Perfectionism is a destructive belief system

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have some fun.

Hey everyone, it's Alexandra. Hope you're having an awesome day. So. So today's video is perfectionism is a destructive belief system. And I have two quotes for you, both by Brene Brown. I will read them to you. Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought. If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment and blame. And then the other quote is healthy striving is self focused. How can I improve? Perfectionism is other focused. What will they think of me? No, what will they think? And I just love those quotes and I love that perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system because I really do think that it is. It just drains our life force and diminishes our sparkle when we get wrapped up in these belief system and these ideas of what we should be doing and what looking like it looking perfect would look like. And I think it's so absurd, these ideas that we get, not saying that they don't cause us pain and suffering, but when we look at them of how ridiculous they are and unattainable and a lot of times not even our own authentic desires, they've just been conditioning from parents, family culture, society. And it's not, it's not really our own belief system. So I just love those. And I've been thinking about perfectionism a lot lately. And I had a coach coaching call with my coach, Lori. What up? And we were talking a little bit about just how I had these ideas about since becoming a mom, like what it looks like to have a clean house and my kids clothes and toys and stuff. And this was like a new thing that popped up for me when I became a mom eight years ago. And this like idea with my kids clothes, we'll start with the clothes. Brian folds most of our laundry. Thank you, Brian. And he puts it away. I have these little bins for the kids. They don't have a whole bunch of clothes. But he puts it away and then within day or maybe hours, it's completely destroyed. And I look at that, I'm like, I'm not gonna fold that. I don't want to fold that. So I just throw them back in the bins. I don't fold them, I just throw them back in the bins. And I have read, you know, all Marie Kondo and I love her and I think she's amazing. Like rolling and it's so, so zen and just beautiful. And I just had this idea that I should be more like that, that I should do that. And it would be nice if I did. But when I asked the question, it's just not, it's not where I want to spend my time currently is like refolding my kids clothes over and over and over. I'm like, it's good enough, whatever. If they want it folded, they can learn how to fold it and they can fold it. So just kind of accepting that and being fine with it, but not letting any, as she says, shame, judgment or blame get in there. Just make that as a conscious choice. And then another thing that I was talking about is, and feeling into is like the kids we homeschool, so we have lots of. But we don't have lots of stuff just in general because we tend to be minimalist. But you know, the markers and the crayons and I look at homeschooling moms and it's so organized and like looks so awesome and beautiful and my kids just is just like breaking pencils and crayons and I don't know, it's just not all of that. And I think, oh, maybe I should really try to do that. But for me, I'm just kind of at the point like really owning my strengths and owning my weaknesses as well that I. There's a book called Freak Factor where he talks about we focus a lot of energy on our weaknesses and we try to change our weaknesses and make them better. And he says, no, what are your strengths? Like go hard into your strengths. What are your strengths and how can you, you focus your energy on that? Because we deplete so much of our energy trying to be something that we're not or trying to do things that we don't actually honestly want to do. So I just love that and I've been reading that and it's been really inspiring of just to look at and then also looking at some of your weaknesses. The opposite side of that is your strengths. Like being messy doesn't have to be the flip side, but it can be being very creative and messy and creative sometimes go together, not all the time, but it's just good to look at what your strengths are and then usually you have a weakness and then just to embrace that weakness. So I've been looking at that and just being really mindful of those feelings of shame and judgment and blame in my own life and asking the question which maybe is helpful for you, like, are you self focused, asking how can I improve? Or are you other focused focusing on what others will think? Sorry, I have ants crawling on me. Welcome to the country. It's also a storm. Are you other focused? What will they think of me? Because if we look at like our thoughts and our beliefs and the things that we tell ourselves, if it's, you know, like we're super motivated and it's a healthy striving for wanting to become better because we feel driven and inspired to do it, then that's one thing. If we feel, oh, what will they think about me? They will blame me. They'll, you know, they'll shame me, they'll judge me. What will they think? So for me, I just ask that question when I'm feeling a little bit of those emotions and asking, you know, am I self focused or other focused? And then really coming back to my authentic self and my authentic desires for me and my family and having that be enough. And then really question the idea of we can't be perfect at everything and great at everything. We need to choose where we want to invest our energy and then really give our energy to that because that those are the things that light us up. And if like folding Marie Kondo, I mean, she made an amazing career out of folding and tidying up, like, that is amazing. Like, I totally commend her, but that's not my path and I need to be okay with that and let go of some of these ideas of what I think I should do. So that is the video for today. Just some thoughts to play with. I hope that it was helpful and, you know, may we all let go of the belief system of perfectionism and just embrace who we are, celebrate our strengths and accept and even celebrate our weaknesses because none of us is perfect. There are no perfect human beings, as my husband always says, and we're not going to be the first one. So here we are. All right, kids, coming to get me. All right, sending you lots of love. Bye.

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