In a world where procrastination, perfectionism and knowing all of the answers seem all too common, I’m sharing my recent experiences with challenging these things. In this episode, you can learn the ways in which I get out of my head when I’m worrying too much, and how I flips uncertainty on its head to be more content with not knowing the whys, the hows, and the whats in her life.
From acknowledging procrastination to letting go of the need to control, I share practical ways to shift out of the problem-solving mode and invite new possibilities into your life.
LAUREN ALSO SHARES...
personal experiences and case studies of clients who have overcome emotional blocks through hypnosis
the importance of giving ourselves space to discover something new in our world or ourselves
the possibilities of challenging a perfectionism to design a life that we love
A GIFT FOR LISTENING TO THE EPISODE
Begin Visualizing a Life You Love with this Free Hypnosis Audio!
Episode hightlights
Perfectionism [00:00:05] Lauren introduces the topic of perfectionism and shares a personal experience that led her to explore the possibilities of challenging it.
Releasing Emotional Pain [00:02:12] Lauren and her guest discuss the connection between emotional pain and physical pain, and the power of hypnosis in releasing emotional pain to find new narratives for building self-trust.
Case Study: Releasing Physical Pain [00:05:57] Lauren shares a case study of a client who was able to release physical pain through hypnosis, and encourages readers to explore new possibilities for their own lives.
Embracing Imperfection [00:14:10] Lauren and the guest discuss the fear of imperfection and how it can hold people back from pursuing their passions.
Lessons from a Typo [00:15:51] Lauren shares her experience of receiving feedback on a typo in her newsletter and how it taught her to embrace imperfection.
Creating Despite Imperfections [00:19:43] Lauren talks about how she is intentionally taking imperfect action in her work and embracing imperfections in her content creation.
Embracing Imperfection [00:21:47] Lauren discusses how perfectionism can block us from exploring new possibilities and how embracing imperfection can lead to creativity.
Disrupting Perfectionism [00:26:41] Lauren encourages listeners to disrupt perfectionism and embrace authenticity and creativity, sharing examples of how imperfection can lead to growth.
Sharing the Message [00:25:41] Lauren shares the positive response she received after sending out a newsletter with imperfections and encourages listeners to share their own stories of disrupting perfectionism.
*Click on the arrow below to expand the transcript
LB (00:00:05) – Hi everyone. Welcome to another week of Subconscious Minds with your host, Lauren Best certified hypnotherapist and provoker, a possibility where we explore new possibilities for unlocking the potential of your subconscious mind to design a life that you love. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Welcome back to any listeners who have joined us before, and welcome to any new listeners that are tuning in for the first time. I am so grateful that you’ve chosen to spend your time listening to this show and also giving yourself that space to discover something new about the world or perhaps even about yourself. I’m really excited to get into this topic of perfectionism and the possibilities of, I guess, debunking, I’m not sure if debunking is the right word, but perhaps challenging perfectionism. And I wanna talk about something that happened to me this week that was one of those moments where, you know, okay, the universe is trying to teach me something for sure right now.
LB (00:01:12) – This is just like, you know, more than a coincidence. And it all started with a little email that I sent out, I believe it was three, four days ago now. I had sent out this email, I was so excited to send out this email because I started doing this series for my email list. And if you’re following and connected with me on LinkedIn as well, you can also read it on the blog, but it goes out first to my email list. It’s a little series called The Possibilities where I share different case studies and different possibilities that have come up from working with some of my clients. And it’s, you know, just these case studies of what are all these different possibilities that someone can experience once they connect their subconscious mind and really do this mindset work to, you know, overcome or face or release some of these blocks or old stories that they’ve been experiencing.
LB (00:02:12) – So I was really, really excited about sharing this beautiful case study about this idea of what if releasing emotional pain could be the key to feeling less pain in your body? I’m gonna share this case study with you right now, this possibility with you. Now, before I get into the really, really juicy bit of this story, but I had been working with more clients lately who have been coming to me about, you know, I know there’s these pains in my body, I’ve, you know, been seeing doctors and this and that. There’s really nothing they can find. And I know it has something to do with emotion, and not everyone has that self-awareness, but these few clients that I had been working
LB (00:02:58) – With really were connecting those dots. So, you know, in a world where we’re constantly looking for the why, like, why am I feeling this way? Why does my body hurt? It can be so frustrating to really feel like your body cannot keep up with the busy beings of the world, or feeling like your body is just not operating in the way that you would like to really live the, the life that you want. And perhaps even more frustrating to really seek out answers from, you know, medical professionals that you’re still faced with some unanswered questions as to why you have that constant back pain or headaches, whatever it may be. And this is not me saying that in any situation, you should not be seeking medical advice if you’re experiencing pain or discomfort in the body, like, please do seek out medical care. I am not a medical professional.
LB (00:03:53) – But something that I can also share with you in my own life is that I’ve experienced, you know, seeking medical advice and being told, you know, you have fibromyalgia and getting that sent from my doctor, but it was this journey of me looking for the why and them not being able to tell me the why. So it’s really likely, perhaps at some point in your life you’ve experiencing experienced your own emotional stress that has caused a tummy ache or, uh, increased heart beat racing, butterflies in your stomach, whatever it may be, feelings of nervousness or feeling like your jaw is clenching up when you felt angry. There’s so many examples of how our bodies can manifest physical pain as a result of emotional triggers or pain, which are known as somatic symptoms. And we can get into that a little bit deeper in another day.
LB (00:04:55) – But instead, you know, I wanted to share this recent experience I had with a client who did come to me with a deep worry around those physical pains they had been experiencing in their body. And as I mentioned, I myself had been shared this stamp of, you know, you have fibromyalgia, I was having a lot of hand pains and nerve pain tingling, all these things that of course I sought medical advice for and had been getting X-rays. I thought we thought at one point maybe I had arthritis, just all these things where there was just, they, they couldn’t find anything for me. And that kind of was my first instinct before going on this journey of healing and doing this deep emotional work was like, there must just be a medical reason why. And, you know, after countless tests and no probable answers to my own pain,
LB (00:05:57) – This even more so sparked like, okay, let’s figure out how to deal with this, why this is happening. And then really got to a place where I could unravel and, you know, delayer, I guess all of the emotional pain that had been causing a lot of my discomfort. So, you know, it’s something that I, with new tools have been able to control so much better in my daily life when it comes to any flares of fibromyalgia, feeling those tingles or discomfort and pain in my body, it’s something I’ve become a lot more aware of and able to control. Or if I do start feeling those things, I can say, Hey, my body is giving me these signals. My body’s talking to me and telling me that I need to, you know, rest or relax or there’s something emotionally going on with me that I really need to look at.
LB (00:06:51) – So that’s something that in my own journey I’ve had to deal with. But I wanna share about this client who carried their own self-awareness to a session with me and held that desire to really focus on tapping into that physical pain in order to be able to release it. And hypnosis can be such, you hear you hear me say this all the time, but hypnosis can be such a powerful tool for us to use to, to really feel strong emotions in our bodies and be able to link back to the stories and memories of the times in our lives where those emotions and pain were so overwhelming. Our session together began with an intention to be open to exploring whatever stories were tied to this pain, to really break that pattern of the body being all too familiar with this painful stress response in order to inviting a lighter energy to the body.
LB (00:07:51) – And so this client was really ready, not saying that you need to be really ready to start exploring what this work can do for you. But, you know, in this scenario, that was the, a little bit of the context that I wanna share with you. So during the recession, the client was able to really connect that physical discomfort was some key memories that were really tied to strong, emotional, painful life events that were really keeping them step. And although those events seemed in the past, there is still that emotional distress and, and painful memories of going through those times. And, you know, even though times are in the past, some of these emotionally painful events can be in the past, they can still, you know, our body can still carry them with us. So they were able to find a way to actually appreciate within our session and acknowledge while they’re in hypnosis, how their body has been responding in this way to keep them safe because of that experience they had had.
LB (00:09:01) – And through that acknowledgement and appreciation, they were able to really welcome those steps to invite that pain to leave and visualize that pain as something outside of themselves and really let that pain go. So there was this opportunity, this beautiful opportunity to really release that and to find a new narrative of building deep self-trust back into their body to feel more connected to their heart, to their intuition. And it, it was so, so beautiful, um, a session that brought both the client and myself to tears. So it was really, really powerful. And so with this power of this session, I wanted to share this in one of these beautiful case study newsletters called the Possibilities and really wanted to share with those who were reading to find the right people who are ready to hear that story and that are perhaps curious to release that same emotional pain trapped in their bodies.
LB (00:09:58) – And I wanted to really encourage people to, you know, let this, this experience of someone else be an invitation for them to perhaps explore something new for their life, a new possibility for their own life that didn’t involve so much, you know, emotional pain to manifest in the body. So it was really interesting. I shared this newsletter and in the very last sentence, the very last sentence, I kid you not, I think I wrote your body with thank you, and it was meant to read Your body will thank you. It’s the very last sentence. It, even when I looked at it, I obviously didn’t notice with will kind of look similar. I know it’s two different words, but they kind of look similar. I think sometimes the brain can also pick up on what is a more likely sentence to, you know, kind of switch words in so that you still understand the sentence.
LB (00:10:58) – So I actually had, I think it was two or three people email me, one of them emailed me, one of them, um, message band LinkedIn, but it was like, they were like, great email. One of them didn’t even say great email or great case study or whatever, but it was just like, just so you know, um, there’s a typo. And then they rewrote it. It was so kind, so kind. But what I got from that was, wow, I like, I was so excited to share this message and what came back to me was, you know, someone or peop multiple people looking at this and saying, oh, there’s, you know, there’s an error, or, you know, it would be a gracious thing for me to reply and comment and let them know that, let me know that there’s a typo so that they can fix it.
LB (00:11:46) – And if you all have sent an email or, or received an email or especially sent that email and said, oh crap, I wish I didn’t send that, I can’t resend it. There’s a typo where I, how many times have we all sent an email saying, please see this attachment and have not attached something. Right? You gotta resend a second email, you cannot take it back and resend it. So I just thought, although this was so sweet, it’s like one of those things where I’m like, well, I can’t res like take back that email and resend it. And this mindset of mine has really shifted in the last few years when I actually, over 10 years ago now, when I was a student of communications and journalism, we had this thing of course in our assignments where, you know, there were so many things that you could do that, you know, you would automatically get deductions on your article or your assignment.
LB (00:12:44) – And even if you handed in the article like one minute late, you automatically failed. It was an automatic 50%, 50% off, not the sale price, but the mark, the grade <laugh>. It’s not the best, um, context to receive 50% off, but it was, you know, the way that we were taught that, you know, which is very important in journalism. Like I truly believe in communicating unbiased, factual communication, um, in a timely matter. But it was something that I’ve had to really, really work on all these years, 10 plus years to undo and unlearn and allow myself to create without that fear of not being perfect, of failing, of getting that 50% off, or perhaps my peers not feeling like, you know, I’m intelligent or judging me for not having something perfect or on time or with perfect grammar or spelling, whatever it may be. So it was one of those moments where I was like, ah, I don’t wanna go back to that, you know, 20 year old girl who’s like, oh my gosh, I failed.
LB (00:14:10) – I have a typo, the world’s gonna end kind of vibe. I should be embarrassed. So I felt like, okay, no, it’s okay. I’ve been making actually on purpose. I’ve purposely <laugh> not been, you know, necessarily proofreading everything a billion times like I used to. I’ve been doing a nice little scan over, but just feeling really confident in my work. And it, it took a long time when it comes to writing and putting myself out there to be able to do that. And I’m sure there’s many people listening to this that as well, even when it comes to your dreams or doing that side project, that passion project
LB (00:14:50) – Where you’ve had that fear of things not going perfectly, or things not turning out in the perfect way, or the fear of feeling misunderstood, that is also a, can be a very scary feeling. So, you know, in this work that I’ve been doing of writing and sharing, I’ve had to train my brain and rewrite these stories of perfectionism and just showing up and creating and knowing that whoever my work is meant to reach, it will reach them and it will make that impact. It’ll add value to their lives. So in the same beat I was thinking like, okay, if there are two people emailing me or three people emailing me this same note, they noticed at the very last line, there’s a typo. This has got to be some sort of lesson, because it’s not like the type of blessing where it’s like, oh, thank you, you saved me for making a mistake.
LB (00:15:51) – It’s like, okay, what can I learn here? So after I received the first two messages, I, you know, that day went to bed, it was like, okay, I talked to one of those people and said, thank you so, so much for sharing that with me. You know, I’ve been experimenting with leaving typos or, you know, not over designing a graphic because it’s not the perfect spacing or this and that, and it’s helped me with my perfectionism so, so much. It’s helped me embrace the imperfections. And, you know, this is this experiment that I’m doing trying to disrupt perfectionism, and I really thank you for being a part of it and for sharing with me, you know, this typo, bringing it to light because it’s helped me also feel more confident in just showing up and knowing I can make mistakes, but it really doesn’t matter.
LB (00:16:50) – People might catch them, but whatever, there’s, there’s people who didn’t. So it was really interesting. I felt super confident in that, and for some reason I just like couldn’t sleep that night. Maybe it was related to that and my insecurities, that critical mind’s still swirling, but also this anticipation of this exciting project that I’m working on to launch my podcast, which will hopefully be coming out on May 11th. So stay tuned for that. If all goes to plan, you’ll be able to listen to the podcast and not just the radio show, but I was swirling in my mind, it was like 3:00 AM and I was like, Ugh. Scrolling doom scrolling on my phone. I woke up and for whatever reason I checked my LinkedIn page and I had another person reach out this time not even sharing with me, like, oh, this is really interesting. It was just like, just
LB (00:17:48) – To let you know, there’s this typo. And they rewrote it like the whole paragraph and just changed the last word <laugh> in that very last sentence of this email. And I just thought, oh my gosh, again, this is so fascinating, okay. And I felt even more so there’s gotta be something in this. So I at 3:00 AM started writing another email. I was just, so, I had this like crazy download of like, okay, this is my lesson from this. This has got to be the lesson I need to share. So I sent out another newsletter which wrote, I sent out a newsletter and there was a typo. I was just so many so shocked, I’m not even gonna edit this out. That was a talking mistake. So I’m embracing these things. I was so shocked at how many people responded to this newsletter alerting me at this spelling mistake and instead sharing their thoughts about the content.
LB (00:18:47) – Like I had hoped this typo was in this very last sentence, right? So I wanna reiterate that this is probably a safe assumption for me to make that these folks actually read the entire message, which was really what I had hoped for people to be able to walk away with the full picture of the, this potential possibility that they could have for their own life. So it’s really interesting how taken aback I was with those messages. And as I find myself in a place now where I am intentionally looking for those opportunities to take imperfect action in my work and in my daily life so that I don’t get hung up on those little things and can really see the bigger picture more clearly, where I can notice imperfections and typos and simply allow them to exist without that need to redo the work to absolute perfection.
LB (00:19:43) – Because I could spend eternity overanalyzing and recreating just to make something as perfect as it could be. Like I would have done that 20 year old me in the past just carrying a fear of failure or running that risk of looking less intelligent to my peers. So in fact, more and more I have been noticing typos in my work, those small design flaws, any stutters in these recordings in my radio show. And for my future podcast, I’m embracing those stutters and those stumblings of my words and really welcom welcoming <laugh>, how ironic, welcoming them to remain as they are. Just gonna pause for a second because look at what just happened. I know that in telling this story, there is still value in it, even though there are imperfections in it. So this is also a shout out to the producer of the show. Please don’t edit this out.
LB (00:20:43) – This is such a good example of how we can embrace imperfection. And even this I see as a reminder of how we can create content that isn’t perfect, but will still add value to the world. And because of this thing called perfectionism being such a huge barrier of mine in the past, stopping me from putting my work and creativity own to the world, I really now really, really want to welcome the opposite of it. This thing called imperfection and saying goodbye to this fear of not appearing perfect and failing as a result and letting go of this existing as a huge barrier that I see with so many business owners, so many of my clients in my work as a hypnotherapist. And because of this, it’s the same act of responding to imperfection that has sparked me to talk about this, to write that post that I did at three 4:00 AM the other night.
LB (00:21:47) – And our critical minds are just so programmed to always look for those opportunities to identify a problem to solve so that we can mitigate any risk of feeling uncomfortable, of experiencing a moment of imperfection or something going wrong. And while critical thinking is such an important skill to have and something that some people do not have, and for those of us who have, you know, have that skill or have been brought up to overanalyze or overthink or be perfectionists, you know, it can act as a block for being able to explore new possibilities for creating. And how ironic is that this message all came about from this newsletter that I wrote about, of these possibilities that we can open ourselves up to so it can really block us. This imperfection can block us from being able to explore new possibilities for creating, for taking action in our lives and for sharing our gifts with the world.
LB (00:23:01) – And as someone who is now in this space of sharing and putting myself out there and being vulnerable, I can’t imagine my life right now without being able to support those people who that without my support might be finding themselves really alone or ashamed or sad. And I just am so grateful that I can be in this place of embracing imperfection so that I can be a part of that bigger change in the world. So we can get so caught up in looking for errors that we sometimes are unable to see that bigger picture. And I was stuck in that place for such a long time. So if anyone who is listening was one of those people, again, who emailed me about my tape, my typo, I want to thank you so, so much for this reminder because without you picking up on this imperfection, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to share this message in this way.
LB (00:24:06) – This message of how embracing imperfection can lead us to creating new possibilities in our lives and how imperfection is perhaps the key to creation. And that like gives me chills because this program I was talking about, which was wonderful, that I studied in college when I was 20 years old, or whatever age it was called creative communication and creative communications with the S, um, to get it correct and right. But it’s just ironic how in this pursuit of creativity we can sometimes box ourselves in to this idea of creating the most perfect thing or creating with the highest of intention. And that can also make us lose sight of this bigger picture of creating to, you know, support the world to share joy with ourselves and others and to just really be present and open to these new possibilities for our life. So I bet there was many typos in that newsletter that I sent out that second one, I bet there, or I know from this recording that there’s lots of stumbling and tripping over my words and not speaking perfectly, but I really, really hope this message resonates and inspires you to create and to share your gifts with the world without the need to be perfect.
LB (00:25:41) – So with sharing all this, I felt so good. I felt really good about putting that message out into the world. I had so many beautiful emails after that second email, beautiful replies about people just sharing, you know, thank you for sending this. I needed to hear this because, because of the pressure that they felt that they were under, or the pressure that they had to appear perfect in their workplace or put perfect content out to the world. So I hope this inspires more people by, by listening to this and hearing this. And I just really am continuing to share this sentiment. And I shared this story with one of my coaching groups that I’m a part of. And it was amazing to get the response from some of my peers of, oh my goodness, I just sent her the email to my team that had errors in it.
LB (00:26:41) – And I’m gonna use this example in my meeting next week to share with them, Hey, look guys, we’re all human. We all make mistakes there. There are opportunities where we are not gonna be perfect, but we can learn from it and we can embrace it, and we can perhaps allow these moments to lead to more creativity and creation. And for those of you who are interested in being in this journey of disrupting creativity, I really urge you to, you know, share these moments or acknowledge these moments where you’ve shown up and you’ve created and per perhaps created without this desire or review of the work or whatever it is you’re putting out there to be perfect. And you’ve just shown up and felt authentic and been open to whatever new possibilities came from that. I just really encourage you to share with the world more and more that you two are just making things up.
LB (00:27:43) – You two are just creating with the intention of bringing perspective to the world or experimenting with something and that you can inspire other people to be on this journey of disrupting perfection. Because by disrupting perfection, we can invite in more flow and joy and just abundance into our lives. So if this resonates with you, I encourage you so, so much to reach out to me, to send me an email to share. You can email hello@laurenbest.com and share your story with me. You can reach out to me on Instagram at Lauren Best underscore co send me a dm. You can, you know, share your own story with people and just be, be a leader of disrupting perfectionism and just see what new amazing possibilities come because of that. So thank you so much. This was a really fun episode to record because I really, really, I’m feeling like this is such an important message to share and I just thank you all for taking that time to listen in and tune in, and I can’t wait to keep sharing with you and hope to see you next week. We’ll see you every Tuesday on the Confident You Radio Network. Thank you so much.
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