Confident Eaters

Georgie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Confident Eaters Podcast, where you get proven methods to end overeating, emotional eating, and stressing about food. We are heading for harmony between your body, food and feelings, hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my team at Confident Eaters.

/Hello everybody. Thanks for joining us today on this episode of the Confident Eaters podcast. I'm joined today by Christina Jodoin and Ariel Faulkner, two of my colleagues here, and we got together today to talk about perfectionism.

I think this is one of the things that impacts the vast majority of our clients in some shape or form. I also think it's really pervasive to see perfectionist messaging come across in health and fitness messaging and in this sort of sphere of society.

I see that there's actually a lot of people that are either proud of being [00:01:00] perfectionist and they wear it like a badge of honor, or that they're expecting it of their clients or other people, and setting it forth like this is the standard.

Ariel: Hmm.

Georgie: I think a lot of us are aware of unrealistic beauty standards, but there's certainly these flawless images that people put forth with their nutrition and their fitness as well. So thank you for joining me both today. Christina, start us off with some of your thoughts on perfectionism. Do you have any examples? Like, you might be a perfectionist if fill in the blank.

Christina: Definitely things that come to mind are. You might be a perfectionist if you have a very loud inner critic.

You have started and stopped many, many diets. You're more comfortable in black and white thinking, or all or nothing thinking than the gray of flexibility.

Georgie: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Just to name a few.

Georgie: Yeah, those are really good. It's something that we know is backed up in research that perfectionism goes with really strong criticism of the self, and we'll talk about some other things that [00:02:00] co-occur with it. Ariel, if you had to pick out a perfectionist from your roster, what sort of characteristics would you flag as like, oh, I think that person might be a perfectionist.

Ariel: Yeah, I think one would definitely be having really high standards for yourself that you don't expect of others. Believing in one right way of doing things. Identifying with your mistakes instead of separating yourself from your mistakes.

Georgie: Mm. And, to go along with that, not so much identification with our wins or our successes.

Ariel: Right? Right. And overfocus on the negative. Seeking external approval instead of looking within and what resonates with you or external validation. And really this feeling that no matter what you do, it's never enough.

Georgie: Ooh. Yeah, that's a really good one.

Christina: Yeah, for sure.

Georgie: Good one. All three of us are nodding here on the video. All three of us can identify on a personal level with these things, you know?

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: I don't think perfectionism is you're positive or [00:03:00] negative for it, like a virus. I think it's more that we all have perhaps degrees of it to a greater or lesser extent. I think it's something that all of us show and so we can look at our own selves and realize in some places perfectionism can actually be helping us.

There's a lot of people who can point to their perfectionism with their work and why they've succeeded so well in their career. I remember when I was getting a tattoo a couple years ago and the tattoo artist was like, I am a perfectionist and that's why this is the perfect job for me.

And I was thinking, I'm really glad that the person putting permanent ink under my skin isn't like, it'll look fine. Woo.

Christina: We want the brain surgeon in our lives to be a perfectionist.

Georgie: Exactly. Like you really can't just botch things in some careers.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: So yeah, perfectionism definitely has some upsides. However, where we see it, as something that we may wanna investigate further and look at [00:04:00] changing or softening is perfectionism that can be causing major problems for people's mental health, relationships, and a particular focus of ours, problems with eating and weight management. You may think oh, if I was more of a perfectionist, I wouldn't have dietary slipups. I'd be at my goal body. And yet the clients that we see that are highly perfectionist are rarely attaining higher levels of success because of it. I tend to see it creating massive amounts of distress and anxiety.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: often those feelings can lead to emotional eating and actually keep somebody further from the success that they want to have. So problems we see perfectionism creating in our clients. I think this is important because as I referenced earlier, perfectionism can feel like a good trait, something that we are proud of when we're being perfectionist. So some circumstances where I think I have seen perfectionism showing up in my clients are when somebody is dragging themselves over the coals [00:05:00] for a mistake to an excessive degree.

Ariel mentioned fixating on our flaws or our slipups and I, I do definitely see that one play out in real lives on a regular basis.

Ariel: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: Somebody will make an error at work. Maybe it's something small in an email, or maybe it's something with their food or their fitness, like missing their workouts while they were on vacation or overeating at one meal, and their response to that can tell us a lot about whether perfectionism is crippling this person because they really feel like this behavior is unacceptable or whether they are having a more flexible, open experience. If they see themselves as you know, I did pretty good on the whole, there were more days where I met my goals than didn't. They tend to be more emotionally stable and able to cope with the dynamics of life.

Ariel: Yeah, I definitely see this, and I remember even having a lot of this mentality myself in the past is a lot of food shame and guilt I see with perfectionism because if people are trying to follow restrictive diets or a way of eating that really doesn't [00:06:00] resonate with them and then they go off track or they have something where it's like, okay, let's say Jane is following a low carb diet and then she ends up eating a piece of bread and it's like, oh, that wasn't perfect. So now it like actually triggers the overeating and they feel like they've done something wrong, and then you have shame and guilt and then you have self-sabotage and it's like this snowball effect versus when we release the rigidity and we allow the process to unfold, tuning into ourselves and then understanding the idea that we can even be perfect with food is kind of funny, just in and of itself, right? I mean, the fact that we would even expect that because we wouldn't expect that from our loved ones, our children, but we put that demand on ourselves, and when we, what we think we have control over, we don't even really have control over. So it's kind of an illusion of control. And then when we lose that illusion of control, we don't go, oh, what could I do better? Especially if we're focusing on the negative, we end up self-sabotaging and do something to further progress that negative behavior or [00:07:00] that negative habit, which then just increases that feeling of learned helplessness, and then we end up on this treadmill spinning our wheels, feeling like we're never gonna crawl out of this. It's because of the rigidity that we put on ourselves to begin with. That creates that whole dynamic. That's been my experience with clients. So the clients that have come who have been afraid to start eating things that they love, have been afraid to start being more flexible with their food choices.

And when they have that, we give them the freedom and y ou coach along as they're experiencing this new way of being with food. All of a sudden that drive to overeat, those negative feelings of shame and guilt that may have come up in the past based on these rules, you know, or this perfect idea of what they should be eating falls away.

And now food is just food. And you're tuning more into the deeper level of, am I hungry? Yes or no? Am I satisfied? Is this what we really want? But when we don't tune into ourselves when we're being directed from like a completely cognitive restraint[00:08:00] level.

Georgie: Yeah. Have you ever experienced that sort of thing yourself? You know, I think,

Ariel: oh my God, yeah.

Georgie: What I know of you, you definitely have dabbled in perfectionism and also fought back against it step by step.

Ariel: Yeah. So I would say with food and with exercise, I've been in that place. Like with food, I used to be the person who okay. So pizza to me was like, pizza is a bad food.

That used to be my thought process. Pizza's bad food. So when I would eat pizza, it was like, Three or four pieces. And then it was like, well, I just had the pizza so I might as well have ice cream. Well, I just had the ice cream.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Ariel: It was like this, like continuous process and I'll just start tomorrow because pizza wasn't on my meal plan. And then with exercise, with movement, you know, I used to be very OCD about like if I exercised it was had to be a certain amount of time, and if I couldn't hit that amount of time or I was too busy, well then I'm not gonna do anything. And that's self-sabotage instead of now it's if I have 10 minutes I can move, I can go for a walk, I can do a quick [00:09:00] yoga, whatever. It's taking away the rules and the rigidity is actually what allowed me to find the freedom I've been seeking with, food and my body.

Georgie: That's a great example. Yeah. I think we've all heard that one or harbor that belief ourselves, if I can't do x I might as well not do it at all.

And that black or white thinking is one of the characteristics that correlates with perfectionism. Perfectionism. If we were to define it, would be striving for flawlessness. And setting exceedingly high standards of performance. And the flip side is if you can't meet that exceedingly high standard of flawless performance, it's utter crap.

Ariel: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: And so,

Christina: mm-hmm.

Georgie: You're one bite of a wrong food away. From like absolutely feeling hopeless and dismal and like you're doing a terrible job. So it very much, feeds the emotional rollercoaster of highs and lows and highs and lows.

Ariel: I think Georgie and Christina, I think that's why we've seen so much failure. I mean, how many clients have [00:10:00] come to us and they've been on every diet, you know what I mean? It's like you have the vegan, you have the keto, any diet that has a name, they've been on it. And they fail over and over again and they blame themselves when it was actually the diet itself that created that experience because most normal people cannot follow a really rigid set of guidelines and rules. That is, Outside in, in regards to being directed. And it doesn't make us feel good over time. Maybe in the beginning we feel good 'cause we're in control and you have that high, and then it's like, wait a minute, do I really wanna live the rest of my life with never having a sandwich or a piece of pizza again?

Georgie: Yeah.

Ariel: You know, it's like that child comes out, it's like, is this really how I wanna live? And then we go, no. And then we self-sabotage. And then it's like this vicious cycle.

Georgie: Yeah. I think the self-sabotage can arise from the immense pressure. Like, I can't imagine doing anything in life if somebody was like, you better do this perfectly.

Oh my gosh. That is some really intense pressure. So I think a lot of people not [00:11:00] consciously, will self-sabotage or do things that actually thwart their success because it just gets them out of this high pressure. Like as soon as I screw up, at least the pressure's off.

Christina: Something that just made me think of, what Ariel was just saying is this concept of growth mindset versus fixed mindset.

And I've heard perfectionism sometimes described as it either being constructive or destructive. So constructive perfectionism is more like the growth mindset, where it's more process oriented. It's all about learning. That's what drives it, is can, I learn from this? It's okay to fail. It's okay to experiment with new things. Whereas destructive perfectionism is that shame driven, fixed mindset, goal oriented. Either I've done it or I haven't done it, pass or fail. And I think the success of clients that I have seen really. Hinges on developing a growth mindset a lot of the times, because that's where we can say, all [00:12:00] right, but instead of having the, all or nothing, thinking, instead of I can't do an hour long workout, then what's the point? Or if I've already eaten the slice of pizza and the ice cream, I might as well keep going and treating that as okay, that was one meal I can learn from that and what am I gonna do at my next meal? Rather than saying, I'll just start again on Monday, or I'll start over, I'll try something new. Rather than seeing it as something's wrong with my process here. It's something is wrong with me. And that's the fixed mindset. That's where it can be really destructive because I think it hinders people from experimenting with and trying new things. And another thing that I see perfectionism affecting my clients is this highly successful person. Usually a lot of moms who also work outside the home, they are everything for everyone else in their lives, and there's a lot of self forgetting. They're the yes people at work.

Georgie: Yeah.

Christina: Very successful [00:13:00] over-functioning people. And it's destructive to their relationships because they start to resent people because they don't know how to say no and set boundaries and all that stuff, and they have these high expectations of themselves. So then that shame comes in and that's where maybe emotional eating develops and, and different things because they have forgotten their needs. They've gotten so detached from their own needs 'cause they're so focused on success in work and other areas of their lives that they, you know, have some self forgetting happening and, I think that that shame driven stuff is no good.

Georgie: Yeah.

Christina: It's not helpful.

Georgie: Absolutely. I think that one of the reasons that we can become like that self forgetting or self abandoning is because this artificial perfect, idealized person that we believe we air quotes, should try to be, doesn't rest. Doesn't need to recover from emotional experiences. They just bounce back instantly.

[00:14:00] Never has their feelings hurt, doesn't have any vulnerabilities, never makes a poor decision or an impulsive decision. And of course, it's not realistic to expect a human to achieve any of those things so we can see them as flaws and in the eyes if we're holding a perfectionist viewpoint. That's gonna make us very unhappy whenever we display those very human traits. But if we try and not use that unfairly flawless standard, then we can see okay, my expectations of myself should include that I'm going to have stronger days and weaker days, that I'm gonna have more patient days and less patient days, and I'm gonna have higher productivity days and higher rest of recovery days. And that not every day is gonna be the same.

Christina: Something recently that I've been learning about is what's called socially prescribed perfectionism. And it's this perceived social pressure that we feel from others or even if they don't have these expectations, we think they do to be perfect.

And that's [00:15:00] where, yeah, I think showing up for other people and saying yes to things and the self forgetting thing is very much a thing that I have dealt with personally. And one thing that has been helpful in all of that is just showing gratitude for that part of myself that's trying to strive for excellence and not discounting that that can be a good thing, but also asking that part of me to like take a backseat. Like we don't have to be afraid of failure. We can strive for excellence and do it with experimentation and not, being afraid of failure. 'cause I think that can be paralyzing. I think that's been my experiences. That whole analysis paralysis because what if I mess up? What if I embarrass myself? What if?

Georgie: Yeah. Yeah. . We also see, when we look at psychological literature, that perfectionism is so tightly paired with procrastination.

Christina: Oh yeah, definitely.

Georgie: And they may seem like they're separate, like, oh, the procrastinator obviously has low standards. They're the slacker on the [00:16:00] couch, and the perfectionist is like the straight A student, but it's, that's not the case. In reality, the way this plays out is that somebody who's striving for an unachievable level of excellence often will self-sabotage, as I mentioned earlier, or simply procrastinate because it's so hard to get started on something if it's like, okay, and this has to be perfect.

Ariel: Yeah, I feel like that goes right in alignment with the amount of people I've talked to or clients, right, where they'll say, well, I can't start yet because I need these conditions to be perfect, or I have to have, you know, basically the external environment has to be in some situation in order for them to feel like they can actually fall through and do a process.

But that just keeps pushing it off and pushing it off. And, on another note, it's like clients who are traveling or maybe don't have the foods available to them that they would have in their home. And so they're like, that's, that's where perfectionism can also kind of lead you astray, because if you're in an airport, there isn't always the best options, but you just make the best of it.

You can control your portion, and by [00:17:00] being more flexible with your mindset, you're still. On track, so to speak, because you're staying in tune with your body and you're still changing your relationship with food. But when we get into this mentality of because the perfect meal isn't available at the restaurant or the airport, I'm just gonna say, screw it and just eat whatever and start tomorrow.

You know, that just creates this vicious cycle of continuously trying to wait until external circumstances look a certain way to actually start to take responsibility, you know?

Georgie: Yeah, it's definitely been helpful for me in my growth and evolution to hear certain truths that people shared with me, and one of them is not every meal needs to be super packed with nutrients.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: I say this to you guys, like if your client is worried because they had ice cream for dinner, tell 'em it's not the biggest deal. They had a low nutrition meal. You're not gonna get scurvy overnight. You're not gonna get a vitamin or mineral deficiency. There's women when they're pregnant that can stomach nothing except for like pork rinds and potato chips and you know, their kids come out absolutely fine.

Like, your body is [00:18:00] remarkably resilient. You're not gonna wreck it because you didn't get vegetables for a few days when you were stranded at an airport. Pretty resilient. If we do pretty good, most of the time, we don't have to worry.

Ariel: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: So some specific ways that I think we can help people combat perfectionism, especially as it pertains to food and nutrition. I like to start with the realm of treats. Now, I don't know about you two, but I see a lot of clients who come in and they sort of have this impression in their mind that they should never eat foods like candy bars or ice cream.

And I get to tell them, of course, I want you to eat those foods. If you enjoy them,

Christina: you can!

Georgie: Yeah. These are not gonna get in the way of you and your goals. In fact, it's more likely that your perception that you have to stop eating these altogether is going to get in the way of meeting your goals?

Ariel: Yeah,

Georgie: so I think treats are just a really, really rich area to talk about perfectionism with people. Everybody eats treats. I eat treats. All the, the coaches I work with eat treats.[00:19:00] I'm yet to meet somebody that doesn't eat treats of any kind. I do see clients that try to eat zero treats and sporadically end up eating large amounts of treats. I don't know anybody that succeeds in completely never eating foods just for enjoyment.

So planning on enjoying some of the foods that you find really, really tasty and that you particularly enjoy is a really important thing to do on a weight loss plan right from the get go. I wouldn't white knuckle it and go zero pleasure just to get the fastest initial weight loss started because you're kind of setting yourself up for trouble down the road.

I think those are some of our favorite conversations to have with clients is like the, you can have treats conversation.

Christina: Yes.

Georgie: Let's talk about what this looks like some other ways of combating perfectionism that I think we can share with people who are listening and the same things that we use with our clients.

One of the first keys is noticing when you are being perfectionist. Because it's truly one of those things that seems to disappear in the moment, and when we're being perfectionist, it rarely registers [00:20:00] on our radar. Wow. My standards are incredibly unfair right now. What we feel is I'm just incredibly unhappy right now.

That's what we're conscious of, and sometimes we may even be conscious of, I'm really upset by this, but nobody else seems to care. And so that can be one of the experiences. That comes up for somebody who's operating with perfectionist beliefs. So if you find you are very upset and that none of the people around you seem to be equally upset by the same thing, I think that's a really good moment to tune in and be like, wait, am I looking for flawlessness here?

When pretty good is still pretty good.

Christina: The idea that comes up for me a lot is, okay, I wanna hit so many grams of protein per day. I'm trying to aim for eating more protein and sometimes we can get locked into this certain gram amount or this certain number, and if we don't hit that, oh, I failed.

Rather than thinking of it in terms of close is good enough and I, I got really close to [00:21:00] that, or I'm just trying to eat higher protein, rather than having it as this specific goal. I think one way we can be more flexible is to say, I'm trying to incorporate a serving with each meal and if I can't, then I have so many more opportunities ahead of me to try again.

So I think not putting so many rigid, sometimes numbers can be that for us, and just understanding that close is good enough rather than stressing over it. It's just a lot of time and energy that we could be present on other things in our lives.

Georgie: I also hear how you're encouraging the long-term view, which is this is one meal out of hundreds I will eat this month.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: And many, many that I will eat this year. it's really not all that consequential, if we can keep that long-term perspective on our eating.

Ariel: The other thing that definitely hit me hard the other day is this artificial timeline. That can also create that perfectionistic mentality because it's having to meet [00:22:00] certain expectations within a certain timeline to get X results. And it puts this pressure on that's completely unnecessary, Because we have the rest of our lives to eat food. We have the rest of our lives to develop a whole new relationship with food in our body.

And when we start putting on these, like I have to get there in six weeks or eight weeks, or 12 weeks or even a year. And it still amazes me, and I'm guilty of this too, but how fast we wanna see ourselves progress or get results when we've been in patterns for maybe 30, 40, 50 years, but we're not willing to wait six months or a year to start to really see those changes shift?

Georgie: Yeah. And sometimes people emphasize to us how desperate they are. They're like, I cannot stand this for one more day. And the desperation to lose weight is one of the biggest things that gets in the way of people's success because it makes them intolerant.

Of the process.

Ariel: Oh my God, I love that. Georgie. That was [00:23:00] beautiful. The desperation to lose weight. No, I'm serious. That should be like a quote it It does. It does. Because that's the irony of all of this is this is what keeps people stuck. The focus on the perfectionism is exactly the issue. Well, one of the issues, but it's a big one.

Christina: Similarly, I think shame as a motivator is a really easy way to, to fail because if we're motivated by shame rather than learning, it's really lonely. I hear that a lot from clients. It's like, this perfectionism, this image that I'm trying to keep up no one understands how that feels 'cause it's such a lonely thing.

Georgie: It's lonely and it's chronically unsatisfied. Like who wants to be chronically unsatisfied?

Raise your hand. I don't think there's too many hands up out there. If you're trying to become perfect or achieve flawlessness, it may lead to higher than average performance, but it's also gonna lead to lower than average happiness because you're never gonna feel mm-hmm. Proud of what you've done.

You're never gonna feel [00:24:00] satisfactory. Even if you do pull off the perfect game pitching or whatever it is, the perfect performance of whatever it is, you get the 10.0 in gymnastics, you're just gonna live in fear of that next performance. You have to maintain perfection. You can't just achieve it once, and so it becomes this chronic chasing of something that you can't achieve. So it's like the appetite you can never fill, not the life I wanna live.

Christina: Sounds exhausting.

Ariel: No. I love the shame piece of it. 'cause I'll speak for myself, but we probably all struggled with this, but that has been probably one of my biggest struggles my whole life is that shame body, that shame piece.

And when I just thought about what you said, Christina, because I think a majority, at least this is my experience, a lot of the cultural conditioning around losing weight is you're coming like, we're even told you're not okay. Your body isn't okay the way it is, so you have to do this workout, or you have to follow this diet because you don't look like this Instagram, whatever, you know what I mean? It's not [00:25:00] coming from a place of self care. A lot of these programs and methods out there that are helping people get healthier, quotation are on a foundation of something's wrong with you right now, and you don't know how to feed yourself. So you have to follow this diet. You have to follow this workout program, and you have to trust me because you can't trust yourself.

And then what does that create? Now you're in a situation where maybe you do have to make a spontaneous food decision. You don't know what to do because you've completely lost that connection with yourself. You're depending on something that's outside of yourself and so you self-sabotage.

Georgie: Yeah. When our whole narrative is based on shame and inadequacy

Ariel: mm-hmm.

Georgie: Success doesn't fit with the story we're telling ourselves.

Ariel: Right, right.

Georgie: Like every time you drop the ball, it fits with what you've been telling yourself. So it's like, see, here I am again. But if we think about what we can replace these perfectionists sort of [00:26:00] standards and beliefs with, I can hear what Christina's touched on with that growth mindset that there's hope and that there's openness and that we believe in ourselves and our ability to grow.

And we're not going to sour that by saying, well, if it doesn't end in perfectionism, it was all a waste of time.

Ariel: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: Like doing better is better, feeling better is better. We don't necessarily have to like hit that absolute perfect thing to be happy.

Ariel: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: Another thing I like to tell people and remind them is that life is very much a partial credit game. Like very few things are pass fail, and there's very few mistakes with, with the absence of the brain surgery and tattoo artistry examples. Most places where we make an error are incredibly non-consequential.

We can apologize if we say something rude. We can change. If we have botched a relationship, we can go back and redo something if we don't feel like we've done a good job the first time [00:27:00] around. So I think that really helps take the pressure down as well to not only realize this doesn't have to be perfect, but when I make a mistake because it will happen, it's not the end of the world.

I'm okay. I'm still lovable. I'm still a good human being, even if I'd made a poor call.

So loving ourselves, despite the fact that we're going to make mistakes is probably one of the themes that people can take home with them. After listening to this episode, thinking about mistakes that you've made or mistakes that you're afraid of making, especially in the realm of nutrition and fitness and telling yourself ahead of time that if I make that mistake, it's okay. It's not that all is lost. This is a direct contrast to what a lot of people do when they want to avoid making mistakes is they go the opposite way and they heap upon themselves how terrible it will be if they make this mistake. Your blood cholesterol will never go down. If you keep doing that, you're gonna get cancer, if you do this. You're gonna have to buy bigger pants every single [00:28:00] year if you keep eating this way. And those sort of things don't help us change. They stress us out and they add pressure. It's much better. If we remind ourselves that I'm going to do my best to change this habit, but I'm going to have days when I slip, I'm gonna have days when I return to overeating, gonna have days when I binge eat.

I'm gonna have days when I eat too much popcorn at the movies and have heartburn all night. And when I do those things, I'm gonna keep going. I'm not gonna quit. I'm not gonna feel like I have to start all over again to get it perfect this time. I can just keep going from where I am. Any other tips that you guys use with people if you find that they're having trouble with changing some of these perfectionist beliefs?

Ariel: I would say that looking at your progress from meal to meal or snack to snack, instead of like evaluating your entire process on just, overeating at one meal and snowballing that into a day instead of going, okay, I overate at this meal, but the next meal I can choose to be more mindful, or the next meal may be, I'll implement some breathing before [00:29:00] I eat so I can slow down a little bit.

It's so easy for us to focus on the negatives and we see this when we're coaching clients. I mean, how easy it is for them to tell us what they messed up instead of tell us

Georgie: mm-hmm.

Ariel: What they feel good about. And so I love having clients noting three wins at the end of every day, and then first thing in the morning looking at themselves in the mirror and just picking out three things they can love and admire about themselves. To start setting that positive intention and positive mindset. And then experimenting with flexibility at meals, because I know for, at least for my experience, when I was getting over kind of food fears and these irrational beliefs around what I was eating, I can't remember what this is called, I guess, exposure therapy. Where it was like, you eat the thing and then you realize nothing bad happens. And so I

Georgie: Yes.

Ariel: What I love to do with clients is if they're like, oh, I can't eat bread, or I can't eat ice cream. It's like, okay, I want you to have a sandwich. I want you to have some ice cream and I want you to be mindful and just enjoy it and be at peace, and it may feel a little bit uncomfortable, but you're gonna wake up tomorrow and you're gonna [00:30:00] be like, I get a star for that. I feel good. Nothing bad happened, you know? And that was really helpful for me. So like I know when I, we were flying back from Colorado, I had a happy meal for dinner because that was what was available and there was lines everywhere and that was like, Oh my God, even just a couple years ago, I would never have done that and I sat there and I ate it with gratitude and I enjoyed it and I was like, kind of reminded me of when I was a little kid. I was like,

Georgie: yeah,

Ariel: what a different energy than feeling like, oh my God, I'm having this Happy Meal. Well, when they hand out the candy on the plane, I might as well eat it and might as well start snacking. 'cause that would've been my old mindset because of like, well, I eat a happy meal, so I screwed up. I blew it anyway, so I might as well just keep eating. And when you let go of that, it's amazing how much easier it is to eat in alignment because it's really not about the food, right? It's always about that relationship with ourselves.

Christina: Yeah I would also add to that 'cause a few of my clients who are moms and who work outside the home, we'll talk about specifically as they're overcoming their own rigidity with food and around food. [00:31:00] How they want to pass on something different to their kids.

Ariel: Mm.

Christina: So as you're overcoming listeners, if you're a mom and you're trying to overcome this, as you are working on this, learning how to be gentle with yourself and try to think of it in terms of what are my values around food, not just. Are there enough veggies on the plate and enough of this and that But am I present in this moment? Can I enjoy the flavors that I'm eating and trying to step away from that rigidity and looking at the bigger picture of what are my values? Kind of like you were just sharing Ariel, but specifically like the moms that I work with, they have communicated that it's so important for them not to pass this on so that they can show their kids how to be more flexible, that's one way to practice it is with your kids and thinking through the, what those values might be and focusing on the things you can control like you used in that example.

Ariel: I can't tell you how much I love to hear you say that. And [00:32:00] I've had women lately, same thing. And that was, I would say that's been my biggest motivation, my biggest inspiration, my daughter.

Because if we don't stop with, this generation it's just gonna keep continuing. Right? And somebody has to finally Be a different model of something new and I look at my daughter and I never ever want her to struggle with food and her body and shame and guilt. I want her to be naturally intuitive and not identify her self worth with how she looks.

And I remember growing up and I don't think I've ever seen my mom eat McDonald. I mean, you know, when you've grown up with certain models or behavior modeled to you. You pick up when you're with people who, I may ask you guys when you're with people who don't know how to relax around food or carrying shame and guilt around food, like you can feel that right when you're eating with 'em.

I mean, it is palpable. And that's the last thing I wanted to imprint on Eva. And thank God she has a very healthy relationship with [00:33:00] food. But I think we're going into a new wave, a new generation where women are, are, we're, we're coming into our queen instead of being the princess. You know, queens know what they want.

They stand in their power. They don't look outside of themselves for approval. They own their bodies. They own their decisions. They're confident, they're intentional. Princesses, they're still in that, oh, what do I need to do to make everybody happy? Am I meeting everybody's expectation? You know? And so like, I've started to use that analogy with clients like, are you being the queen in your life or are you being the princess?

And until we,

Georgie: I love it,

Ariel: can kind of become conscious of what would that look like for you to be a queen? And then building from there.

Georgie: That's so awesome. I love it. I see a lot of. Crown emojis coming in our communications.

Ariel: Yes.

Georgie: After this, we're gonna have to get those crowns going on.

Ariel: Yes. Yes, yes.

Georgie: In terms of parting words on this topic, I would encourage people at home to think when and where have I been perfectionist in my life, where it's holding [00:34:00] me back. And invite yourself to replace that with something that is actually, I'm using this word intentionally better. Perfectionism is not the best you can do.

Things you can do that are better than perfectionism, I use these terms 'cause it's gonna apply to everybody who's like, if it's not the best I can do, I wanna do better. You can actually succeed more if you treat yourself with unconditional love and acceptance, including your slips and errors and bumbles.

If you love yourself unconditionally, you can thrive. You'll make the most good decisions and you will learn from your errors. And a growing person is far better than a stressed out, anxious person who's trying to be perfect because every flaw feels like a threat to their validity in the world. So if you treat yourself like you're good enough, you're acceptable knowing that you're gonna have a very human track record as we go through life.

You may find the world's a lot more welcoming and a lot less stress inducing. Anything that you guys would like to add to that as we wrap up?

Christina: I would say that it takes [00:35:00] a lot of courage and resolve to look at your life in terms of if you're a perfectionist and and risk wanting to change that. And this is something that's probably something you've dealt with and stood by you for a long time just in order to survive and succeed in life. And I'm definitely still a work in progress here with this, but, the gentle challenge I would give people is if you stop holding yourself to that high standard, you're probably not going to turn into a complete lazy slob that no one can rely on. If that's a fear that you have, I've been there. I understand, but I would gently challenge that belief.

Ariel: it was interesting. So I actually was just reading, my husband bought this stoicism guide for Dads and in there it gave this little example of how basically these people who have achieved these incredible things, it was because somebody really believed in them. Somebody stood there by their side when everybody else said they were gonna fail, they believed in them.

Even if they were falling over and over, they kept getting up because of that [00:36:00] person who believed in them. And I think that, we can be that person for ourselves. And in the meantime we might need a coach to help us get us there, but with our coaching process, what we're really doing is we're developing that relationship.

So each person is their own best friend and can rely on themselves and practice that self-compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and then have the courage to keep moving forward because it's no longer resonating from a place of fear and shame, but it's resonating from a place of joy and high vibration and love and excitement.

Georgie: / When we have people that support us and love us, it gives us the bravery to take risks ' cause we can like rest in the fact that like they're still going to accept me regardless of how this goes.

Ariel: yeah, exactly.

Christina: Such a gift.

Georgie: Thank you everybody for spending some time with us today thinking about this topic.

We'd love to help you along. If you feel like you could use an extra hand, drop us a line or swing by our website at confidenteaters.com. We'll see you in the next episode.[00:37:00]