How to Stop Feeling Guilty (lessons from perfectionist parent)

[00:00:00] This might be one of my biggest aha moments I've ever had. So much of the guilt I carried as a

[00:00:05] perfectionist has been regarding work and missing important moments with my kids. I would have totally

[00:00:11] withered when I recently missed my kids' first day of school because of work. I would have called

[00:00:16] myself a bad mom and lamented to my family about how awful I felt. But because of you, CLG, not only

[00:00:24] did I not carry any guilt, but my kids were actually cheering me on. If you are ready to

[00:00:30] burn bright instead of burning out, to lead without losing yourself, and to enjoy the life

[00:00:36] you have worked so hard to create, then keep listening. I'm your host, America's leader

[00:00:41] on rewiring perfectionism, CLG, and this is Perfectionism Rewired, the podcast. Welcome

[00:00:50] to Perfectionism Rewired. Today we are rewiring guilt. By listening to this episode, you're

[00:00:57] going to know exactly how to stop feeling guilty. I'm handing you the perfectionist playbook for

[00:01:06] guilt so that you begin to dissolve the guilt in your life and take charge. Guilt has such

[00:01:17] a poisonous impact on our families, our career, and our relationships. One of the reasons why I am so

[00:01:27] emphatic about helping successful type A high achievers like you to get out of their own way

[00:01:34] is because when you are feeling guilty, it stops you not only from growing, but it stops you from having

[00:01:44] the impact on the world that you want to have. The people that I coach, they are like you. They are

[00:01:52] smart. They are intelligent. They have achieved a lot of success in their life, but they also know

[00:02:01] that they're continuing to get into their own way because of their perfectionistic tendencies.

[00:02:07] Their life is awesome on the outside, but they are not feeling it on the inside. Feeling guilty

[00:02:13] is a very common experience for high achieving successful perfectionists. I want to help you

[00:02:22] quit fighting against yourself and getting in your own way. One of the ways that I can do that

[00:02:28] is by rewiring guilt and giving you the tools so that you know how to stop feeling guilty.

[00:02:36] And not in the way of intellectualizing it. Guilt is a pointless emotion. I don't know why I feel at

[00:02:44] any of those platitudes. Just stop it. Oh, well, just don't feel guilty about it. Just let it go.

[00:02:49] Just power through because I don't think that's helpful. And that's why I have an entire podcast

[00:02:55] and a whole coaching program dedicated to you quit fighting against yourself and getting out of your

[00:03:02] own way. What we're going to do in this podcast is understand the why, like why is guilt showing up

[00:03:10] for you? Why are you feeling guilty about like leaving your kids on a work trip? What is the cost of guilt?

[00:03:19] Not only now, but like long-term and also really understand why the approach that you have taken so far

[00:03:27] to stop feeling guilty, why that hasn't worked and what you actually need to do instead. So let's get

[00:03:34] into it. Perfectionism Optimized. That's my one-on-one coaching program. Perfectionism Optimized

[00:03:39] client Nicole texted me this week. She said, this might be one of my biggest aha moments I've ever

[00:03:46] had. So much of the guilt I carried as a perfectionist has been regarding work and missing important

[00:03:51] moments with my kids without your coaching. So I'll say for the podcast, without CLG's coaching,

[00:03:57] I would have totally withered when I recently missed my kid's first day of school because of

[00:04:02] work. I would have called myself a bad mom and lamented to my family about how awful I felt.

[00:04:08] But because of you, CLG, not only did I not carry any guilt, but my kids were actually cheering me on.

[00:04:15] If you want to be able to be like Nicole and have your family and kids cheer you on instead of

[00:04:22] desperately missing you and asking how many sleeps it is until you come home, then listen to this

[00:04:28] episode. Before I share with you the play-by-play, if you are wanting to get coached by me, then I

[00:04:34] want to invite you to consider becoming a client inside of my private one-on-one coaching program,

[00:04:40] Perfectionism Optimized. If you haven't already, you can go to CourtneyLoveGavin.com

[00:04:44] slash Optimized to find out more and inquire today. So Nicole, I'm using the example of leaving

[00:04:53] your kids and feeling guilty because that is a flavor of guilt that is widely accepted

[00:04:59] in our culture these days. Like, oh yeah, mom guilt, dad guilt, et cetera. If you are experiencing

[00:05:06] that type of guilt, you might feel is the hardest one to budge, but it's not. It's actually not.

[00:05:13] Okay. So let's get into it. When you look up the definition of guilt, the part that stood out to me

[00:05:20] and that is going to give, start to give you that aha moment like Nicole had is that guilt happens

[00:05:27] when you believe you have compromised a value or violated your own moral standard, moral standard.

[00:05:35] That sounds so like biblical. So instead of moral standard, I want you to think about it as like

[00:05:41] a rule, an ingrained, like deep rule that you have adopted, you live by. What most of us don't even

[00:05:50] think about is that we have adopted values and rules to live by. You didn't consciously choose for

[00:06:01] yourself, or maybe you chose them when you were six, but now you're 46 and it's not working for you

[00:06:08] anymore. Using the example of perfectionism optimized client, Nicole, when we looked at the undercover

[00:06:17] rules, her brain unintentionally thought that she was violating. There was this rule. And by the way,

[00:06:25] a tool that I have for private one-on-one clients inside of perfectionism optimized is rule book

[00:06:31] revelation. It's a comprehensive tool I have created that reveals the unconscious rules and moral

[00:06:42] standards that you are operating under. So you get to see which ones you actually want to keep and which

[00:06:49] ones that you want to toss. Nicole did her rule book revelation and an undercover rule that she had was

[00:06:58] time spent equals the quality of her relationships, but she didn't actually want that to be a rule

[00:07:07] anymore. When you look at your friendships, like friends that you had when you were in high school

[00:07:13] or college, you saw them every day. But as you get older, you spend less time with them. The question

[00:07:19] that I pose to Nicole and that I'm giving you to ask yourself is for the people in your life that you

[00:07:26] love, that you spend less time with them now than you did when you were growing up or 10 years ago,

[00:07:34] does that mean that you love them any less? The answer is no. It doesn't mean that you love them

[00:07:44] any less. When you realize like, oh, that might've been a rule that I adopted when I was six, but now

[00:07:51] that I'm 46, like for Nicole, she said, that's no longer working for me. The guilt for her was partially

[00:07:58] because of this rule that she had where she was believing that the time that she spent

[00:08:04] equals the quality of her relationship. She was confusing quantity for quality. That is the

[00:08:12] rule part of guilt with Nicole. We solved that for context. When Nicole started coaching with me,

[00:08:20] she would FaceTime her kids saying, I'm missing you so much. I'll be home in three sleeps. She was

[00:08:27] inviting her children into sadness and subconsciously showing them that like work equals bad.

[00:08:34] Working takes me away from you kids, which creates this dynamic of your children being resentful to

[00:08:40] your job. What we discovered through coaching is that Nicole was asking her kids to hold her own

[00:08:48] guilt because she didn't want to hold it. When we looked at the facts, because we always step into

[00:08:53] the truth booth. And I believe that truth is the only place where progress comes from. Like the truth

[00:08:59] was her family wasn't mad that she was going away for a couple of days. Her family was proud of her

[00:09:07] for pursuing her dreams. Her family is proud that her income allows them to do all of the things that

[00:09:15] they enjoy. What I invited her to do as an experiment is what if you could celebrate your time away and not

[00:09:25] shame it? What if being away was a good experience instead of one that was laced with guilt? She was

[00:09:34] open to that. What we did is we found ways to celebrate working. And all of the exact ways are inside of the

[00:09:44] private client podcast. Surrounding yourself with constant messaging and support is super helpful

[00:09:51] when you are rewiring your perfectionism. And it is the reason why there is a private podcast for you

[00:09:59] when you become a one-on-one private client. That's called Perfectionist Solutions private podcast. So if

[00:10:07] you are a current client that's listening to this or you are a soon-to-be client who's listening to this

[00:10:13] because you're like, oh my goodness, I want to hire CLG ASAP, then you will be able to listen to it.

[00:10:19] One of the tools Nicole used was at Disneyland with her kids. While they were waiting in line,

[00:10:27] she said, hey, you know, remember when I missed your talent show because I was at the New York Stock

[00:10:33] Exchange opening for the company that I work at, she said, that is making this moment possible for us

[00:10:41] right here. You know how we're staying at the Disneyland Yosemite Hotel and how we had breakfast

[00:10:48] with Mickey and Minnie? Mommy leaving on those work trips, those are connected. If you value integrity,

[00:10:56] then you want to use every opportunity of giving your best and doing your best and have them recognize

[00:11:04] that it's connected. Just like what Nicole was doing and being very deliberate about giving her kids that,

[00:11:13] changing the way that you talk about your work will impact the way that your kids think and feel

[00:11:20] about you working and being away. If you continue to say it's the worst thing ever and I feel so guilty

[00:11:26] this job is taking mom away from you. When I asked Nicole, what are the values that she wanted to

[00:11:31] instill in her children? Resentment and guilt were not any of them. How she was able to change this

[00:11:41] dynamic in her family was how she was talking about it with her kids because kids, like all humans,

[00:11:49] have these things called mirror neurons. They reflect back to you the emotions and the thoughts

[00:11:57] that you are having. Instead of making it this big bad thing of, I'm going to be gone for your first

[00:12:04] day of school and this is going to impact you for the rest of your life. I'm a terrible mom. I

[00:12:09] promise to call you every single day and get you a gift for every day I'm gone. What I helped her with

[00:12:14] through coaching, instead of taking that route, it was like, hey, mommy has a great opportunity to

[00:12:20] really go shine her light and to meet some incredible people. Let me show you on a map of the world where

[00:12:25] I'm going. Isn't this so awesome? I'm going to be doing this. It made it so that her work and going

[00:12:32] away was something that she invited her family into and it gave them something else to celebrate. It gave

[00:12:39] them something else to look forward to. When you are able to do this for yourself, you can also find

[00:12:47] the freedom that perfectionism optimized clients like Nicole, Nicole have, have found. To recap the

[00:12:56] top four tools that Nicole used to go from feeling so guilty about being away from her family to missing

[00:13:04] her kids first day of school and having it be a moment to celebrate are one looking at the rules.

[00:13:15] She was unintentionally following. One of them was confusing quantity of time spent to the quality

[00:13:23] of her relationship with her children. Tool number two, getting really clear on the values that she wants

[00:13:32] for her kids to have and seeing how guilt, especially guilt around working, guilt around pursuing

[00:13:42] her own profession and what she loves was actually in conflict. The third tool Nicole used is inviting your

[00:13:54] family into her work and making it something to celebrate. No longer making it when she FaceTimed them

[00:14:02] a sad and drab experience. The fourth tool is building her own emotional agility. For Nicole,

[00:14:12] she was putting that guilt onto her kids to carry instead of her metabolizing it herself and realizing

[00:14:21] like, okay, I'm feeling guilty right now. Tending to that guilt and changing the emotional experience

[00:14:27] that she was having with going on business trips so that guilt was not something that she was seeding

[00:14:35] into her family and that she was stopping the poison from penetrating anyone else that is inside of her orbit.

[00:14:45] The last message that Nicole wanted me to share with all of you is she said,

[00:14:54] I know as a perfectionist that I love to feel self-sufficient and independent. I never want to bother anyone.

[00:15:01] And I believed for way too long that I could figure it out on my own. Take it from me, get yourself that

[00:15:07] support instead of just trying hard and trying to be better. I did that for way too long. It doesn't work.

[00:15:14] Just go get yourself some proper support from CLG. Thank you, Nicole, for sharing your story so openly

[00:15:21] and letting all of us benefit from your own growth. Listen up. Taking charge of your perfectionism is so

[00:15:30] much easier than you have been led to believe. Whether you want to stop playing out worst case

[00:15:35] scenarios in your head or be joyfully present ambitious again, you don't need more rigid rules,

[00:15:42] guesswork, or hard work in perfectionism recovery. You need a framework that helps you understand

[00:15:49] and most importantly rewire your perfectionistic habits from the inside out. It starts inside of

[00:15:56] perfectionism optimized. Besides the obvious mental health and wellness benefits, rewiring your

[00:16:02] perfectionism is the fastest way to figure out what's really underneath your perfectionistic patterns.

[00:16:09] This radically different proven proprietary approach helps you succeed by dropping the contempt and

[00:16:16] judgment that blocks change. Discover how to trust yourself, take control of your world, and feel truly

[00:16:24] empowered to own your perfectionism instead of being owned by it. Head on over to CourtneyLoveGavin.com

[00:16:33] and start your transformation today.