The Liz Moody Podcast - How To Stop Stressing Over Balance, Perfection, & Timelines + ACTUALLY Enjoy Your Life With Katherine Morgan Schafler, LMHC

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Katherine Morgan Schafler shares actionable tips for fighting toxic perfectionism, identifying your own personal values, and living in alignment with those values.  how to stop trying to control your body (whether it’s about your weight or health) pragmatic ways to let go of outside expectations and timelines of where your life is “supposed” to be the misogynistic roots of the idea of balance and women being afraid to lose control  why it’s not bad to need external validation (as long as you do THIS one thing) the reason it’s hard to love yourself, even if you’re doing the work  3 concrete ways to love yourself more all of the ways you might be punishing yourself without even knowing it (and what to do instead) a genius way to tap into your innate sense of self-worth the difference between energy management and time management + how to get more premium quality energy practical tips to stop people pleasing how to not let perfectionism get in the way of your best life and so much more!  For more from Katherine, find her at perfectionistsguide.com, follow her on social media at @katherinemorganschafler, and grab her book The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power.  To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. This episode is sponsored by: Thrive Market: go to thrivemarket.com/healthiertogether to join Thrive Market today and get 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift.  LMNT: go to DrinkLMNT.com/Liz a to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order.  AG1: visit AG1.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  Paleovalley: go to paleovalley.com/lizmoody for 15% off your order. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the healthier together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning the secrets to throwing successful gatherings, finding the latest hacks for strong, shiny hair, or getting actionable tips for maintaining healthy boundaries in all aspects of life. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives.

This is a long episode, but it's one of my favorite. favorites that I have ever recorded. It's also really chatty, like hanging out with a really interesting, smart friend. So listen to it over a few commutes or workouts or use it as a way to get your whole house clean. It is 100% worth it, I promise. I am so, so excited to welcome Catherine Morgan Schaffler to the podcast. Catherine is an author and therapist who is formerly an on-site therapist at Google. She earned her degrees at UC Berkeley, which shout out, Gobert's. That's where I went in Columbia University, which was where I wanted to go, but was reject. from, which is okay because I mostly applied since I looked good in baby blue.

Catherine's work has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Glamour, Entrepreneur Magazine, Oprah Daly, and many more. And her brilliant book, The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, A Path to Peace and Power, came out this year and outlined steps for breaking free of perfectionism and figuring out what you really want in life. In the episode, we get into how to stop trying to control your body, whether it's about your weight or your health, pragmatic ways to let go of outside expectations and timelines of where your life is supposed to be, the misogynistic roots of the idea of balance and women being

afraid to lose control, why it is not bad to need external validation as long as you do this one thing. The reason that it's hard to love yourself, even if you're doing the work. Three concrete ways to love yourself more. All of the ways that you might be punishing yourself without even knowing it and what to do instead. a genius way to tap into your innate sense of self-worth. The difference between energy management and time management and how to get more premium quality energy.

Practical tips to stop people pleasing. How to not let perfectionism get in the way of your best life and so much more. We would both love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaways as you're listening to the episode. So definitely screenshot and tag Catherine. She is at Catherine Morgan Schaffler. And me, I'm at Liz Moody on Instagram. I am so obsessed with this episode and I cannot wait to chat about it with you.

Before we get into it, I have two very important quick things to talk about with you. First of all, you all made my newest book an instant bestseller on both Amazon and Bookshop.org. Seriously, at one point, we were number one in like 10 Amazon categories and number 122 out of all books on Amazon, which is wild given that it hasn't even come out yet. I am so, so grateful to every single person who preordered. Pre-orders tell the publisher and booksellers how excited to be about the book, which is why they are extremely important and why we're giving away a $1,000 credit to an airline of your choice to travel anywhere you want as a bonus for pre-ordering. And friends, I promise this book is 100% worth it. I wanted to give it the value of 50 books in one book. On every single page, you get not only a science-backed.

explanation for how to be more confident, how to be more successful, how to have a healthier gut, how to live longer, and so much more, but also an action tip, exactly what to do to use that science to change your life starting today. If you love this podcast, you're going to be obsessed with this book. It's like everything that you love in these episodes, plus even more, and you can see the few things that all of the experts really agree on and the wisdom that's changed my life the most and more. Just go to 100 ways to change your life.com to find out more details and get that $1,000 flight credit.

That is 100 like the number 100-1-0-0 Ways to Change Your Life.com. We are closing the giveaway soon, so do that today. Okay, next up, I am nervous to say this out loud, but we are officially changing the name of the podcast to the Liz Moody podcast. The content is not going to change at all. The main reason is simply that I think this podcast has outgrown the name healthier together. It's about living your best life in all parts of your life, your relationships, your career, your mental health, your physical health. We have episodes about finding your personal style

and episodes about making your hair strong and episodes about making friends as an adult. And a lot of that doesn't fit into what people think of as a health podcast. And I didn't want to alienate people who would otherwise really enjoy the content. This has been the Liz Moody podcast for a long time. Your one-stop shot for science-backed advice that shared in a fun, conversational, actionable way. And I'm so excited for the name to reflect that. So it is not happening quite yet, but I wanted to give you a heads up. So when you see the Liz Moody podcast in your feed, you know it is nothing new. It is just the exact same content of the healthier together podcast that you know and love with a name that reflects that more. I am so nervous that people won't

recognize it and will stop listening or unfollow. So, So please, please look out for it, tell your friends. Help me with this transition. I am very, very, very nervous about it. But I know in my heart, I know in my soul that it is the right move. Okay, let's get right into it with Catherine Morgan Schapler. Catherine, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I'm so excited to get into perfectionism and everything we essentially get wrong about it as a society.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about it. Amazing. Can you just start us off? by sharing a little bit about your personal story. I read that there was a diagnosis that made you grapple with your own need to not lose control. I, when I was 33, got diagnosed with this rare thing called gestational trophoblastic disease, which has a really high treatment rate. It's like a 95% treatment rate. But the course of treatment requires chemotherapy. I had just been married.

I wasn't able to freeze my eggs before doing that, and the doctors were very blunt about how that changes your egg count and fertility issues and all the stuff. And it's all kind of moot because it doesn't matter because you need the treatment. So this news came at a moment in time when I had really structured my personal life and my professional life to just line up in the way that I had wanted during my whole 20s, I had just been recruited to work on site at Google as their therapist launching this pilot program about incorporating mental health into their company's wellness program. I had a really successful private practice on Wall Street. I had worked in all kinds of different demographics, and I had just been invited to start writing for Time magazine. And within the span of

three weeks, everything just had to stop. And it was so difficult to one, say no to all these opportunities that I had worked towards for so many years. But also, it happened so quickly that there was no way to kind of sugarcoat any of it. And I realized for the first time in my life, how much I was controlling and micromanaging everything. And that shocked me because I didn't at the time think of myself as a controlling person. It just felt to me like I was being responsible and disciplined and all of this stuff. It sounds so cliche, but it is the truth that I never realized how much I was over-indexing on control until I lost it all very suddenly. The next year or two were spent continuing to freefall in a way that made me have to calibrate internally, which was such a

gift. I didn't realize how much I was calibrating externally to things like timelines, other people's expectations, what was possible or offered to me versus what did I actually want to say yes to. So the subtitle of the book, A Path to Peace and Power, is something that is the spine of the book of the difference between control, which is like a cardboard cutout version of power and real power. There's so many differences that I spell out, but the main one is like control is always external. It's always like you're trying to make something outside of you happen, to make someone like you, to make someone hire you, to make a certain amount of money, and power is really internally sourced. That is kind of the seed of where all the stuff that I

packed into the book came from was that moment in time. How is your health doing now? My health is wonderful now. I did a lot of IVF after all that treatment and we ended up having a beautiful baby girl, which was and continues to be just amazing, all the things people say. And after that, I still had some hiccups. I was getting blood tests every six weeks for years. And they were usually fine, and then one day they weren't, and then I had a hysterectomy. And we're never really in the clear in a way, because it's like at any point, so much can happen with your health. I am very happy to be able to say that things are going well and I'm enjoying them. I'm just moving forward. I think a lot of people, myself very much included, struggle with wanting that control over our bodies,

whether it's in terms of how our bodies look or it's in terms of how our bodies have health issues and things like that. Would you have any advice to somebody who wanted to let go of that control a little bit with their body? One thing that really bugs me in mainstream wellness is this directive for women to love their body. And I think that's actually a kind of control and a kind of emotional perfectionism where you're not really healthy until you love your body. And that's not true. You can like your body. You can love your body. You can not think about your body that much and have body neutrality. You can dislike your body and you can be healthy and feel all those things about your body. I mean, the pressure we lay upon women to make their body look a certain

way or craft a certain relationship with your body in which you're just so enthusiastic about it all the time. That's actually very anti-feminist. That is saying that because your body is your highest currency and highest value, you loving it is your way of expressing your deepest confidence in yourself. And your body is not the main currency of who you are. Taking a step back from that and removing this directive to love your body like the way it looks, appreciate it every second of every day, takes the pressure off somewhat. And I think perspective shifts are always the best way to spark change because you can't

unsee the new way you're looking at something. So it automates all your thoughts. When people hear you need to love your body or self-love equals body love, just know that that's not true. That is a mental health myth. And also notice people aren't telling men that. People aren't telling men love your body. I actually did account for research in my book. I had my research assistant examine the cover of tons of men's magazines and the cover of tons of women's magazines and men's health directives were about things like muscle mass and cardiovascular health and things that are kind of more internal, whereas women's were all about appearance and the way we are viewed. It's interesting. I have a series on this podcast called How I Learned to Love My Body, and I have this

little kind of paragraph I always say at the beginning of this series, which is that I grappled with what to call the series for many reasons. But I settled on the word love because I think of love as such a complicated relationship. Like I love my husband more than anybody on this planet. But some days I don't particularly like him. And most days, I know I couldn't live without him. And some days I want to be as far away from him as possible. But it's always going to be there. It's a constant in my life. It's a core thing that makes my life the way that it is. And I kind of view our relationship with our bodies in that way.

Like I always say your body is for living, not looking. And anything we can do to redefine our relationship with our bodies to make it about living is critical to our health and to our happiness. But I grappled with the word love myself in that way. And I ended up being okay with it because I do think that love is one of the most complicated emotions that we feel as human beings. Yes. So you're talking about it in this nuanced way, which I can very much get behind because you're framing love in a framework of connection. You're saying you need to be connected to your body

because you are connected to your body. And any resistance around that is going to cause you some suffering in some way. Whereas in the mainstream wellness world, it's just a rah-rah cheerleader, sort of vapid, really one-dimensional version of love, which, which doesn't speak to connection. It just speaks to enthusiasm. It's almost like a rom-com love versus what happens after the final scene in the movie love. Exactly. Another thing that you said that I thought was really interesting was the idea of calibrating to your needs, your wants, your desires instead of these outside timelines and pressures and what your life was supposed to look like. I think that that's a struggle so many people have. I get messages about it on literally a daily

basis. If somebody wanted to calibrate without going through a scare like you did, would you have any advice for them? The way that you calibrate is that you understand what your values are. And this gets tricky because all values sound good. Right. So if you see a value list, it will say things like honesty, integrity. There's every good thing you can think of courage, adventurous, a kindness. and none of them sound bad. So it can be really hard to identify what your values are. And I would say two things to your listeners. One, know that whatever values you pick, those are for this season of your life.

So you're not committing to these values forever. And two, if you don't know what your values are, go back and think about what are the best compliments that I've received. Because the compliments that you respond to will reveal what you value most. For example, if someone says to me, you look so pretty today, that's always nice to hear. I don't hate that compliment. But when people DM me and say, your book made me cry, I'm touched. That is the kind of compliment I want because one of my top three values is connection. So if someone tells me that my book made them emotional in some way, I know that they've connected to it. And that's what

makes me feel like, okay, I am able to animate my values out in the world by creating work like my book. Oh, that is such good advice. I love that. I don't know what value this would point to, but I had the experience when I wrote two cookbooks and people would be like, oh my gosh, thank you. I love these recipes. They would tell me these really wonderful stories. And I always very much appreciated them. But they didn't settle almost in a way. And then when people tell me that the podcast changed their life, it means it hits so hard. It means the world to me. And it's so interesting to me. I think my values might be something like connection, deep thinking, asking big questions, things like that, things that the podcast lets you do that the cookbook doesn't.

But it was this very interesting experience of being really proud of something that I put out into the world and being really happy that it was impacting people in a positive way, but it didn't sit in my soul in that way. That is interesting. And it might be the dynamic. nature of a podcast, that it is ever evolving. Maybe the ever evolving part is a value because the cookbook is all contained and done and you can't really move with it or grow with it. So maybe that value speaks to something about growing alongside of or evolving or having something that is alive. Oh my gosh. I love that. Okay. Let's talk about perfectionism. So your book is called the perfectionist guide to losing control. When I'm reading the book, I almost felt like it could have been

called the perfectionist guide to embracing your power, not the perfectionist guide to losing control. Do you see losing control as the key to embracing your power? That's a great question. When I came up with that title, I thought, this is a fun title. And the title describes what the book is about. And it makes people think about losing control, which is often talked about in a negative way. So we don't want to want to lose control. Part of the book was just a little playful spin on, what if you do want to lose control? Why are you afraid to lose control? What do you think will happen if you lose control? I wrote the book for women, and I think women in particular feel this, which is a lack of trust in ourselves. And your work has addressed a lot of this. There's a lot in particularly the diet

spaces. There's a lot of language about control of giving yourself treats and rewards, and I call it dog clicker language. And there's a dark history in clinical psychology that encourages women not to trust ourselves. Hysteria was the most diagnosed illness, and it was in the canon of psychological literature until 1952. There is the understanding that there is an echo that I think women, feel in particular of, I can't trust myself, because if I trust myself, I'll go crazy. This trope of women going crazy, calling women psycho, all of these things didn't just pop up. They come from somewhere. There's a history behind them. We think that if we let go of control, we're just going to lean hard into all these hedonistic things. We're going to get wasted and go have sex with everyone and eat all

the food in the house. And of course, that's not true, but we don't trust ourselves enough to even begin to test that. What happens then when we do let go of some of our control? Well, it depends if you're letting go consciously or not. And if you're letting go consciously to get back to your original question of this external calibration and being really over-indexed on the outcome as opposed to the process, what that looks like in real time is needing to achieve a goal, regardless of how it feels for you to work towards the goal. So it doesn't matter what your internal experience is, as long as you get the thing. And when you consciously let go of control, you flip that paradigm. And you say what matters is that I feel good. I feel like myself. I feel alive. I feel connected

did to the things that matter to my values, to the relationships that matter, to the work I love. That's what matters in a primary way. The other stuff still matters. Let's not pretend it doesn't matter. We want to reach our goals. But it is secondary when you consciously lose control. I love that. So that's the guide to losing control. Speak to me about the perfectionist part. Do you view perfectionism as a net positive, a net negative, a neutral that we can push in either direction based on how we use it? I think of perfectionism as a positive thing that doesn't mean that it can't be incredibly destructive because we all know that it can. And the way that I think about it is broadly. And that is in the same way that people might think of themselves as a romantic or

an activist or an artist. Because perfectionists relate to themselves as perfectionists throughout their whole lifetime. And research backs this up. It is an enduring identity marker. So when people say I'm a perfectionist, they don't mean I'm being such a perfectionist this week. They never qualify it because that's just a part of who they are. And what I noticed in the self-help and personal development space was that all the books about perfectionism are about how to not be a perfectionist, how to be less of a perfectionist. And because the identity and construct, perfectionism and perfectionist are so enmeshed, what you're actually doing when you send that message is saying, here's how to be less of who you are. Here's how to essentially dim

your light. And in the same way, I would never tell a romantic who is very much into romanticism, listen, just believe in love 75% of the time. And the rest of the 25% just be more practical. That doesn't work. And it doesn't work to tell perfectionist things like, just lower your standards, show up late on purpose. Do this. Dude, don't sweat the small stuff. It's like, that's not who that person is. A better approach is to say, let's be all of who you are. Let's assume there is nothing wrong with you. Let's figure out what your pain points are and put boundaries around those. And then let's figure out what your strengths are and maximize those and really leverage them in a way that builds power and makes you feel like you're more of yourself and that you are all the things I said before. your actions are in line with your values, and you don't have to love life every day, but you're

excited about your life in a way that this sounds so simple that it sounds strange to even say it, but to live in a way that makes you feel good. It sounds so simple, but I feel like so many people don't do it. It's become increasingly hard to do it, and I think people have a hard time putting their finger on why it's so hard. We can point to, I work too much. I have to be always on, there's social media, there's so many demands, et cetera. But it would be hard for people to pinpoint one thing that they could address, that they could change, that would make life just feel a little bit more good on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. And you know what? If you can't think of one thing, you can just start with the framework of internally calibrating. When I turned 30, that was

when this stuff became so loud for me. I remember turning 30 and being so happy in my relationship. And then automatically, it was like a switch where people started asking me, so when are you going to get married? What's going on? And I didn't care about being married. I never had a bride gene. It was never something I thought about. My partner didn't really care about being married, but I started getting pissed. And I was like, when are you going to propose? Out of nowhere. And I look back on that version of me of someone who needed in that moment external validation to enjoy my relationship. And I have so much compassion for her because I've wasted so much time in that moment minimizing and not appreciating what I had because it wasn't valid in the eyes of the people around me. And truly, when I'm being honest, my super close inner circle friends, they didn't care. These expectations are from acquaintances and strangers mostly, maybe like some family members. But it's just hard when you're in the most.

moment to recognize in real time that you're not internally calibrated. So we all do this. And we'll all continue to do it. It's part of being a human being. But that doesn't mean that we can't do it less and lean into ourselves more. I think it's absolutely wild how many messages that we're just getting on a constant basis. I was on the phone with a girlfriend the other night and she was struggling with her body image. And she was like, I can't believe that me of all people, I'm so mentally healthy. I've done so much work on this. I can't believe that I'm struggling with my body image in this way. And I was like, be so kind to yourself because you probably get a hundred subliminal messages on a daily basis about why you shouldn't enjoy your body, why you should feel bad about yourself,

et cetera. And same with the marriage. We're taught every movie we watch, every fairy tale that we watched as a kid, every book. We're taught the happy ending is this very stereotypical, heteronormative marriage, I think recognizing that and then being like, of course I've bought into this even as I've tried to do the work. If you're looking at a scale, the weight of those messages is so heavy. And even if you're doing your best to counter them, it just takes so much work. Well, said, yes, it's such an invitation for compassion to think that most of the time, and this is the approach I take with my clients and my work, the dysfunction is not in the person. The dysfunction is in the culture.

The problem is mental health is set up in such a way that all the names we have for the ways dysfunction and disorder shows up are put on the individual. So we say the person is going through a depression. We don't have language to name cultural dysfunction and cultural disorders. And I'm not saying that individual psychopathology isn't real because it is. What I am saying is it's not the whole story. And when you try to acclimate yourself to a culture which is sick, you are going to be sick. That is true of a culture. It's true of a relationship in which the other person is toxic or abusive. There's no way to be healthy in that relationship. And it's true of family systems which are built on dysfunction. There's no way for you to be healthy. There is a way for you to fit in. And that is to adopt the

dysfunction. But that's so frustrating because we have to live in this society. Like we're all trying to do our best to change the conversations, et cetera, et cetera, but we can only do so much and we have to live within the society. The only work we can do in some ways on a real change making level is on ourselves. Exactly. It's a two-part thing of the compassion that you're talking about, really giving yourself compassion. And I spell that out in the book because we don't know what that word means, really. And there is a brilliant researcher, Dr. Kristen Neff, who broke it down into three steps. And you don't even have to do all three steps. They're not iterative. Even if you just do one, it's better than the alternative, which is ruminating, punishing yourself in some way. Can you walk us through those three steps for compassion? The three steps are mindfulness. And again, these aren't in order. You don't have to do all of them. You could do half them. Whatever. Anything will help. And mindfulness is about understanding that we, We are never feeling just one thing. So let's say you're very disappointed of feeling perfectionists feel often because our expectations

are high. A lot of mindfulness stuff in the sort of generic wellness space will tell you to do two things. It'll tell you to find something you're grateful for or it will tell you to just not be whatever you're feeling, that the feeling is somehow bad in a way. And none of that stuff works. What does work is to embrace the disappoint. and really say, I feel so disappointed right now. And then turn your head and say, what else do I also feel? The question is not, how do I get rid of this disappointment? Because the second you ask that question,

you're in a tug of war with your mind and you will lose. The better question is, what else do I also feel? And you might also feel really excited about this thing that you're doing with your girlfriends in four days that you forgot about. You might also feel really appreciative that there is a friend that you can text and say, I feel like shit right now. Can you make me laugh? And whether they make you laugh or not, they'll try. We feel all kinds of things you might find that you feel energized about an idea that you had or that you feel relief, that at least now you know, now you have clarity on the thing that disappointed you and you can kind of move on. So that's mindfulness. Being able to ask yourself, what do I also feel and see the.

whole emotional landscape and not do the thing where you just focus on one piece that then itclipses everything. Another piece is common humanity. Common humanity is understanding that you're not alone. That's something we say all the time and intellectually, we get it, but we don't emotionally get it. And the way that I try to explain this to people so that it resonates emotionally is imagine those claw machines from an arcade. Imagine one of them picked you up and plopped you down in a room full of 100 people who are each sharing stories about the same problem that you are having. So let's say the problem is you really want to get pregnant and you can't get pregnant. And you do nothing but sit in that room with the 100 people who are sharing that story.

That itself will be curative. You will feel better. That's why AA is so successful in so many ways because the shame of feeling alone and feeling like, why is this so hard for me? This is easier for everyone else. And the pity party that ensues is removed when you realize, God, we're all suffering in some way. So common humanity is about understanding that everybody is suffering with something at some point. And we're all just taking turns. Having a tough time and a better time is when you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older,

What do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes, every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level.

And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here's the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements.

We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement, mitochondria, does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking mitopure increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change

and exercise routine. It's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithin A keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support your cells and how you age with most. Mitopure Gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitochondrure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. The number one rule of habits is to make the things

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effort for so much reward. Marley Spoon just makes eating well feel easy instead of stressful. And honestly, that is everything. This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to marlyspoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. That is right, up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That is Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody. So remember to get the offer in there. Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. Is there a way to tap into that common humanity without going to an AA meeting or finding a group of people? I think podcasts are my favorite way to do it.

When I listen to a podcast about something, even if you read the comments, you just realize this person is talking about it because there's an audience for this. I'm a professional listener for a living. But I think that that is one way, but really immersing yourself in any kind of digital community, which you can do anonymously, going to someone's Instagram page who talks about this a lot and just even recognizing how many followers they have. Because there is such a community of people who are suffering in this way. I'm glad you asked that question because let's just play around for a second and say even if nobody in the whole world or the history of the human race has ever had your problem, just knowing that other people are suffering, people who present really well, who you never imagine are having a hard time, nobody's inoculated. Human beings feel a lot of pain, a lot of the time. That's part of the deal. So I think to answer your question, just immersing yourself in digital communities is a really fast, free, accessible, easy way to understand that.

I would also say, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this, it's a reason I feel like I want to be honest with my friends and I encourage other people to just be honest with the people in their lives in a way that feels vulnerable about things that were ashamed of. I had this really intense period of agoraphobia. I had a seizure on the beach in Brazil and then had PTSD from that that I had an address. And I remember I'd like been in bed for months and I was so embarrassed about this level of anxiety that I had. And I went downstairs one day and I told my roommate like that I was afraid of having a seizure essentially. And I was like, because I had this one-off seizure event and it just really messed with my mind.

And she was like, oh, my boyfriend had a one-off seizure event. And I was like, what? I got chills now when you said that. It hadn't occurred to me that anybody else. And if I hadn't opened myself up to her in that way, I would have never had that experience. And sometimes that's a reason why I feel bad for men, not to stereotype, but I feel like sometimes men don't open up to each other in the same way about what's going on with their life. And in general, I encourage everybody I know the things you're ashamed of, the things you feel

vulnerable about to share them because they'll often be normalized in a way that you couldn't even begin to dream of. Absolutely. Yes, I love that. I got chills because I just imagined what that was like for you. And the shame around the things that we think make us so bad, right? in that moment, disconnection is really where all mental illness starts from. Mental illness on a spectrum, right?

Of even just like feeling bad, feeling upset, feeling sad, feeling lonely, you feel disconnected. And what doing what you're doing and what you're suggesting other people do, which is talking about it, again, with safe people who you know you can trust, it invites connection back. And so if you don't know how to figure out how to quote unquote get better or feel more like yourself. Don't ask yourself. How can I come back to center? How can I feel more like myself? It's like, how can I connect to something, anything, a song, a podcast, a book, a person. The kind of connection you're connecting to does not matter. The writer can be dead for 300 years. And still,

the connection will be just as salutary. And that's what's beautiful about connection. Oh, that gave me full body chills. Okay, what is the third step to self-compassion? Third step of Neff's self-compassion triangle is kindness. And again, kindness isn't being polite with yourself. Kindness is about saying, oh, what do you need right now? It's not about offering solution. It's about, again, offering connection. So it's so simple. It's something as simple as saying, let's go back to our disappointment. I'm so disappointed. Maybe I need a tea. The tea is not going to change your whole world. It doesn't matter. Maybe I need five minutes alone. Maybe I need to just take a walk. What do you need? And you know, what's really interesting is if you speak in the third person and say,

what does Liz need right now? You are more able to access the answer than when you say, what do I need right now? And the reason for that is because your brain is getting psychological distance. It's the same phenomenon when your best friend calls you and she's like, immersed in these protracted dramas of her life. And you can clearly see exactly what they need to do in order to come back to center. But it's so hard for them because they're in it. So using the third person helps you extract yourself just enough to where the door swings open a little more in terms of offering you solution. So kindness is the last one. Just do something kind for yourself. And again, don't be fake about it. Don't say, it's okay. You're great. You're amazing.

You did a great job. If you didn't do a great job, you're lying to yourself. That's not kind. Kindness isn't about offering solution. It's about offering connection to the most simple. However simple you're thinking, go down a notch. What are some ways that you are kind to yourself? I take lots of walks. I always have a little water to you when I need it. I need a lot of solitude. And solitude is to me one of the greatest luxuries that I indulge in. I'm kind to myself by drawing clear boundaries around people who make me feel like shit or make me feel even just not great. And being able to let texts go unanswered and just honoring myself.

I love that. I think there's such power in being kind to ourselves. I was almost going to ask when you said that that psychological distancing, that third person, was helpful. I was going to be like, is that because we're so much better at being kind to other people than we are to ourselves? But it feels true. Like it feels like it's so much easier for me to say lovely things and not say these incredibly hurtful things to my friends and my family and the people that I love. And then the stuff that I am willing to say to myself is just like, oh my gosh. And you're touching upon how punitive we can be with ourselves, which again, even healthy people, quote unquote, healthy people can be so punitive with ourselves.

And we do that because we mistake punishment for things like discipline, accountability, responsibility, all this stuff which it is not. Punishment never makes anything better. It is the opposite of a solution. It only makes things worse. And punishment doesn't look obvious. It doesn't look like you literally hitting yourself over the head. It looks like ruminating.

It looks like withholding. holding pleasure and goodness from yourself because you didn't earn it, you don't deserve it. Punishments can be really subtle and the more subtle they are, the more powerful they are because you don't even realize you're doing it. Is there a question or something that we could do to bring awareness to ways that we are punishing ourselves in our lives? Yes. This issue of information and being able to have emotional literacy around these concepts,

is something that we don't focus on in our education system. So we don't know the difference between punishment and discipline or punishment and personal accountability. I spell out in the book what the difference between all of those things are. I think just being able to have the language of am I being punishing or am I punitive or am I being accountable and just having the opposing option because I think people over index on punishment because they don't see other options. They see the option is I can punish myself or I can let myself off the hook. It's very black and white.

And we want to be accountable. We want to get better. We want to do better. So the punishing ourselves comes from this really well-intended place, but it's misguided. So being able to ask yourself questions like, am I being disciplined or am I being punitive? Am I exercising accountability or am I being punitive? And understand that punishments only make it worse. Could you share? some examples of what punishment versus accountability might look like. You had some examples in your book that kind of blew my mind because I was like, oh my gosh, I've been punishing myself in all these ways that I definitely would not have categorized as punishment. The number one way that you can tell if you're punishing yourself is that punishments are designed to create more

pain. And the idea there is that pain is going to be the grand plan motivator. It's the pain that we feel that's going to help us never make this mistake again. And that makes sense to everybody. because punishment is a through line in our culture. We do not live in a restorative culture. We live in a culture of retribution. If you are trying to create more pain, what actually happens is that when you feel bad, you're less likely to make good choices.

And so then you make choices that make you feel worse because your brain is going like, I just need consistency. For example, if you just woke up, up, ran five miles, ate a really healthy breakfast, worked very productively for three hours, and then had a wonderful day out with friends, and then did something else. It's not likely that you're going to decide, you know what, I'm just going to chain smoke and get wasted tonight. But if you wake up and skip the running and you're not that productive and you're doing things

that make you feel bad, you know what you say at the end of the day? well, I already blew it. I have got nothing to lose. Might as well go get wasted and chain smoke or call that person or do whatever the thing is that you know you're not supposed to do, that you know isn't good for you. And that's because when we feel good, we make better choices. It's easier to make healthier choices when we feel good. When we feel bad, we feel like we have nothing to lose. That's the question that you want to ask is, am I trying to create more pain? for myself. And I define a punishment as withholding something that you know is going to make you feel better or get better or introducing something into the moment that you know is going to make you

feel worse. And I saw this all the time when I worked at a rehab. And what would happen when people relapsed is that they would immediately go on this punishment spree where they're like, I already fucked it up. So what does it matter now? Because they felt so bad. They felt so in shame about the choice that they made and that they already blew it. And so then they would punish themselves because they felt like I messed up. I'm not a good person. I don't deserve. I use an example in my book of this woman who really just wanted to take a bath the day that she relapsed. That's all she wanted. She had been cold all day. She just wanted to go home and take a hot bath, but she said that she was going to go to a bar and just drink more because she felt like she didn't deserve to take a hot bath.

A hot bath is for someone who was able to stay sober the whole day, which she was not. The idea that the choices we make are who we are is really hard to get away from. So when you make a choice that is quote unquote bad or unhealthy, you feel bad and unhealthy. and you know that and you want to do something about that. And what most people do is the default to punishment because they feel, well, I'm a bad person and bad people don't deserve good things. And that's why you punish yourself. But in a moment of taking accountability, it would look like, I made a really big mistake. I knew that was a big mistake. What am I not getting that I need? Or who can help me out of this? Or the same thing that you would probably say to a friend,

God, something really must be happening for you to have dropped the ball in this way. What's going on? Like, what do you need? How can we help you to feel better, safer, more whole, connected, informed, whatever it is. How can we help restore you? Accountability is restorative. And it's also proactive. So you don't have to be miserable and suffering to be an accountable person. Whereas punishment is all reactive. Something happens and then you respond to it. When you're disciplined, that's proactive. When you're accountable, that's proactive. Rehabilitation is also reactive, just like punishment.

But rehabilitation seeks to rebuild the framework and then grow from there. Punishment doesn't care about the framework. Punishment's only job is to lay pain on whatever's there. That makes so much sense. I want to go back to the external validation conversation for a second because I have a question about it and it might be kind of silly. But as somebody who really struggles with the need for external validation, I feel like I need to know.

If you know your values, let's say you're like, I'm courageous, I'm kind, you've tapped into your values. How does that sit with not needing external validation? I feel like I know I'm courageous. I'm loving, and I still want everybody to like and applaud my actions. I'm so happy you ask that question because it is a mental health myth that we should not need validation from others. We absolutely need validation from others. We are a species which is social in nature and we need to be connected. And validation helps strengthen and

cement those connections, which we use for our survival. The problem comes in if external validation is your primary source of validation. If you are writing 70, 30, 70 internal validation, 30 external, great. That's healthy. What is not healthy is to never need external validation from anyone. Let's talk about what that would actually look like. It would look like never needing someone to tell you, let's say, I love you. Why do we say I love you to people? To validate them and to say, you are loved. That is a basic form of validation. And we could be in our relationships and never say I love you. I guess we could never say I love you to our kids. For what? The idea that we shouldn't validate people and that we shouldn't need validation is just false, knowing that, look, if you

need external validation, of course you do. You're a human being. We want to know that what we're doing is important and that it matters. I would focus on two things. One, what is the ratio that you're operating with of internal validation to external validation? And are you comfortable with that ratio? And two, who do you need validation from? Because if you need the same kind of validation from strangers as you do from your inner circle, that is a problem. How do we deal with that problem? We live in an age of social media, I feel like that is becoming increasingly more common of a problem. You get intentional about it and you make a decision about whose opinion is going to carry weight for you. And if it's going to be everybody's, then you need to buckle up because you're going to

be all over the place. And nobody is really going to say everybody's opinion matters. Nobody really thinks that way. It's just that if you don't plan this out in your mind beforehand, And it feels that way because, again, we default to the easiest task for our brain. So our brain is like validation matters. Let me generically make that all validation from all people matter. And our job as mentally healthy people is to refine the generic into whatever our name brand is. That looks like saying validation is important. It's not important from everybody.

These are the people that I really care what they think. And if they're disappointed, that's going to impact me. I want to know why. I want to know how. I want to have a conversation with them about it. It matters. And you got to know who's on that list for you. And you got to know who's not on it.

There are a lot of people who are not on my list. And there's maybe eight people who are. That makes a ton of sense. One of the problems with perfectionism, I self-identify as a perfectionist. And we can talk about the types of perfectionism in a second, too. But one of the problems with it is that perfect literally doesn't exist. So you're literally forever chasing instead of being satisfied in the moment. I struggle with that a lot.

I struggle with the idea of a future that if I reach a perfect state, a perfect job, a perfect relationship, perfect friendships, whatever, where I'm chasing and I never feel like I'm satisfied in the moment. How can we combat this? I would offer that you flip the paradigm on what perfect even means. If you take perfect back to its origin, the Latin root is per complete and facere due or done. So when something is perfect, you're speaking to its completeness, its wholeness. So when you say that person is a perfect stranger, you're not saying they're a flawless stranger.

You're saying they're a complete stranger to me. And if you think of someone you love, if you think of their laugh, that laugh is perfect. You're not like, oh, that laugh would be perfect if they just giggled a little less on that back end of it. What you're referring to and what we all already know, even if we don't have the language to articulate, is perfectionists are actually seeking wholeness. They're not seeking flawlessness. Flawlessness feels like a shortcut to wholeness. And it's obviously not we all know that. The reason that we're still chasing, despite conceding to that intellectual awareness, is because

wholeness does matter to us and it is something that we want. And understanding that you're already whole, you're already perfect, you don't need to do one more thing in order to become a whole human being. Understanding that is, I think, really game-changing. What I talk about in the book is the idea that self-worth means that this took me so long to get to a place where I could really live in this space. I would like vacay here sometimes in this space and go back to self-esteem versus self-worth. And self-esteem is what you think about yourself.

And self-worth is about what you know you deserve. So if I have bad self-esteem about public speaking, for example, that means I'm not that good at that. I don't feel that I'm good at that. That has nothing to do with self-worth. This is confusing for perfectionist because you can have very high self-esteem. You can know that you are really good at a lot of things and still not feel worthy, still not feel like you deserve the things that self-worth grants us, which is joy, connection, dignity, freedom, and love.

And being a whole human being means that when you are born, you are entitled for your whole life to all the joy, dignity, connection, freedom, and love that anybody could ever quote unquote earn, that you don't get entitled, you don't become more entitled to that stuff once you learn to talk because that means you're better. And similarly, when we're adults, we don't become more entitled to joy because now we're making six figures, or now we have 20,000 listeners or downloads or whatever, all these metrics that we use to determine this stuff. And again, sometimes we don't realize we're doing it. This looks like saying, I'll be happy, when I get this thing. Right? So you're staving off feeling pleasure, feeling joy,

feeling good until you earn it. And that's part of what you're talking about too, is the chasing is like, I really want to feel good. I really just want to enjoy my life. What other key do I need to unlock to get there? And what I am offering is for you to consider that you have no hand in your self-worth. It is prearranged. It's a done deal. You can either accept that or continue to reject it and push it away and try to hustle your way to joy, love, dignity, freedom, and connection. But you don't have to. Look, I'm never going to make everything that I wear organic. But your sheets, your pillows, your comforter are literally touching your skin for eight hours every single night. That is a third of your life right there

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every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership. at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. I was going to ask, how do we turn up the dial on our self-worth? But you're saying it's not so much turn up the dial

as maybe tap into? Exactly. It's really about understanding that self-worth is about, what do I feel that I deserve? There's a lot of emotional vocabulary here. for example, I don't believe that everyone deserves respect. I believe respect is earned, but I do believe that everyone deserves dignity. And dignity means you treat a human being like they are a human being. Respect is about, I really have noticed something about the way that you work, about the way that you

treat other people, about the way that you do something, about your commitment to something, and you consistently show up in that way, and I respect that. So some things are earned. Some things are, like I said, pre-arranged. You don't earn your way to being treated like a human being. You don't have to do anything, in my opinion, for that to be true. That's what dignity is, right? Everybody deserves dignity. And I feel the same about love, joy, connection, and freedom. You do not earn that stuff. Those are birthrights. So yes, stepping into understanding that looks like, again, creating delineations in your mind of should be entitled to everything all the time? No, that's not what I'm saying. But those five things for me are the things that I never have to earn. And maybe for you, it's not all those five things.

It doesn't have to be. You're not going to be the same as me. I'm not going to be the same as you. That's okay. But make a decision about it instead of just defaulting. That makes sense. I think there's this interesting notion that if you want to express yourself to somebody, you need to do it just perfectly to have it be worth expressing. So how would you apply that to situations where we might be holding ourselves back from taking an action because we don't deem the action we're taking 100% perfect? I would say that most of the moments in life are not one and done moments. I always tell people this in therapy when they're like, I need to have an important conversation. I'm like, no, you need to have 24 important conversations. And the first one

is just the beginning. So if you're thinking about a presentation at work, a book you're writing, someone in your life who you care about who you want to say something hard to, someone in your life who you want to express love for, whatever it is. Just know that what you're talking about is a series. It's not one thing. You don't need to smush it all and cram it all into this one moment. And I think that that frees people up to understand that. Create it, have the thing, write the book, have the conversation, bring it to life and then see what happens next. When things are alive, they're constantly changing, which is what's so exciting about bringing something to life. And this goes to control and power. You don't know what you're going to need next

until you bring it into the world and see how you feel, how other people react to it, all of that stuff. Control is really myopic. You need to plan everything one step at a time because everything you do depends on exactly what's happening right now, whereas power is so spacious and broad. Power is being able to take the luxury of being detached to the outcome such that your metrics are internally calibrated, and you give yourself permission to adjust as needed. You also say in your book that you don't think balance exists. I think a lot of us spend a lot of time chasing balance, so I would love to hear more about that. Balance is a lie. I mean, that's the best way that I could say it. I think balance has replaced the prince in this modern day fairy tale where we used to be told as little girls one day a prince is going to

come. And if you just keep being kind and virtuous and doing all the things you're supposed to do, the day that prince shows up on his white horse, everything is going to click into place and get better and you'll live happily ever after. And we tell adult women the same exact fucking. And we tell adult women the same exact fucking story, but we've replaced the prince with balance. And we're like, one day, if you just keep grinding away and doing all of these jobs and being virtuous and being kind and all this, then everything's going to click into place like a seatbelt snapping into place. And you're going to be balanced. And I don't know one balanced woman. I don't know one balanced woman. And balance is kind of the carrot that is dangled in front of us. And I have fallen prey to this so many times.

and I will continue to because it's hard. It's hard not to feel like if I just do this one thing, that's going to make my life feel balanced. That's going to be the one secret unlock. There is no magic pill. There is no silver bullet. And the idea that balance exists, that we can pie chart our lives such that we are experiencing and engaging in the world in the exact way that we want to at all times is based on the notion that life is static in the first place, that life doesn't change. And so since life doesn't change, all you need to do is by the right instapot and have this be your uniform outfit and have this be the time that you respond to emails in the day and have everything automated so that your life just runs so smoothly and you could just enjoy everything.

So taking pressure off yourself to be balanced is important. And it's also important because it's a really misogynist directive. Men are not told to find balance. And you see this a lot in advertising. I put this on my Instagram page the other day. I was in Soho and I see this gigantic poster of this woman holding a baby in one hand and a laptop in the other. And on the top it said balance it.

And it was for a clothing brand. And I was like, how bizarre. And there would never be a man in this advertisement. And I'm forgetting his name right now, David's somebody, but he said this really brilliant quote that was, marketing is not a conspiracy. We broadcast the messages that we already believe. David hinges, I think, is his name. And that's the truth. And we believe that women are supposed to balance everything that we're supposed to have careers, that we're supposed to stay healthy, that we're supposed to look hot, that we're supposed to take care of children, that we're

supposed to be the caregivers for our family. When elderly people in our lives get sick, we're supposed to do everything. And we're told that all the time. And we're not supposed to do everything. And that's not a healthy directive to adhere to. I think the permission giving of just saying, don't chase this, this isn't possible, is so freeing. But there's still these external pressures. I know my mom friends get so many little comments that dads don't get. I know that work, on these pressures, do you have any advice for combating the external pressure to find that balance? Naming it. This is the penalty that you will pay when you abandon what you're supposed to do. God, your questions are so good. I'm so happy that you asked this question too because it's never

talked about the penalty that you face for being true to yourself and abandoning the desire to people please and do all things at all times for all people, you will incur a penalty. And so will anybody who does that, any woman who does that, and being able to say, oh, there's a penalty, that is what that is. That's not you doing it wrong. That's not anything other than you're stepping out of line of what's expected of you and people are going to notice. And we talk about being true to ourselves as if it's immediately empowering and it can be empowering. That is not all it is. It also pisses people off. It also upsets people. It also confuses people. It also makes people say, really, you're going to go on a work trip for five days? Oh, are you to FaceTime your kids?

Things like that. There's such an undercurrent of what do you mean? You're not going to be all things to all people at all times. Oh, are you okay? Are they going to be okay? That's the undercurrent of the message. And being able to hear that, know that it's not in your head. You're not being overly sensitive. Sometimes we are even the people who are saying it because we are in the culture and it's a part of the way we think. There's a lot of internalized misogyny too. So being able to catch yourself when you're judging other people and catch others when they're judging you by containing it with language. Oh, that's a penalty. Oh, I'm trying to penalize her for her living her life in the way that she feels is fulfilling to her is a good way to separate and identify. that stuff that comes up because it will. I love, love, love that you talk about it, not only in the context of being the receiver of that judgment, but also in the context of we need to catch ourselves and we're not supporting the other people and particularly the other women in our life. Yeah. And also invite men into the conversation, right? Because men are not these evil forces

that just don't want to help or do anything. I'm just like holding an expectation, for example, When I am scheduling a play date, I text the husband and the wife, if it's a husband and wife couple. Because I don't expect that the woman will just be the one who's automatically arranging that stuff. And it's little things like that where you're inviting men to be a part of holding up whatever you're trying to hold up. In my experience, when you do that, men want to show up and they will. But you need to really articulate the ways in which you want them to show up. And sometimes the reasons in which you want them to show up, not because you need to validate your deservateness of extricating yourself from this

impossible ideal of balance, but because it helps people understand who you are and what you need and how you can't be who you are if you don't get what you need. So really being open about that, men are extraordinary. Like they will show up if you ask them to and kind of let them in on the pain that we feel as women trying to do all this stuff. And if they don't show up after you've been very clear, that is good information for you to have. Yes, that is very good information for you to have. I love that. Okay, I have one more question.

And then we're going to go into a little bit of a speed round. You've talked about energy in a way I find absolutely fascinating. You've talked about the difference between energy management and time. management and then something that you call premium quality energy. I just want to touch on that because I've never heard anybody talk about this. And I think it's a really helpful framework for energy. So can you explain that to me? Yes. So I read many years ago a life-changing article in Harvard Business Review by Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy in Harvard Business Review. And it was about this shift of time management to energy management. And basically what they were saying was,

it's not that we run out of time. That's not why we don't get things done. It's because we run out of energy. And that totally changed the way that I thought about what productivity means. And I think there's a real trend happening right now where we are villainizing productivity and capitalism. We're taught to just overindex on productivity and this isn't the way to be and this isn't how human beings were meant to live. And I want to offer an additional commentary in that, which is that productivity feels good.

It actually feels good to be getting things done when what you are working towards is in alignment with your values. And the way that you can get things done and get more of them done is to figure out how to develop premium quality energy. And premium quality energy, I think we've all felt, it's like when you just feel on, when you feel like you are ready to take on the day. and you don't need a whole day full of operating with premium quality energy to get so much stuff done. So taking this back to productivity, we don't think of taking a nap or sleeping as being productive.

But when you sleep and you're well rested, you show up to whatever task you're doing from a rested space as opposed to an exhausted space. And one hour of rested you is going to serve you better than 10 hours of exhausted you. And that's the same for one hour of premium quality energy you is going to serve you better than 10 hours of resentful you, of confused you, of the you who doesn't feel alive, doesn't feel inspired, hasn't had fun lately, is just a sort of one-dimensional version of themselves, anything that you do that brings you to a state of premium quality energy, including chilling, watching your favorite movie that makes you laugh, including making a delicious meal that feels nutritious and good and tasty and whatever, including taking a long walk,

including whatever it is, that is productive. Such a game changer of a reframe. Okay, I'm going to play a little game with you. I'm going to walk through a number of scenarios that perfectionism, them might be impacting negatively. And then I would love just one tip or piece of advice for dealing with those scenarios. Are you down for that? I am down. Okay. What about procrastinating on starting a project because you're worried the results won't live up to your expectations? I would offer a framework that I talk about in the book, which is the five stages of change and realize that you're actually not procrastinating. You already started. So there are these two researchers, Pachoska and D. Clemente,

and they came up with the five stages of change. I'm going to go through them so quickly, Liz, I promise, it'll be so fast. The one is pre-contemplation. You're not even thinking about it. You're not thinking about this project. You're just living. The second is contemplation. So you're thinking, I need to get something done. How am I going to get that done? When am I going to get that done? You're just thinking you're not actually doing things. The third is preparation. You're like, okay, now I know I need to get that done my next month. So that means I need to research. I need to do this. I need to do that. The fourth one is action. That's when you're actually doing the thing. And the fifth one is maintenance. That's when you figure out how to keep doing the thing. Okay. So we confuse changing with making one

step. And there's five steps. And so procrastinated a perfectionist needs to understand that they are already at stage three. You've already had enough experiences, stage one, to now you know what you need to change stage two. If you're procrastinating perfections, you've done a whole hell of a lot of preparing. Nobody's more prepared than you. You know exactly what to do. It's not an informational issue. Now you're at stage four. So being able to give yourself permission to feel the momentum of all of that stuff, it's like the greatest secret in mental health is that thinking is a stage of change. We think of thinking as, oh, all I do is just sit and think about this and I never actually do it. And I'm so lazy and I'm so this. And I'm so that, no, thinking is an important part of changing.

It's a critical part. You can't just randomly change stuff instantly without thinking about what you're going to change. And thinking can take months or years. That's okay. Thinking is a state of change. I love that. Okay, so you're not procrastinating as much as you think you are. Just ride the momentum that you already created without realizing you created it and get to stage four.

Okay. Love that. Not being yourself in friendships, family relationships, or, romantic partnerships because you want them to perceive you as perfect and you're worried that they won't like you as you are. I think that speaks to the Parisian perfectionist type and being able to understand that you want ideal connection. All perfectionists are seeking an ideal. And Parisian perfectionists want ideal connection. And that's a wonderful thing. There are strengths to wanting that. wanting to be liked and being a Parisian perfectionist means that you don't have to explain to

Parisian perfectionists how important relationships are. There's tons of research that nothing impacts your mental health more than your relational wealth, which is the quality of relationships you have. But if you're taking shortcuts to that connection by people pleasing, it's like you're crossing a bridge to get to the other person. And you not only don't get to the other person, you also abandon yourself. And so you're just isolated and nothing will take you down faster than being isolated. So understanding that that need and desire, again, for validation, for connection, natural, human, it's good. There's nothing wrong with you. You can have that desire met by being who you are and you don't have to fake anything. Is there a concrete step we could take?

to stopping faking? There's an adage of it's better to be loved and known by one person than liked and unknown than by a lot of people. The things we like are kind of forgettable. Like, oh yeah, I kind of like that song. How did it go? Do you want that kind of impression? No.

You have to accept that people are not going to like you. If you want someone to really say yes to who you are, you need to show up as who you are. If you're just trying to be likable, you're not giving yourself a chance. to actually be loved and known. Ugh. Not enjoying a party or event because you're too focused on the details being perfect. So this hot tip is about changing your metrics. So are your metrics really the silverware placement or are they that people are having a

great time? If so, listen for laughter. Did someone laugh at your party? Great. That's confirmation that the metrics that are important to you, that people feel connected. Is someone telling a story that no one's ever heard? before, that's a great metric. The placement of stuff, figure out what that represents for you and change the metrics around it so that the metrics actually match what you're trying to achieve.

Not going for a promotion or a new role because you're worried you won't be good enough. So anytime you're operating from a place of fear, you're contracting and you're making yourself smaller and being able to acknowledge that you're afraid and give yourself permission to be afraid and then use Kristen Neff's mindfulness of not how do I get rid of this fear, but what else do I also feel? Do I also feel ready? What would help me feel more ready? Who could be there for me after the interview's over no matter what happens? Who could I tell I am going on that interview with and who's going to be on standby for me? Ask yourself a ton of other questions other than how do I get rid of this fear because it's my hunch that you won't and that's okay you could still go for the

promotion not being able to move on from a situation like a death or a breakup because you want an idea of perfect closure yeah this is really difficult and I talk about this in the book which is that closure is a fantasy closure is the idea that we can bookend our experiences such that they have a clear beginning, middle, and end. And the real story is that the experiences we have, the relationships that shape us, they live on with us. And as we change, our view of those things changes and they impact us in different ways. And you don't need to have closure in order to achieve peace. So really being able to create a difference between closure and peace for you for yourself is important. And peace might mean that I still feel all the things, but I have learned how to not allow my feelings to dictate all my actions, for example.

Whereas closure means I don't feel all the things. I am stone cold. I can have that anniversary pop up in my life or hear that person's name or bump into my ex on the street. And I feel nothing. I'm a template of a human being. I'm a robot. That's sort of perfectionist closure fantasy. And none of that stuff is real or achievable.

When you have peace with something, you don't. don't really need closure. Closure is just a way to try to control your experience and you can't control life. I don't know if there's an easy path towards peace, but is there a hot tip towards finding peace? Well, I think realizing that peace doesn't mean you're happy all the time. I think of peace as when you lay your head down on the pillow at night, do you feel mostly good about how you showed up that day and who you are? And if you don't, because there will be days when the answer to that question is no, do you trust yourself enough to make reparative measures the next day? That's what peace is to me. Peace isn't like, I love everyone all the time. I feel happy all the time. I know all things at all

times. You can't be a perfectionist without being an ambitious person. And if you're ambitious, you are going to reach for more than you can hold. And so you're going to drop some stuff and you're not going to get some stuff. And that's part of the deal. And being at peace with yourself is about saying, this is who I am and this is part of the deal. And sometimes I will make mistakes. If you don't want to be that kind of person, just pick something that you excel at. That's easy for you that you don't have to think about and do that every single day. And a lot of people live that way. And they are very happy to live that way. And if you are not happy to live that way, then you actually want the friction that comes with trying new things, with actually engaging in your life.

That's so incredibly powerful. I want to end on that, but I have two more. I just want you to do really quickly because I want your take on it. What about not being able to relax, rest, and restore yourself because you don't think that you've earned it? Well, that goes back to the self-worth component of these are birth rights, joy, connection, all that stuff we talked about in the middle of the conversation. And being able to give yourself a, free access to pleasure, especially as a woman, that is the power move. It's one of the most powerful gestures to make with yourself because you can't give yourself access to pleasure without saying, I trust you to yourself. And when you say, I trust you to yourself, what you're

saying is, I trust you to be the leader. I trust you that if I take a two-hour break, I am not then going to become a hedonist who doesn't care about the tasks I've done. I've committed to the people around me, all of this stuff, and just again, go crazy and do this. And that is the echo of hysteria that plays on. Chapter 9 is all about that, about how to trust yourself, how to forgive yourself, how to give yourself access to pleasure, and how to not only have no qualms about it, but really enjoy it and have fun with it. Every person deserves that.

Okay, and we'll end on this one. What about having a negative sense of self-image or an idea of your life because you're weighing yourself against the versions of perfect. that you see on social media. This is the gift of being a therapist is that I cannot tell you how many times someone has walked into my office and they not only look like they have it all together, but they are living the dream life. And so many times I have seen over and over and over again that the presentation betrays

the truth. And you just have to know that. I mean, I get to know that because I've seen it happen over and over many years over, but just reminding yourself that presentation. doesn't mean truth. And often the presentation can betray the truth. If that is too hard to really remember, you need to get off social media for a while. Change your feed. All the people I follow, they're not trying to do this picture perfect shit that I always hear about people on social media doing. I love social media. I think it's so helpful when you curate it, again, based on your

values, based on who do you want to see? I like to follow comedians who say funny things. I like to follow people who operate in the spirit of service. I like to follow other therapists. I like to follow like the cut, interesting stories. I'm not trying to follow people who are like, look at my perfect house and my perfect body. I'm not interested. And if you don't want to be inundated with that, then don't follow it. Love it. Okay, Catherine, this was phenomenal. I would love to hear a little bit from you in your own words about your amazing book, about where people can find you online. I want to shout out the quiz, which is in the book and on your website to find out what type of the five perfectionists you are. I'd love to just hear a little bit about

all of that in your own words. Yes, thank you. I've loved this conversation. So the book is the perfectionist's guide to losing control, a path to peace and power. And it was really my way of containing so many universal truths and realizations that I discovered in my work as a psychotherapist. and I do lay out five different types of perfectionists. I talk about perfectionism in a totally new, fresh way. And the book is really built on the idea that we should assume that nothing is wrong with women. And you can find me on Instagram at Catherine Morgan Schaffler, and my website is the same, catherinemorganshaffler.com. And I just want to thank you again so much for sharing your platform with me. I just love this. Thank you so much, Liz. I

really, really had a great time. I did too. Thank you so much. I just love her. I love the way that her brain works. There is so much to talk about here in terms of the idea of balance, the ways that we're punishing ourselves without knowing it, the insidious way societal messaging seeps into our brains and so much more. I know that you're going to want to share this episode and it's truly the best way to support the podcast and it is so appreciated. So please shoot a text to someone that you love. This one is such a great conversation starter for friends, family, coworkers. I've sent it on some of my group chats already, and I've been like, yes, I know it is my podcast, but it's a really good one.

So please listen so we can discuss. And if you did love this episode, I would be so grateful if you would write a quick rating or review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It is hugely helpful for other people deciding whether to listen to the podcast, and I appreciate it massively. If you're new here, if somebody sent you this episode, Welcome. I am so happy that you're here. Make sure that you are following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on. You're just going to go to the main podcast page. It is the one that lists all of the healthier together episodes. And you'll see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page

on Apple Podcasts. That way, all of the new episodes will show up right in your feed so you will never miss out on one. And we have some incredible episodes coming up, including one about the upsides of anger and how to tap into it in a healthy way and an episode all about improving eyesight and vision. So make sure that you are following so you do not miss out. Okay, I love you and I will see you next Wednesday on the next episode of the healthier together podcast. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years and I am so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin is a

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