed into any box. She was just so determined to be her own being and to hold her essence. And I think that's the secret, is that we come in with an essence with a unique imprint because there's nobody in this entire world and there never will be ever again, or never has been ever, who can be you? There's nobody, no one has your lineage, no one has your connections. And you think about how you've been created over all time, all your grandparents, all the influences down your ancestral line, they've all been moving you towards who you are. And you are here because of them and their resiliency and their courage and their strength. And then we just throw all that stuff away and we want to become like so-and-so, or like this picture on the media, or this other thing. And it's like, oh my gosh, how disgraceful and how dishonorable to who we truly are. So when I think about that, an essence, and then reconnecting to our energy essence, because that is truth. Energy never lies, and we know it, we feel it inside of us, and it's that beautiful connection to truth, our authentic being. I love that. That's my gift to people to step back into that.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Connection. It's such an interesting thing, and I I've um I was speaking to someone recently again about this. That in the last few years, I personally feel like I've reconnected with a lot of that, and it's a little bit scary sometimes because you reconnect to that and you can't unsee the the gaps, you can't unsee what you know where you where you feel like you're you want to be, or the way that you want to be living your life, or the relationship you want to be having. And then once you've seen that, you kind of can't unsee what needs to be changed, and that's often the catalyst to to make some big decisions and to make some big changes, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yes, exactly. And that little get that little gap, that little peace in there, that little desire for you to have been better or to have shown up in a better way, that's where we drop our energy vortex, right there, because we fill ourselves with shame and blame and guilt and regret and all of those, those and self-rejection, self-persecution, self-betrayal comes into that as well. So we fill ourselves up with all of that because there is a disappointment. But if we could understand what that disappointment is, then it's easier for us to come into that place of just saying, Well, you know, that was the most amazing experience. And the person who brought it to me is the gift, and I received the gift for whatever unfolded. It was, it truly was a gift. And if we can release our shame and blame, it would help enormously, but we go like if we could. So how do we? And the the real secret in that is to understand that the the seeker within, there is a there's like this desiring, this code that is being imprinted and embedded in our heart so we'll never forget who we are. And there is this this little code keeps awakening us and it nudges us and it says, never forget, seek this, desire this. And it's the desiring of our heart for perfection, for beauty, for um, high loving connections that calls us and moves us forward. If you think about it, that's always what we're doing. We're looking for these high, divine, delightful connections because we are we are trying to fully remember who we are, and who we are are divine beings of light and love. There is no mistake about that. We are already perfect, but in this very distorted world with all the distortions around us, with all the pain and all the misery and all the heartache, it is so easy to forget who we are. And the reason we're having all these distortions is so that we can reaffirm to our being who we are. We can only know who we are because of contrast. So somehow we've got to have contrast in our life, and then we go, Oh my gosh, my heart doesn't desire or seek that, because the perfect part of me, that perfect, authentic, light part of me, seeks perfection and I am perfection, and this is a distortion, and I no longer seek it. And if I choose, that's where the magic comes in. If I choose to move in the path of my heart's desire, that's when I find myself.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Like it, you know, if I bring it back to the typical perfectionism, which is embedded in fear of failure and fear of you know not um pleasing the right people, or um fear of success because that would be scary as well, like all of those sorts of things, and some of the typical behaviors of people who are in that striving for perfection is that they don't stop to reward themselves and they don't um celebrate the wins and they never get to perfection, so it's always kind of the whip that they can, you know, whip themselves with sort of thing. And it like that ties into what you were saying for me about well, because it wasn't the actual that's not the perfection that you were chasing anyway. The perfection is so much more inward rather than the output and the external validation and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yes, yeah, right. So where we go wrong here is because we we want the other to make it perfect for us. Yeah, and that's where we go wrong because we put so much responsibility towards them and the interaction that we have, and it's like, so you must make me look complete. You must make me look and feel like I'm worthwhile. And what we're doing there, we're we're right away sabotaging ourselves, self-sabotaging, betraying ourselves, because we are really saying then that I'm not good enough and I need you to complete me. And no one needs to complete us. Well, we're not here to help fix each other, that's just ridiculous. I always think that if we can just get out of our fix of fox uniforms, I don't know if you know those Richard Scary books, but my nieces and nephews used to read them when they were little, and fix the fox would get in this little car and his little truck, and he'd have his tool belt and his hammer and his nails, and and off he'd go to fix everything because he was fixed of fox. So don't be fix of fox in your life because there's nothing to fix, you're perfect as you are. You are either receiving a reflection from another or you are sending a message that is a reflection of value to the other. So you are constantly doing this reflecting, showing each other who we are, because if you think about it, how do we know who we are? We got this brain and this head in this dark cavity, and so how does the brain interpret who you are and what you are as a form? It's got to rely on these eyes to bring a message in, ears to bring a message in, and all of these go to different parts of your brain, and then they're all certain little puzzle pockets in the brain, and now the brain has to pull them all together and pops them in, uses the hippocampus, brings them in to one spot, and then it's gonna say, Well, this is the picture that I'm going to create for you. But how much did we miss in what we didn't see and didn't hear and didn't feel? So we're missing so much, and then we're interpreting our reality, our perception of reality, based on these tiny little fragments, it's not even the real thing, it's just little fragments of information, and those fragments are those little bits of information we receive because we are willing to have these partnerships, these connections, and these collisions with another.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

I love that. And so, what's the what's the antidote to that? Do I like it to fill to get the full picture? Is it more about the internal and and um self-exploration stuff, or is it just how it is?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Is that I think a bit of both. So, yeah, just acceptance. This is gonna be what it is, but if we can start re-seeing the way we see each other, and then we go into our world, we move into our world and we go, okay, so today I'm gonna learn a whole bunch of stuff. The only way that I'm going to learn anything in this day is if I have some kind of interaction. If I stay locked up in my room, I'm learning nothing. But if I'm willing to go into the world and I'm willing to have these experiences and the collection, connections and the collisions, I'm willing to have all of those, then there is something of value in that that I can use to interpret who I am, not who they are. And that's where we also go wrong because we judge them, we push them further away, but who I am. So we go in and we have these lovely connections, and that feels warm and gentle and soothing to our soul, and then it says to us, This matches me, this is who I am, this is what I seek, this is authentic to me. And then we go into the world and we have the obnoxious and the scratchy being that is there, and then that gives us another reflection. It's and our heart says, I'm not keen on this, this is not what I'm I'm not open for this, this is not what I choose. Yeah, and the choosing is the piece we're being asked to do. So literally, hey, Claire, we are looking at each other like messengers. Yeah, you've got a message, I get it. And this person performs in a certain way, and I get the information of that. So we perform and we inform and we perform and inform, we play in that little realm for a whole bunch of time, but we forget that that is so that we can transform. So that we can transform. It is not just an endless performance. You wouldn't go and watch a stage production, walk out the theater, walk back, walk out, walk in, walk in, walk out. You wouldn't, you would be fed up with that. You know, it's like I cannot see it anymore. Not another one of these shows. It's a little like that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

It is a bit, it is a bit. Um, I just want to go back to the bit where when you go out and there's the obnoxious and the scratchy, I think was the word you use, it's so perfect. Um, I often talk about it like the repellent people, and I didn't understand, you know, in the past being a perfectionist and what I would um identify as being a people pleaser. I really, really seeked out, seeked out, is that the right? Sort out external validation. So I was so desperate for the pat on the back, the approval, the nods, the appreciation, the gratitude from other people, that sort of thing. Um and I noticed about myself, as I know a lot of people do in that position, that the more someone didn't seem to like me, or the more mean someone was, or the more nasty or obnoxious, or irritating, or um uh further away that they got, the the harder I tried. So the people who already loved me and who I got along with, that was just easy and amicable, but the ones who were the assholes in my life were the ones that I really, really sought the approval of, right? And it's such a backwards thing. And until I understood the whole the beauty of you know, standing in that aligned and authentic space because that makes you magnetic to the right people and repellent to the right people. And I um when I first sort of grasped that and then I had an interaction with someone who I knew from online, but I met them in person and I instantly felt that that repellent. I was like, oh, that's what it is, and it's not a bad thing, it's just how it is. Cool, we can still be civil and have a chat and all of that sort of thing, but that's it. I've like, I have no, we don't need to go any further. And it was such a nice, uh, I guess, self-awareness thing just to go, oh, there's someone who I don't like, and they probably don't like me. And that's okay, because I've never done that before. I was like, they don't like me. Why don't they like me? I should find out why they don't like me. Maybe I've done something wrong, maybe I've irritated them. I should definitely try and fix this. I should definitely try and do like try harder and you know that sort of rubbish. But actually, that's what it's all about because I could learn something to go, and you know, sometimes when I when I come up with these things these days, I'm curious, like, why are we so repellent? But sometimes you just are, right? There doesn't have to be rhyme and reason about why it just is a thing, and we can move on with our life.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Not your peeps, they're just not that's it, simple as that, and so then we go like, but I'm not allowed to choose, because we were told that we weren't allowed to choose, that you've got to suffer to be beautiful, you make your bed, you lie in it, cowboys don't cry, you know, all these delightful little sayings that our ancient ones passed down to us to condemn us and confine us and restrict us. So when you chose and you said it's okay, it's perfectly okay for me not to be in that space, then you step out of that that vortex energy that starts to drop, which is self-blame, shame, yeah, I must, I should, I have to, those are all your keywords. So when you hear yourself going, I must do this, I should do that, I had better do the next thing, you know you're gonna just be stepping into the wrong place because your heart's not in it. There's this requirement of burden. Oh, girl, she's gotta do it, can't stand it.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

So, what's your tips then, Joy? Well, when you when you start feeling like you're you're living in a place that's not the space you're supposed to be in, and you're doing the shoulds and the beating yourself up and all of that sort of thing, and when you are at least aware of that, a lot of people, especially women, are so entrenched in that their entire life is built around that, and they you know, the idea of flicking a switch and doing everything completely aligned from the next day is unrealistic and impractical, really, and it needs to maybe be done a bit more gradually. But what are your tips for I guess finding the courage or getting started or you know uh moving towards what what it should not should what it what you want it to look like, what it's supposed to look like in your you know, authenticity? How what how do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

We only can only ever work with ourselves. That is the that is the first thing that we must understand. And we don't want to not be fixed with fox, we can't fix the thing, we can't fix the relationship, we can't fix the person to fit in with us better. So we can only ever adjust into ourselves, and that's when we choose, we say, I'm this authentic being, and this is what I choose, and then you step into that. Once you do that, then you can start looking at the things that hurt and rattle and nudge are nudging at you and agree that they are nudging you for you to be the healer of that, and then what is it that must be healed? What is it in the signal that I'm getting from this other person or this this connection with whomever? What is it that is nudging me for me to pay attention to because I'm seeing it, because it's a wound in me, it's an energy of distortion in my own frame or my own network, and then I heal it in me. So I have had I see amazing things happen when people come into alignment with their own energy system. When we release our traumas, our triggers, and we release all the points of our own pain, and we start to resonate with the higher vibrational frequency, we start to attract uh into our field those who are also of that frequency, but we don't know what to resonate into until we know what we don't want to resonate into. So that's really important. So then you're choosing. So you go into the choosing, you start to look at what triggers you, you start to breathe and release the pain. The energy release work is so fantastic, it's it's incredibly rapid, and it's no suffering and trauma and endless hours of counseling. My background is in clinical counseling, I've got all the masters and fabulous degrees and things like that, but that that work is so slow. Oh my gosh, it's painful for me. Never mind the person. Right. So, energy release blocks all the blocks of your trauma, all the triggers of your pain. As quickly as you can release them, it changes the frequency around you, which changes the entire situation. It is a miracle to watch, and I can tell you fantastic stories about that.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Well, tell me some fantastic stories. I haven't heard very much about this side of what you do.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Okay, so um, I had a lovely girl arrive from a therapy session. One day. Oh my gosh, she arrived on the motorbike. She looked like Barbie doll for heaven's sakes, bounces onto my therapy bed. And I think, oh, for heaven's sakes, really pretty girl. What on earth could be wrong in your life? You're just like perfection, you know. But when I started to look into her energy signals, here she had incredible energies of persecution, abuse, neglect, terrible, terrible signals. When I see anything, I always ask that if I'm seeing anything, it must only be for the highest best of that being. I do not want to be seeing creepy odd stuff. And so if I'm given a picture, then I know that that picture is for them to receive. When I say this to her, darling girl, this is doesn't match you upon from what I'm seeing, but this is what I'm seeing as imprints in your energy. And they're old, old, old, old imprints. They don't even belong to you, but somehow you are resonating that frequency which says, you know, this is the thing I must heal. If you can feel it, you can heal it. That's the magic of energy. You've got to get the feeling. That's why the interaction is so important. Feel it, then you can heal it. And the this darling child, I say to her, in your pattern, and I can even see chains on her wrist, chains that are shackles on her. And I said, This is what I'm seeing. She bursts into tears and she says to me, Joy, you won't believe it. She said, She says, Look at me. I could have any man I like, but I'm with a man who beats the beep out of me and abuses me on every level. And then she says the absolute gem of phrase, and she says, and the worst of it is, I know I need to be with him. Whoa. So now you hear what that is. I know I need to be with him because this is she has a sense that makes no sense. If you are her best friend and she's telling you what's just happened last night, what are you gonna say? Get out. You know, this is no good. Get out of this space. You cannot continue to be beaten and abused in this way. But she knows who needs to be with him. So when we connect into these signals that are a sense that makes no sense as this one truly was, then we know we're looking right back into lineage imprints, energy imprints in our lineage. And so we do the energy healing work, and she absolutely dedicates herself to it. And I do a guided meditation in the sessions. I said to her, please, for the next few days, you just run it through. When you go to bed, you don't focus on it and work at it. No more work, you work very hard. Now you heal, and just run it through. And the high energy language coding just unravels it. It's just too wonderful. She phones me three days later, and she says, Joy, you won't believe it, but this man has turned into a lamb. Those are her words. Yes. So that's what happens with energy. You release the imprints, you release the trail, you release the drama and the karma and the trauma, you release the signals, and everything gets better because we are not carrying the stuff which is influencing our electromagnetic field and attracting more towards us until we get the message. Knock, knock, knock, messenger at the door.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

I guess it's quite astounding that doing the work that she did, it influenced obviously the fields around her and therefore his and that unraveled his behaviours and all of that sort of thing as well. It's incredible, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

It is, and you know, the gift in that is that because she was willing to do that, he was set free of being the messenger. Being a messenger is not a great role.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Sure.

unknown 26:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

I'm just I'm a bit lost for words. I'm thinking through like all the people, I'm like, that person's a messenger, and that's a that was that lesson. And oh, I didn't listen to that, and I probably should have it's really yes. I think we can start to gather them now.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yes, exactly, Claire. You can just go now and go and just gather them up and go like, oh my gosh, look at that, look at the gem, look at this absolute gift in this, because I know who I am because of this, and I must know that I'm a divine being, a perfect, authentic divine being of light and love. I must get that first and really feel that. And if you ever forget it, just listen to your heart, it's telling you seek beauty, seek fabulousness, seek happiness, seek love.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yes. Oh gosh, we could just talk for hours. I could listen to your beautiful voice and stories forever. Um, can you leave us with some, I guess, some parting actions or things that you wish, you know, anyone who's sort of in whatever space that that they could start to implement straight away that would have a you know a beautiful impact and an effect on on them in a good way.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

I think that's wonderful to do that because we want to settle our systems down to be wonderful. So I do a little thing that I call three sacred agreements, and I just do it every day, and sometimes I do it a few times to the day, and it's really easy. And I'll just do it with you now. It won't take long. Is that okay if we do it? Sure, great. So, what you do is just where you are, just close your eyes, drop yourself into the space. Not if you're driving the car and take a deep breath in, and then as you breathe out, just feel your body where you are, just honor where you are in your body in this moment, and then as you take your next breath into your body, you bring in this idea into this life. I welcome all that, and only that which is for my most sacred and most divine life journey. And you feel that this is an agreement that you match to your in-breath. So, with every breath that you're going to take in from this moment forward, we are only welcoming into our life that which is for our most divine, most sacred life journey. And then as we breathe out and feel the outbreath and really breathe it out all the way right to the very end, and you squeeze a little bit to really make sure you've released it all. And you mark that in your body, and we agree that when we release and let go this breath, that we are also releasing and letting go of all that which no longer serves us through all time, through all fields, through all dimensions, I'm willing to release it. And we practice that and feel it now with our next outbreath. An absolute willingness to completely and utterly release. And then the third sacred agreement is that as I live my life, I do it in agreement, in alignment with my higher self, that part of me that knows that I'm a divine being of light and love, and this beautiful human being that is traveling and taking this journey, connecting and colliding in all the wonderful ways. But I'm always in perfect alignment, and then I bring my hands together, honoring the left side of my body, which is my feminine, divine, creative, and the right side of my body, which is my masculine, activating, doing, pursuing. You feel the balance at your heart, just feel that strength of your balance. You take a breath and drop back into your body fully and completely, and then open your eyes, and then you're back in the world. That's as simple as it is. It's an agreement.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

That's really lovely. Thank you. We've never done a live thing like that on here, so I'm really stoked that you were the one. That's really beautiful. I I mean, we talk a lot about manifesting and getting into the you know, the vibe that you want to be putting out and and seeking in and that sort of thing, but I really love the the ritual around a breath in and a breath out, and then the grounding. I really love anything to do with those sorts of rituals. And I I've I must admit, the last couple of months I've felt like something's a little bit off, you know, it's not, I don't feel as aligned and as high vibe as I was, say, 12 months ago. What's going on a notice or a month ago or whatever. And it's always when I've dropped a meditation practice or a ritual, especially in the morning, where it's that setting up an intention setting energetically for the day, not just about my to-do list of what I've got to do. So that is a really beautiful reminder and a really easy kind of reset, I think. So thank you so much for sharing that with us.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Such a pleasure, my darling Clean. And remember, you're breathing all the time. So once you encode it, it's running for you like a little background program. I love it. It's a nice little hack.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

It is a hack. I think everyone's going to be madly trying to find you, and we'll put your links in show notes and everything. But what's the easiest way for people to connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Um, probably the easiest is just to get onto my website because from there you can see who I am and feel if I align with you, and then you can um we can connect in all wonderful ways, and there's masses of free resources. So my website is joytruscott.com. Easy peasy.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Lovely. Thank you so much for coming on the recovering perfectionist Joy. It was lovely. Always wonderful chatting with you, and I'm sure we'll do it again at some point.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

That will be fabulous, Claire. Thank you for you and your beautiful work, Claire. Thank you. Bye bye, sweetie.