Saturn Returns with Caggie - 9.4 Navigating Perfectionism, Procrastination, and Self-Compassion with Integrative Therapist Abby Rawlinson

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

In this episode, we dive into the intricacies of perfectionism, procrastination, and self-compassion with Abby Rawlinson, an integrative therapist based in East London. Abby specialises in working with Gen-X and Millennials, addressing issues such as anxiety, imposter syndrome, and low self-esteem. Understanding Perfectionism Abby shares her insights into the true definition of perfectionism and dispels common misconceptions. Drawing from personal experience, she discusses how perfectionism manifests in her daily life, especially as a mother, navigating parenthood and the comparison trap. Impact of Perfectionism and Procrastination Exploring the intersection of perfectionism and procrastination, Abby delves into how these themes affect our creative abilities. She explains the concept of regulating the nervous system and its significance in overcoming these challenges, drawing parallels from historical contexts to modern life. Embracing Somatic Therapy Abby introduces somatic therapy and the importance of getting into the body. She educates us on the three states of the nervous system and shares practical techniques for regulation, emphasising the distinction between fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses. Co-regulating and Boundaries The discussion extends to how others' nervous systems can impact our own, highlighting the importance of awareness and setting boundaries. Abby shares insights into identifying triggers and navigating people-pleasing tendencies, emphasising the importance of self-responsibility. Cultivating Self-Compassion Abby concludes by exploring the practical application of self-compassion as a tool for personal growth and resilience. She discusses the significance of embracing authenticity and setting firm boundaries to foster self-compassion in our daily lives. Join us in this insightful conversation as we unravel the complexities of perfectionism, procrastination, and self-compassion, gaining practical wisdom from Abby Rawlinson's integrative therapeutic approach. Thank you Wild Nutrition for making this Episode of Saturn Returns possible. Use the code SATURNRETURNS for 15% off your first order wildnutrition.com and book your free consultation here --- Subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and receive more empowering insights and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. I've got this friend who recognised when her people-preasing had got out of control because she'd gone to a friend's house and they said, do you want red or white wine? And she was like, well, what's open? Whatever's open? It's like, nothing's open, what do you fancy? It like well what are you having and just like literally couldn't say what she wanted didn't know as a people pleaser you can like spend your whole life like tuning in to what everyone else wants shifting to everyone around yeah that you just totally don't even

know how to tune into yourself whoever you need me to be. Tell me what I'm drinking. Yeah. Today, I'm joined by Abby Rawlinson, who is a therapist based in London, working with people who struggle with anxiety, imposter syndrome, and low self-esteem. Abby integrates traditional psychotherapeutic theories with cutting-edge evidence-based techniques into a style that is described as relatable, down-to-earth and compassionate. And in this conversation we unpack perfectionism, people-pleasing, procrastination, all the big P's. These are themes that I definitely struggle with and I found it really interesting the way that we kind of got through the layers of actually what's going on behind the people pleasing and the perfectionism and how these things can stop us and halt us in life especially in the context of creativity and

and that's something that very much applies to me we also get into somatic therapy which is essentially about getting into your body and the importance of you know not just being in the mind with therapy speak but actually somatically healing ourselves we also touch on co-regulating which is my new favorite thing and the importance of when you are in the heat of an argument with someone or even just the dynamics of a relationship whether that's a co-worker, a romantic partner or a friend. Acknowledging that our nervous systems are interacting with each other is so key and I think that it's a space that needs a lot more air time and we need the tools for how to manage these experiences. I hope you enjoy this conversation with myself and Abby and find

something useful and learn something today so enjoy this conversation with myself and Abby and find something useful and learn something today. So enjoy this episode. Abby, welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast. Thank you. It's so nice to be here. How are you doing today? Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. I was just saying I feel pretty refreshed today because I did a cryotherapy chamber yesterday yeah first time yeah first i'm doing it and you get blasted with freezing cold hair and but it's not as bad as a ice bath um it's pretty brutal for 30 seconds and then you feel pretty good and you feel good this morning after doing it yeah i think so i think i can still feel the the impact of it what is the sort of i mean i was listening to

someone talk about this the other day how it's really good for your mental health why is that i think it's to do well they they think it's it puts your nervous system into fight or flight and then you go into a recovery mode should i come on that anyway yes permanently living don't i don't need a blast of cold air to put me into fight or flight but you can and you can feel that actually like your heart rate increases and you can feel like i guess your body does think something scary is happening but then it's almost like you get a bit of a high because the cold air cools like warms and then you feel you feel pretty good it took me ages to to actually identify as a perfectionist because I thought that being a perfectionist meant that you do everything perfectly yeah and that you're like super

clean and tidy and I'm not that I hear this from my clients as well they're like well I can't be a perfectionist like my room's a mess or like my grammar's awful I'm like well that's not what it is like perfectionism is you know holding ourselves to these like unrealistically high expectations and then criticizing ourselves when we fail to perform the unattainable. And, you know, yeah, it shows up in work all the time. Like I thought I'd got a bit of a handle on my perfectionism and then I had a child and it sort of flared up again. How come? and it sort of flared up again how come well it's just like I think it shows up in all these different ways kind of you know trying to have this perfect work-life balance and trying to be a perfectionist about that and it doesn't exist but also in these kind of daily things like oh

you know I'm not giving my child enough nutritious food or he's not in nature enough or he doesn't spend enough time with other kids and like the other day we got I got my Christmas tree and um I brought it home I brought it into our living room and before I'd even put like lights and decorations on it and stuff like my son was just like he's only 10 months and he was just like staring at it like kind of mesmerized and like touching the branches and I was like oh my god he doesn't know what that is he doesn't spend enough time in nature I need to get him out in nature more and then i started i was like i think there's a book about how you can like integrate nature into children's play and i started looking on amazon and i was like hang on a minute like this is this magical moment where my son is like enjoying his marveling

and i'm like on amazon like what has happened and i i did catch myself and I it's basically how to be the perfect parent is the new kind of yeah that and I have heard that in terms of the sort of parenting world that it can be quite uh yeah the sort of comparison and oh you should be doing this you shouldn't be doing that like constantly being given and bombarded with advice can feel quite overwhelming yeah there's a lot of advice and it's and yeah there's a real comparison trap with it and I think if you've if you've had experiences with perfectionism at work then you know it's quite likely that it'll probably pop pop up in parenting again and like unless you address it and also with perfectionism it definitely rears its head when we're out of our comfort zone like doing something

new and something different or when we're stressed why is that well just because it's out of our comfort zone and you know perfectionism is all about not wanting to you know be seen a certain way you know and when we're new to something like it's quite hard to just accept that we're new and we don't really know what we're doing and and i guess the possibility of failing at it yeah or getting something wrong yeah because we're not familiar with it so we're on more higher alert and therefore the perfectionism yeah yeah exactly yeah exactly because we can actually be in a bit more of like fight or flight when we are like hyper aware of it. But I think like one of the most useful ways to sort of think about perfectionism is I find really helpful for my clients as well. It comes from like this psychoanalyst called Donald Winnicott in the 1950s.

And he, it was actually about parenting, how this came about is that he noticed that a lot of his clients were being really like perfectionistic about parenting and putting a lot of unnecessary stress on themselves. So he sort of came up with this phrase, good enough parenting. And he would say this to his clients to kind of show them that they didn't have to be ideal parents. They just had to be good enough. And that's not about like settling for being like a crap parent it's just about recognizing that actually being a perfectionist about it it causes a lot of problems what kind of problems well it's you well the example with me with my you know son it's like it takes you away from the present moment you know if you're constantly trying to think about how to be better and it it can really just like get in the way of connection you know like

I often do this experiment with my clients like set them a bit homework which is inspired by this good enough idea where I'll say go if they're perfectionists you know I'll say go away and do something at 80 instead of 100 which is like really terrifying if they're perfectionists, you know, I'll say go away and do something at 80% instead of 100%. It's just like really terrifying if you're a perfectionist. So like, send the email, you know, without checking it 1000 times, or, you know, leave the house without your full face of makeup on or, you know, just these, just dial it down a little bit, and you'll notice that nothing terrible happens, you know actually you'll probably because also i guess that 100 doesn't exist well exactly it's quite a clever way of tricking yourself into doing things if you if you you basically just

lowering the bar a little bit yes exactly and like nothing terrible happens people don't even really care like people don't notice and then you find that you have more time you know to do things that are more important to you and and with the connection thing like i did it i did this 80 experiment on myself because i i would get really like over the top about having people around my house and i'd be like i have to be the home has to be really tidy like everything has to be perfect i have to cook this elaborate meal and it has to be really beautiful and i would just like sort of end up not seeing people because it was such an effort to do this you suddenly like i'll have people over and then your brain suddenly jumped to this like extravagant thing that you need to put on you're like i

actually can't do that right now i can't be honest just had your friends over and they would have been perfectly happy and then so it's like you do it at 80% and you invite people around, you order a pizza, there's like a pile of laundry in the corner, like no one gives a shit. And you know, you have a good time. Like it's just these unnecessary standards

and it gets in the way of joy really. I think that's really, really useful. Another area that I find it particularly challenging in is like, know something that's out of our comfort zone but creative things so if I'm putting out something that feels scary that feels vulnerable I will procrastinate because I'm trying to get it to this point of perfection that doesn't exist I'm trying to eliminate the possibility of it being judged or ridiculed or anything going wrong and I'm like micromanaging and then then you know end up not doing anything with it and just sitting on the projects so perhaps I could apply that 80 percent yeah rule to this and I know that feeling too because I had it you know when I started writing the book there was like a lot of

this feelings were coming up yeah of like you know putting something out there it is really vulnerable and like you know the perfectionism the procrastination can come up but I I found that kind of connecting with my body and my nervous system really useful and that's and that's another part of what the book reclaiming you is about because it's not just really about thinking your way out of these patterns which traditional therapy can often be the nervous system piece i'm fascinated by because i'm sure it's in your vocabulary a lot more and you use it a lot and obviously it's a big part of the book but i say generally speaking it's quite a new concept for people to you know be told have you regulated your nervous system like how is your nervous system reacting to a certain situation or a person or whatever it might be but I learned to in um

dear friend of mine called Mark Groves had a course and it was all around relationships and there was a big section around the nervous system and I never connected those two things which obviously are hugely interconnected and then suddenly i was like god no one's really talking about this no and i was the same i didn't know anything about it until i did my psychotherapy training and there was a lot about the nervous system there and i think like a lot of people i had this sort of vague memory from like gcse biology of like fight or flight which is a big part of the nervous system and and fight or flight is sort of like reflects this kind of like key thing that our nervous

system does which it keeps us safe and i think in order to kind of understand the nervous system it's quite useful to think of um like going back to sort of like hunter-gatherer days and like imagining that we're being chased by a lion like something threatening is happening and what would happen is your nervous system would like automatically like switch on fight or flight if something scary is happening and you know your whole mind and body comes like focused on like escaping or surviving this danger so your heart rate increases you know your digestion slows down and then when the danger is passed the switch just automatically goes off and you go back into this like resting state but the problem is that we're not living in hunter-gatherer days

anymore and most of us have never been chased by a lion but our body can think that it's happening all the time like someone might be listening to this podcast and be in fight or flight mode and not even necessarily be aware of it because we can mistake daily stresses like an inbox full of emails or you know a delayed train for a lion yeah and so our body thinks that we're under threat and we're only really meant to be in fight or flight for like a moment like a fleeting experience but so many of us are just like living in this mode yeah but why is that because of the way that our world has changed in terms of technology having all of these distractions you know like say emails and

feeling like we need to be in all places at all times is that what's contributing to it definitely I think that's part of it like our kind of always on culture can definitely contribute to this like living in fight or flight mode but it can also be you know a result of trauma or you know like unprocessed stress I mean I know that in my previous job like I was in fight or flight now looking back I was like god I was in fight or flight mode a lot and you know when you're in that mode everything feels urgent you like can't slow down it's like this go go go like this fear of slowing down and it's just like you can experience it as anxiety what about somatic therapy and kind of getting into the body because you mentioned i think something about the body a second ago

how has how can that be a useful tool for people kind of regulating their nervous system yeah so i think what's really helpful and this is kind of what the regulation piece we need to know to understand how to regulate is that there's actually three states of the nervous system that we can go into so there's the one that we've talked about which is fight or flight there's the other one which is like the calm and resting state which is like the sweet spot that's where we want to be that's called the safe and social state but this other one that we can go into is called shutdown mode which some people freeze yeah exactly what about fawn fawn isn't an automatic state that our nervous system goes into fawn is related to people pleasing it's a learned behavior it's learned behavior yeah

exactly so it's people talk about fight flight freeze fawn but fawn is slightly different yeah because it's not it's not innate and automatic not everyone does it but once we understand these three key ones this fight or flight this safe and social regulated and this shutdown um because we we can kind of go in and out of these states all day every day and we're not meant to be regulated all the time you know we're not meant to be in this like zen state of calm. Like it's healthy for our nervous system to have these little dips into these different states. It's when we get stuck in them that it's an issue. And that, I suppose, was what I was saying about it helped me with the procrastination and the book writing was having this knowledge of my nervous system because 10 years ago before I knew any of this

I probably well I know I would if I had something to do that felt vulnerable or a lot of work I would just like sit at my desk all day like feeling stuck you know and I'd be like I can't I don't have time to go for a walk I don't have time to like cook a nutritious meal I just have to sing like get this done but would you get it done no no because I would just be like at the computer you're like yeah I've gone mad and then the more you're there not getting anything done it feels like the less time you have and it's just you get in this horrible trap and then but now what I know about the nervous system, I would recognize myself going into that state and I'd be like, okay, laptop closed. You're going to go for a walk. You might not feel like you've got time to do this, but you need to regulate. You need to put your nervous system

into a more calm state. And that might be doing some breathing exercises or like do a bit of yoga or, you know, just talk to someone on the phone about how I'm feeling. There's all these different ways that we can regulate and we all kind of find our own ways of doing it i find changing my environment helps yes because yeah if you're doing something like writing a book or you are your own boss and you don't have like set work hours i find myself sort of trying to get through uh an endless list of to-dos without actually giving myself you know any breaks like clear like lunch out you know what I mean which sounds silly and obviously being able to do what I do has enormous privileges but I I that's when I find myself kind of not being able to do the main thing that I have to do because I'm like I do that thing where I'm just at the computer slightly frozen and yeah I had it last week actually and I just was like okay I'm

gonna go to just a totally different place and went and just changed my environment and then I was like I don't know maybe it was just the journey from A to B yeah I find that like getting out can help you know whatever state i'm in whether i'm in this kind of fight or flight frantic go go go mode or whether i'm in more of a kind of shut down foggy numb don't want to move mode like changing environment definitely getting out can always help but there's kind of like a like a goldilocks principle of how to approach like getting out these different states like sometimes if you're in that really high energy fight or flight it can be useful to find an activity that like discharges the stress so something quite high energy like going for a

run or like you know like doing like you know i find it like sweating out in the gym or something can really help discharge the energy if we're in more of a shut down like frozen state going for a run can feel like impossible so we need something that's a bit more like gently energizing which might just be like having a shower or going somewhere where there's loads of people around to like lift your energy so you kind of have to pay attention to which state you're in in order to know how to regulate which takes practice which takes practice and in terms of you know you said oh we can't we are moving around from these different states and that's just normal what about when it comes to co-regulating with another person and also becoming dysregulated with another person particularly in the context of relationships because we're often drawn towards

certain people and our nervous system will be reacting to them and that might be a familiar thing that's healthy it might be a familiar thing that's unhealthy and then you can get into these patterns of behavior that logically you don't really understand what's going on but it's all in our bodies so what and it can go it can make things go from zero to a hundred yes when nothing's really happened yeah it's kind of mind-blowing when you when you understand that like someone else's nervous system can impact your nervous system yeah because co-regulating is it just means like using someone else's calm nervous system to like soothe your own and it's like a

really useful thing to have and it's why like when we're feeling stressed or anxious and someone gives us a hug like we feel better you know that's co-regulating with another person and that's a really positive experience and it's and it's one of the most powerful ways to to regulate but if someone's nervous system is dysregulated then we can become dysregulated and once you recognize that you you can start to sort of notice how different people can make you feel like if you if you notice that you you're feeling really calm and regulated and then you see see this person and you always come away feeling like quite anxious and on edge like that might be something to do with that how their nervous system is impacting yours so we kind of have to think carefully about you know who we spend a lot

of time with what about if it's your intimate partnerships is that oh is that where like part of this course yeah yeah that's kind of what it was alluding to it was like how we don't really pay much attention to how someone makes our nervous system feel and often we equate uh an anxious feeling with butterflies and and really if you think about it your nervous system might be saying actually we don't yeah danger yeah yeah it's it's learning to know the difference and that can be really hard because as you say like sometimes fight or flight can feel a bit like excitement you know it's almost a similar feeling but it it does just take practice to recognize how you feel and I think you know we're not responsible for

regulating other people's nervous systems and we can get into a bit of a people-pleasing kind of like way of being if we think oh I'm really noticing that you're already dysregulated and I've got to like you know co-regulate with you to calm you down we're only responsible for our own and i think the best way to like learn how the difference between these states that we're in is to spend a bit of time in stillness which is so hard to do I mean really like it's why a lot of us hate you know like meditating or doing something without listening to a podcast because we just find it so difficult to be without distractions but we have to be without those distractions for a while to be able to like tune in to how we're feeling and notice the difference between excitement or anxiety

and you I guess that kind of comes down in a way to boundaries between people because whilst we aren't responsible for regulating someone else's nervous system there is something to be said for you know an intimate relationship where you have the ability to calm your partner down but like you said it's not always possible when one dysregulated nervous system causes you to dysregulate and then it just kind of compiles into this explosion yeah especially if we've like triggered if we're triggered yeah that's kind of what i'm getting at which is what happens a lot in partnership and that's often why we're drawn towards certain people because they will trigger a part of us yeah and that's when it's something

that feels very historical but yeah the nervous system makes it feel like it's happening right now yeah exactly and i think like the word the word triggered gets used quite a lot and i think maybe it's sort of misused sometimes because I think people say like oh I'm feeling triggered if they're feeling they don't like something you know but actually as you say like trigger being triggered is like where an old wound has been like reopened and in relationships you know and it's disproportionate to the situation exactly it's like this phrase like if it's hysterical it's historical yeah one of my favorites and so useful and in relationships like say if your partner comes home and they've been to the shops and they bring you like the wrong loaf of bread it's not the one you wanted and you suddenly feel like overwhelmed with anger you might be like what the fuck like why am i so

stressed about this this is just bread but your nervous system has been triggered and gone into like fight or flight mode or shutdown mode and people then start when you're in that mode you're reactive you know you you you're not responding thoughtfully you're just reacting and if you don't understand what's triggered you or why you it can spiral out of control and then that other person can become dysregulated and you might have this argument where no one really knows what they're arguing about it's not about the bread but if you recognize that it's not about the bread that's why you're triggered you know you might you might stop and think okay i'm triggered because this is reminding me of this experience

of not being listened to as a child or of of having my needs overlooked and if you can pay attention to that and go aha okay this is why i'm feeling this way then you can take the steps to regulate which might mean i need to leave the room and take some deep breaths or i might need to go and journal or whatever it is that you find oh give me a hug i'm triggered i've you know it takes a lot of self-awareness. Oh my God. Yeah. Because in the moment, like your brain kind of goes offline,

which is, again, that's the thing. I don't, is it like, is that practical when we know what it's like to be in that state to be like, I'm just going to go and journal. Do you know what I mean?

Cause also it can be, it might be out in a social situation. Alcohol might be involved, which is another contributor to make people not be able to have that space between going hang on i've actually been triggered by something versus no this is real so what are like realistic tools for people that are in those environments and situations well it can be after the fact you know like you were not always great in the here and now sort of going oh like this wrong loaf of bread reminds me of the fact that

my dad did this when i was nine like it doesn't always work like that but it can be more after the fact you might be like whoa i really overreacted there like what was that about and and then you can reflect on it and and that and you kind of gain that knowledge. And then next time something similar happens, you can get a little bit better at recognizing like, oh God, I'm feeling that way. This is familiar. Like, what does this remind me of? You know, when did I go from,

when you're reflecting back on it, you're like, what was it that made me go from feeling fine to not fine? You know, and try and pinpoint the moment and then try and say to yourself, like, what does that remind me of? And in terms of, you know know I mentioned it a second ago but boundaries with another person if perhaps you're on the other side it's not you that's reacting or witnessing someone reacting and you

can see what's happening but like how do you handle that yeah well you know it depends what you want your boundary to be i mean if someone's really dysregulated and they're like shouting at you you know your boundary might be like you know we can have this conversation but if you raise your voice at me i'm gonna leave the room you know that's a boundary as people pleases or perhaps recovering people pleases boundaries are again something that gets thrown around a lot yeah but what do they actually mean by definition yeah how do we implement them in a healthy way yeah so about yeah there is a lot of confusion about it and i think a bit like when we talk about being triggered it's like one of those words like therapy speak that gets thrown

around and people will be like that's my boundary people are misusing the word boundaries as a preference it's like yes no that's a preference of how you want someone to behave that's not the same thing as a boundary and like a boundary people often like say it's a boundary when they're actually just like calling someone out on some behavior so say if um say if you've got um a mom who's always coming around to your house when you're at work and knocking on the door and she wants to hang out and you're like i really can't hang out like i've got work to do you saying to her like mom it's so annoying you're always coming around when i'm working that's not a boundary that's just like calling someone out on something boundaries aren't about other people they're about

us like a boundary is about what we will and won't accept and what where our line is what's okay what's not okay and so a boundary in that situation would be you know mum I'm working during the week in the day so if you come around again like I won't be able to answer the door. That might sound so harsh to people, especially like recovering people pleasers. But we have to think of when it comes to boundaries about what's going to preserve the relationship more. You know, standing and letting your partner shout at you, letting your mum come in when you're in the middle of work.

Like these are all going to lead to like resentment and that's going to be damaging to the relationship. Yeah, which is an interesting lens to sort of put things through because as people pleases there's a general i guess i don't want to use the word victim because again i know that's a dangerous one but you don't feel that you're actively participating in in the demise of anything because you're trying to keep the peace right but by not speaking your truth there is a resentment building up that will that's then you're harboring these sort of layers of time like another person has no idea because you've never said anything yes and then it can

come out in this like explosiveness again sort of disproportionate to perhaps whatever's going on but you're making about the other person but you've never actually communicated the boundary yes and you know i see this so much in the workplace you know yeah there's people pleasing and this kind of because like at work people people pleases will sort of like take on more than they can manage say yes to everything stay late reply to emails at like out of hours. And then they're like willingly doing it and then they're furious that they're doing it. Yeah, and then this resentment builds

and they're like, well, you know, I guess like unconsciously, you know, maybe hoping that it's gonna lead to like a promotion or a pay rise or even just like a pat on the back. And then when that doesn't happen, they're furious. And then they also see other people just doing their job and nothing more and they're like hang on a minute like how why aren't you staying late i'm always staying late and that resentment builds and builds because when we're people

pleasing we're not really like entering a contract where like the other person's going to give it back to us but sometimes we're doing it thinking that those conditions are understood so it's not this sort of selfless act that it's often framed as yeah it's like the people pleaser want something in return and no one ever talks about that exactly because people pleasing is not just about like being nice yeah no it's not like a little cute personality trait we're like i'm just a people pleaser i want everyone to be happy it's it's actually about not wanting to be disliked is where it comes from you know it's this feeling of like if I can keep everyone around me happy then I will be safe I'll feel safe and the trouble is we really lose sight of who we are like our authentic self when we're people pleasing you know I've got this friend who and she doesn't mind me telling this story but she worked right recognized when her people

pleasing had got like out of control because she'd gone to a friend's house and they said just like so simple they were like do you want red or white wine and she was like um well what's open whatever's open it's like nothing's open what what do you fancy it's like well what are you having and just like literally couldn't say what she wanted didn't know because as a people pleaser you can like spend your whole life like tuning into what everyone else wants shifting to everyone around yeah that you just totally don't even know how to tune into yourself whoever you need me to be drinking yeah yeah and you know that's a small example but that can it can end up like with these huge decisions in

life because then you're actually like i don't know who i am or what i want yeah totally lose that lose sight of these wants and needs of your own is it fair to say that this is slightly more gender specific in that women are more inclined to be people pleasers or is that not true i mean it definitely of it can happen with men but to be honest I do see it with women more I think that is I think it's like societal conditioning to kind of be the good girl yeah and it's also like don't be a difficult woman don't say you want the red wine if the white wine's open you know it's like that kind of thing yes and i'm actually trying to it's taken being in my 30s to embrace just saying what i want doesn't come it doesn't come naturally yeah yeah it's the fear of

other people kind of being disappointed and that is one of the hardest things about overcoming people pleasing is being able to tolerate other people being disappointed not liking you or not liking it because i think if you're used to living your life that way it's feels quite unbearable but then it gets to the point where you're sacrificing yourself in such a huge way that you're actually i can't continue yeah to do this anymore yeah exactly and you know you're right about the shape-shifting thing because I see this when with clients who are working on people pleasing and and myself as well you know if you're constantly shape-shifting and trying to like be this person that people you think that everyone else wants you to be you think that this

is the way that you're going to have connections and you're going to have this kind of love and belonging but actually when you're shape-shifting no one's really seeing the real you belong to anyone yeah and so you're not actually having connections it's actually a very lonely place to be so it's the kind of irony of it surface level superficial like floating around from place to place and you know the people that I have the best relationships with i'm the closest with are the people who aren't people pleasers because i really like him actually that's so authentic yeah but i i think i'm i've always been drawn to quite like divisive characters that often people are like oh god she's awful like because they're just who they are and they don't really give a shit and they can upset a lot of people but then the other half adore them and I've always loved those people I'm

the same I'm drawn to people like that because you know if you've got a friend who is always honest about what if you say oh can you come to my party and they're like you know what I'd love to but I can't I've got too much on my plate you know that's something I would have really struggled to say for a long time but when you when someone's able to do that you you feel safe with them because you always know where you're at you know they stand by their word and they have integrity whereas I guess what we're alluding to is that people pleases you're like you say nice things to everyone yeah and you actually end up letting people down I mean when i like before i'd really worked on this like i i found it really hard to say to someone like i can't travel across london

to see you and come and i would waffle on and be like oh i might come and there's this thing that might happen and then you bail and then you bail and then you're terrible so it's it's just weird we think it's how we're going to make friends and keep everyone happy, but it's really the opposite. What are some of the things that people can do that are sort of baby steps towards, because, you know, to suddenly imagine that you're going to be sort of tough, like say it how it is, person might be unrealistic. So what are some of the, like the simple tasks that people can do? Yeah. And you're right. You have to start small with this stuff.

So, you know, really little things like you know pick a restaurant that suits you um when you're arranging plans you know let a call go to voicemail schedule a meeting at a time that suits you and you will notice that nothing terrible happens and that people are generally like okay with you kind of like asserting yourself a little bit and you can build up from there because your nervous system has to get used to the idea that it's safe to please yourself because if you spent a whole lifetime pleasing other people it will feel scary at first it will feel threatening to your system so you have to you have to start small and there's this there's this idea that um body psychotherapists actually talk about a lot which is called titration which is um this idea that comes from chemistry actually which is about

mixing solutions in a gradual manner because if you put like loads of baking powder and vinegar together you'll have this like explosion but if you gently add vinegar you'll get this like little sizzle and nothing will like get out of control and it'll be fine yeah and it's like that with your nervous system yeah it's exactly the same we have to we have to take these like baby steps so that we don't overwhelm our system yeah i was listening to someone talk about this in it was to do with avoidant anxious attachment styles but in the context of career and how and it really it really like resonated with me because it's kind of to do with what we're talking about if a particular situation an opportunity something that's positive feels beyond where our nervous

system can get to and that's why we procrastinate sabotage have the perfectionism because it's and then our avoidance system kicks in because it's like oh my god that feels too scary even though it's what we we want yeah and what we desire and then we're like why am i not taking the opportunities why am i and then we can kind of get into this really awful loop because we don't understand why we're not taking the opportunity to yeah to excel and i found that huge because it's like what you just said if you need to take these little steps to give it that little and you will have you know perhaps it's sending a couple of emails a week or something that push you out of your comfort zone and maybe you won't get a response

to one but you will get a response to the other and then you kind of get used to oh i can actually connect to that person and you know you kind of are slowly expanding your horizons whilst giving your nervous system room to feel comfortable in this new way of being yeah like deb dana who um is a like a trauma and nervous system specialist she she says it's about stretching not stressing the nervous system but you know people it's hard because we live in this world where it's all about like quick fixes transformations like i hate that like go hard go or go home like thing it's not good i'm always like slowly is the fastest way to get

i need you and everyone's like don't want to listen to that people don't want to hear it i get it i wanted every quick fix i wanted a shortcut and i tried them all yeah and then it was during like my saturn return which essentially is teaching you like to build things on solid foundations yeah and then I realized okay this is how it actually lasts yes no one wants to know that it makes the process longer but it but it but it is a nicer way to do it because you're not stressing yourself out I mean you know in order to change and if we're thinking about like perfectionism people pleasing chronic busyness numbing like all of these things that i talk about in the book if we want to kind of overcome those things we do have to get out of our comfort zone a little bit you know because

if we want to make changes we have to experience some discomfort but we need to build up our tolerance for the discomfort which is why we kind of like stretch, not stress. So with anything, it's, it's baby steps. But what are some of the ways people can start to implement that? Well, I mean, with, you know, with chronic busyness, for example, you know, which is, I think a lot of people, you know, really suffer from that. I know I certainly did. It's kind of just like living in this like, go, go, go go like fear of slowing down you know constantly trying to optimize our time multitasking um being productive constantly and then like criticizing ourselves for not being productive enough like it's just exhausting um and the baby steps there are about trying to integrate stillness into our life but if you are that kind of person then you suddenly

right you're like right i'm gonna do a 30 minute breath work session or like an hour of meditation you'll just not be able to do it you'll like freak out your system so the baby steps there of like integrating like stillness into your life is to start really small with something like you know next time you're standing in the queue for a toilet somewhere like don't pull out your phone just see if you can just be or when you're having your coffee in the morning like try not to like read something at the same time or listen to a podcast at the same time try and just sit and be present you don't need to be going to like a mountain to meditate so yeah exactly we all do that as well when we notice that we need

to make a change we then sent set ourselves this impossible list and then never to never get around to doing it yeah and also like with january coming up i think there's a lot of pressure every year where everyone just goes crazy for december and then like goes into turbo drive to get their life together in Jan yeah and then inevitably sort of fail but I think another important note is to congratulate yourself when you do the little thing yeah if you do you know just have your coffee and stay remain still and don't distract yourself with whatever device than actually giving yourself the moment of like yeah I did the thing that I said I was going to do yeah we're not very good

at that either no we're not very good at like celebrating our our wins and also we're not very good at being kind of kind to ourselves when we we might like get it wrong like if we overstep and we do too much which is easy to do, you know, we can be so self-critical and actually we need, all of us need to be, you know, much more compassionate with any of these things when it comes to kind of like setting boundaries, you know, like it's hard, it's really hard to do these things and to get it right. And it takes practice and I mean, starting and and if we get it wrong or if people aren't happy with our boundaries you know we have to practice that self-kindness

otherwise we're just going to go back to our old behaviors yeah so the self-compassion piece is is hard it's really hard i really like um so dr kristen neff she's um a self-compassion researcher and i love her work because self compassion i think people think it sounds like a bit cheesy but it's actually a really really practical tool and it's something that you can actually learn to do and it's she talks about self-compassion as having these like three components which is like self-kindness which is just speaking to ourselves in like a supportive kind way and then there's mindfulness which is just recognizing how we're speaking to ourselves you know noticing those

kind of self-critical thoughts and not over identifying with them and then common humanity is the third pillar which is recognizing that other people feel this way too and that we're not alone in the struggles that we too and that we're not alone in the struggles that we have and when we can kind of do all those three things then we can live a much more self-compassionate life well it's always the the feeling that we're the only one that thinks the way that we do or that has the issues that we have and i can tell you as a therapist it is not true we all have the same you know I was thinking about this this morning so many people suffer from social anxiety and it really like peaks at this

time of year and people time and time again in my therapy room I think that they're the only ones that has these thoughts and these thoughts of like you know oh you know everyone thinks I'm awkward or what if people can tell that I'm anxious or I've got nothing to of like you know oh you know everyone thinks I'm awkward or what if people can tell that I'm anxious or I've got nothing to say or you know it's like everyone has these fears like in these similar thoughts um and if we can have that self-compassion where we're like other people think this way other people feel like this you know it's okay to be anxious sometimes then we can regulate there was one other thing that i wanted to talk to you about that's a slight sort of detour from where we're at currently yeah but it's to do with

grief not in the sense of actually losing someone but grief of a situation a job yeah just changing and evolving as a person and perhaps it's to do with you know all the things we've discussed when you reclaim your authentic self and you lose a lot of things in the process yeah no one really talks about that and um i saw you put something up about it recently and i'm in the process of moving house which i acknowledge is you know i'm so lucky to be in that position, but I've noticed a huge amount of grief. Yeah. As I leave behind a chapter of my life that I adored, that was filled with so many memories and a time I'll never forget. But feeling very strange about that and not really knowing or understanding that it's okay to feel grief. Yeah.

Yeah. that it's okay to feel grief yeah yeah yeah I think it's so it's such an important topic because yeah a lot of the time we just think of of grief as being like you know a death yeah you know but any change really any change in life there's grief you know and even if it's really positive change you know like moving house and you know even me like I've just had a child there's grief in that and people do not want to talk about that. Yeah. I think there's fear of judgment around perhaps talking about that one. But with any loss. Because people make you feel like you're ungrateful for.

Yeah. I think ungrateful or regretful. But that must make people feel so lonely. Exactly. Exactly. And this is this thing of, you know, people coming to therapy and saying, I can't believe I think this. It's like, well, you're not the the only one you know and which is why i think it's so important that there's podcasts like this where people are just honest about what's going on

but yeah i think with any kind of change there's grief with any kind of change there's loss but what's useful is to remember that two like almost contradictory feelings can exist at the same time it's part of developing emotional intelligence is understanding this kind of idea of both and so I can feel both sad about this chapter that I'm leaving behind with my my old house and excited about this new thing I don't have to choose which one it is. And because I feel sad and I feel some grief about leaving this old house, it doesn't mean that it's the wrong decision. Well, that's the thing.

I think when you have conflicting, but you're like, which one's right? Which one of these things to do? This must be wrong. What's going on here? Yeah. And if you fall into this black and white thinking of either or when it comes to making decisions,

you will never make any changes because you'll be waiting until you feel perfectly happy 100% with something and that never happens because that's we have this kaleidoscope of emotions that we are meant to feel and you know this is where a bit of the like kind of numbing can come in it's like if we don't like a feeling like say if you were like I don't like this grief what's this grief no I don't like this you might not want to feel it and you might stuff it down and we all have different ways of like numbing our feelings whether that's like eating a load of chocolate or you know binging on Netflix and you know we think I'll just stuff that down i just don't like that but sadly that never works

and our feelings come back like 10 times stronger um and so we have we have to we have to feel it all do you experience a lot of people coming to see you you know with grief in areas that they don't necessarily understand yeah yeah and and sometimes people don't even you know know that it's grief you know until they start talking about it but yeah all't even, you know, know that it's grief, you know, until they start talking about it. But yeah, all sorts of reasons, you know, for grief. Like, you know, there's obvious ones like kind of ending relationships and, you know, changing jobs, you know, fertility issues, you know. I think, I presume that people understand that more as a form of grief. But this particular area where it's something good, but you're still experiencing a sadness is, you know, quite nuanced and unusual.

Yeah. And like you said, it's being able to hold those two truths together. Yeah. Yeah. together yeah yeah it's it's definitely it's definitely like I think it's one of the big skills that people learn in therapy actually is is is understanding that we can feel more than one thing at the same time and that that's okay and and finding the language to name those different feelings rather than to just try and run from them and to make space for them to feel them and you know people often say to me like you know it can become a bit of a line, isn't it? Like, feel your feelings.

It's like, what does that mean? Like, how do you do that? And I think there's this kind of idea called name and tame your feelings. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a really useful way of understanding how to feel our feelings rather than, like, squashing them down. understanding how to feel our feelings rather than like squashing them down and the idea is just literally that if you can label an emotion then it's more likely to pass so you would say you know I you just recognize the feeling but instead of saying like I am angry you say I feel angry which sounds really nitpicky but it's actually quite a useful distinction because you're not

over identifying as being an angry person you're recognizing that you feel angry and that it will pass so actually just naming it labeling it saying that you feel that way can really just help it move through you rather than kind of wrestling with it wrestling with it and and trying to squash it down or trying to be like ah like i'm this angry person and know that you know we're not meant to feel happy all the time and also i guess to get into the body more with it rather than because we can be so in the mind and then we're sort of using language to try and explain what's going on and we can get ourselves into a right tailspin but actually just sitting with it letting it move through our body acknowledging its presence yeah yeah absolutely i think like sometimes this it can be quite useful

this beach ball analogy that i often use which is where if we don't want to feel a feeling like anger which is really common with women and that's quite linked to the people pleasing thing say we kind of like we just try and suppress it or like avoid it it's a bit like holding a beach ball under the water um and in the moment like the surface of the water might feel like smooth and calm and we might think okay great but we can't hold it down forever and when we are holding it down like we can't really get about much but the the longer we hold it down, the more when we inevitably let go, it's going to come rushing up to the surface and make like a big,

exactly, a big splashy smack in the face. And with our emotions, that's what happens. We like get overwhelmed and it's messy because the longer we hold it down, like the more overwhelming it feels. So again, going back to this like baby steps thing, it's just like, you know, just try and feel it gently, you know, instead of pushing it down because you're not making it go away. And if you can name it to tame it and recognize that those feelings

are there, it won't be so messy. Do you feel that people have got better at being able to hold space for themselves or worse? I think, I mean, I like to think better because I like to think that we talk about these things more openly now about feeling our feelings and holding space and, but it's not, it's not easy, you know, I think, and even if we intellectually understand that we have to feel our feelings, you know, I obviously totally understand that I need to do that. Doesn't mean I always do it. But this is what I mean. Just because we have the language and there's more awareness of it,

doesn't mean that we're actually able to do it in practice. I don't know. Yeah. But, you know, also we don't have to fully feel every feeling as it comes. I think sometimes we can feel like this. Once we start start learning about these things there's this pressure to be like i have to sit with my sadness like it is okay sometimes to have a healthy distraction from our feelings but also it's only been a small amount of time really that we are having these conversations like my parents generation just say this is just so different from the way we grew up which is fantastic but this stuff is far more

useful it's useful now but it's far more useful if it's taught in childhood yeah yeah because when you're already a fully grown adult you may you may compute what it means to hold space but what I notice is that I know people understand what it means but they need someone to hold it for them and that's fine I think that's really beautiful and I think that's a really important practice as well and it's incredible that we're creating these communities but I do think that people don't know how to hold it for themselves yeah it's tough and I mean that's why therapy can be so great because as you say like having someone else there that can help you identify those feelings and sit with them and then in the hope that eventually like you can go and do it for yourself but it's it's hard and

it's like lifelong work you know it's you don't sort of get to this point where it's like yeah i can feel all my feelings you know it's it's it's constant practice and constant trying to challenge ourselves like am I numbing here like can I let myself feel this like can I not get overwhelmed by this it's it's not easy it's not easy and for our listeners is there anything else that you'd like to share as a kind of piece of advice because obviously a lot of what you speak about is very relevant to our audience and the stuff that they're navigating I mean we sort of touched on it really but I think just overall I just want people to kind of remember if you remember anything from this conversation is that you don't have to make these radical huge changes in order to kind of heal and break free from unhealthy habits and behaviors you know I

think the key is to go slowly take baby steps not overwhelm your nervous system and show your system that it's safe to make changes and these kind of small changes will eventually lead to transformations yeah and that healing isn't linear Yeah yeah exactly yeah it's not linear there's going to be some bumps in the road but you know. Self-compassion. Yeah exactly compassion along the way will take you far. Well thank you so much for joining us on Saturn Returns. Thank you for having me. Yeah it's been lovely thank you. thank you so much for listening to this episode with myself and abby if you want to find out more about abby you can get her book which is out now called reclaiming you and what i found particularly interesting about this conversation was you know abby's take on self-compassion and the importance

of it it's something that's been on my mind recently I don't think many of us are very good at that particular piece so it was very useful for her to kind of break down the practical steps that we can take to do that and also you know this notion of triggers and general therapy speak that can be overused I found sort of breaking all of that down also quite illuminating so if you found it useful I would love it if you could share it with a friend or share it on social media or write us a review writing us a review really really helps us get in the ears of more like-minded people and I also really like reading their reviews so if you have a spare moment please take the time to do that and also one final request is do not forget to follow the show

if you enjoy Saturn Returns enjoy what we bring you each week please please please hit that follow button thank you so much for listening and And as always, remember, you are not alone. Goodbye. This is a Saturn Returns production. The producer is Harriet Pullen. The executive producer is me, Kagi Dunlop.