The Most Important De-Stress Skill for Perfectionists

[00:00:00] What All Perfectionists Need to Know The most important skill that nobody taught you when it comes to stress. This is why meditation isn't just cutting it. This is why deep breaths aren't enough. This is why you constantly feel you're on edge

[00:00:16] because there is the stressor what's stressing you out and that's usually what we solve for and what gets left behind is the stress. And what you actually want to do is you always want to deal with the stress before you deal with the stressor.

[00:00:32] If you are ready to burn bright instead of burning out, to lead without losing yourself and to enjoy the life you have worked so hard to create, then keep listening. I'm your host, America's leader on rewiring perfectionism, CLG, and this is Perfectionism Rewired, the podcast.

[00:00:52] Welcome to Perfectionism Rewired. Today, we are talking about stress, specifically the perfectionist solution to solving the root of your stress. In this episode today, I'm going to tell you how you can melt stress away instead of swallowing it so you will no longer be stress constipated.

[00:01:19] Let's get into it. When it comes to stress, something that is stressing you out, giving you anxiety, which usually results in overthinking, catastrophizing, ruminating, over-functioning, people pleasing, that is a result of the stress. What perfectionistic people typically do and what we're conditioned to do

[00:01:41] is focus on the stressor. I don't know why I'm saying that that way, but I just am, stressor. When we're focused on the stressor, that is what we believe is causing the stress that could be someone you love is sick. It could be unmade decisions.

[00:01:58] It could just be traffic. It could be, did I say the right thing for type A driven perfectionistic people? Their automatic go-to is this is stressing me out, let's solve it. Or this is stressing me out, let's make it go away. I just need to get through this.

[00:02:11] I just need to get this done, except what have we learned? Maybe we get three seconds of feeling less stressed and then in comes the next fantasy problem for us to solve. What all perfectionists need to know, the most important skill that nobody taught you

[00:02:26] when it comes to stress is solving stress doesn't happen at an intellectual level. This is why telling yourself to be calm doesn't help. Like cool story bro, but it doesn't actually do anything. Why? Because stress happens physiologically and when you haven't done anything

[00:02:50] your person recognizes as a cue that you are safe and that things are calm, the stress gets constipated inside you. It backs up. I use the analogy of being a trash compactor. When we keep it inside, it just continues to build up and calcify

[00:03:11] and then we get into the territory of chronic stress or oxidative stress, which is the cause of nearly every single disease from diabetes to Alzheimer's, to anxiety, depression. It all goes back to chronic stress, which turns into oxidative stress inside our persons.

[00:03:35] Solving the stress is not an intellectual process. It's a physiological process. When I learned that, I was like, oh my goodness. So like literally these 20 years of therapy that I've been doing, no wonder I'm still so stressed to the F out all the time

[00:03:51] because the stress inside me was still continuing to build up into chronic stress and to not metabolize. When we don't metabolize our stress, it oxidizes inside of us and then that's how you get inflammation. Like during a really stressful time,

[00:04:05] have you ever had a rash or a breakout? Have you ever not been able to sleep? Like you get insomnia. Maybe you're so stressed that you hyperventilate. When stress affects your respiratory system, it affects your cardiovascular system. Have you ever had digestion issues, heartburn

[00:04:23] or something that requires Pepto-Bismol? You get sick when you're stressed. Why? Because stress impacts all 12 systems inside of our person. Stress impacts our physiology. This is why meditation isn't just cutting it. This is why deep breaths aren't enough. This is why you constantly feel you're on edge

[00:04:47] because there is the stressor what's stressing you out. And that's usually what we solve for. And what gets left behind is the stress. And what you actually want to do is you always want to deal with the stress before you deal with the stressor.

[00:05:03] Now, this is a huge pattern interrupt. It's a complete paradigm shift of the way that you are used to operating, but it is the one that will make the most exquisite difference. You know now that like, it's not that you're not getting enough sleep.

[00:05:19] It's not that you're exhausted. It's not that you're burnt out. It's that you are not metabolizing the stress that you have accumulated. The stress is not going to go away. So what do you need? You need an actual process that's going to help you get it handled.

[00:05:37] One that you can do daily and to really integrate it into your life. And all of that you learn inside of perfectionism optimized. The reason why you're not effective at like being less stressed is because you don't have a process and you have been going to solve

[00:05:55] and eliminate the stressor instead of the actual stress. Here are some clues. You need to deal with the stress ASAP. That needs to be the first thing that you do. And you want to de-prioritize the stressors. The first clue is if you notice

[00:06:10] that you are having a level 13 reaction to a level one situation. All of the toxic stress that you have been holding on to and being constipated and strangled by inside. It has nowhere to go. And so it erupts like a volcano. The eruption is a clue that,

[00:06:30] oh my goodness, I am way out of my resilient zone. I am way over my threshold and I got to deal with this stress. As I go through these clues, if you are recognizing within yourself, you're like, OMG, CLG. You are reading me like a menu.

[00:06:46] I invite you to apply for perfectionism optimized. My private one-on-one high integrity coaching, I believe one spot left open for summer. To apply, go to CourtneyLoveGavin.com slash optimized today. Let's get you unconstipated. So clue number one that you must deal with your stress ASAP

[00:07:08] and de-prioritize dealing with the stressor is when you are having eruptions, volcanic eruptions. Number two is if you notice that you are doing the same thing over and over and over again, and it's a self destructive behavior. So this is if you notice

[00:07:24] that you are continuing to ruminate, to catastrophize, to overthink, to people please, to overwork yourself. You notice yourself like obsessively checking things. If you find yourself picking at things, like you could be picking at your scalp, your cuticles. If you squeeze your fat on your thighs

[00:07:40] or just something that like is not helpful and ultimately it's self destructive. So clue number one, volcanic eruption. Clue number two, when your brain gets stuck, it starts stuttering or repeating itself like a broken record. Like you're not good enough. You're such an idiot. You're such an idiot.

[00:07:57] Okay, third clue is when you are hiding. Let's say you had a pretty crappy day at work. You come home, give the kids Cheetos. You're just scrolling on TikTok. You don't even know what you're watching and you are just inhaling a Halo top

[00:08:14] directly from the container using like a big pasta spoon. Even though the stressor has passed, like you replied to the email, you did the presentation, but hello, your person doesn't know that. Your physiology doesn't know that. When you are hiding from your life,

[00:08:32] you aren't dealing with the stress and a lot of times you're not even dealing with the stressor. This was me by the way, when I was in corporate, I would do all of these clues. I would have eruptions sometimes at work,

[00:08:42] which was not helpful for building alliances internally with other executives. I noticed that I was overthinking. I was ruminating. I would spend at least 14 hours a day criticizing myself. And then when I got home, probably around 10 p.m., I would be hiding, drinking wine and watching Real Housewives.

[00:09:01] You really wanna deal with the stress, especially on clue number three when you're hiding. It would be like if your phone needs 10% battery in order to give you directions to where you're going and you're just charging it half a percent here, a quarter of a percent here,

[00:09:18] and then your phone is dying on the way there and you're totally lost and you're back at zero again and you're wondering why it's happening. Oh yeah, it's happening because I didn't charge myself up enough to go and do that. And by learning to metabolize the stress

[00:09:32] that has been constipated inside of you, you will actually be equipped so that you can deal with the stressor and deal with it in the exceptional manner that you are used to as a perfectionist. Clue number four is that your person just feels out of whack.

[00:09:49] Maybe you're sick all the time. I was having infections, like staph infections around my eyes, middle of my face that kept coming back. Maybe your body is holding on to weight like your life's depending on it and you're like, I'm going to Orange Theory four times a week.

[00:10:03] I'm eating super healthy. I've cut back on wine. You've been making all these positive changes and maybe you're blaming it on, well, maybe it's menopause, but truth booth, no, you're just full of stress. If you want a process that's actually gonna help you handle that

[00:10:18] that you can use for the rest of your life and that you can actually hand down to your children so that your kids, you don't pass on your anxiety to them or they don't inherit the worst qualities of your perfectionism.

[00:10:33] You want to solve your stress at the root. The only place that you can is inside of Perfectionism Optimized. My private one-on-one coaching to apply go to CourtneyLoveGavin.com slash Optimize today. Listen up, taking charge of your perfectionism

[00:10:48] is so much easier than you have been led to believe. Whether you want to stop playing out worst case scenarios in your head or be joyfully present ambitious again, you don't need more rigid rules, guesswork or hard work in perfectionism recovery.

[00:11:05] You need a framework that helps you understand and most importantly, rewire your perfectionistic habits from the inside out. It starts inside of Perfectionism Optimized. Besides the obvious mental health and wellness benefits, rewiring your perfectionism is the fastest way to figure out what's really underneath your perfectionistic patterns.

[00:11:29] This radically different proven proprietary approach helps you succeed by dropping the contempt and judgment that blocks change. Discover how to trust yourself, take control of your world and feel truly empowered to own your perfectionism instead of being owned by it. Head on over to CourtneyLoveGavin.com

[00:11:52] and start your transformation today.