Transcript
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Hello and welcome to teenagers untangled the audio hub for parents going through the teen years I Rachel Richards journalists parenting coach mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters.
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Hi there I'm Susie Asli, mindfulness coach, mindful therapist and musician. A mother of three teenagers two of them are twins. Now we've
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talked about high achieving perfectionist kids before I do joke that you'd quite like your that yours to be a bit more like that
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I did at the time.
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Yeah. didn't mean it. Obviously.
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standpoint, right. Well, it is and
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when people are on the other side of the fence they get I have a wish I had of Yes, doing that. But it's not what it's no
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exactly where you were at home raising one of those kids that can be quite genuinely challenging. And there was a review that's really struck me. This this review came in saying recently started working my way through these podcasts and have found them super useful for navigating my way through the teenage years. I have 13 year old twin girls who are best friends one minute and screaming at each other the next. We know, Yang's, one of my daughters is very hard on herself when she doesn't perform as well as she hoped, particularly with things she loves, such as sports she plays in the netball team, and her artwork, but also with all her schoolwork, tests, etc. We'd love some advice on how to help her through this. And I have thought about doing something on this before and it kind of just kept dropping down the rankings.
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But we respond Yeah, writing about it, we will talk about
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it super relevant.
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people experience it. Yes.
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Should we start with a nugget. So
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my nugget this week is a broader thing. And it's this idea that I think we often get into myself included, and I try not to anymore, but it's still pops up. It's this idea that we're trying to get somewhere and then trying to always just get through this thing to kind of arrive in this you Topix space where everything's calm and wonderful.
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And I've been doing lots of work mindfulness, which I always do, but I've been doing some more of my own practice lately. And it's this idea of trying to find peace in the midst of chaos.
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And, you know, we all know, those of us with teenage children that, you know, there's quite a lot of chaos. And I, you know, I often hear it, and I've done it myself, you know, oh, you know, just thought we'd arrived at this good space. And then this comes up. And you know, what does that even mean?
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And if we can kind of change the narrative around it to be like, it's probably always going to be a bit chaotic. And there will always be something that's coming up. And if we can expect it to be like that, then that's just part of the ride. Yes. And how can we find peace in the midst of the chaos in the midst of the difficulty in the midst of challenge rather than trying to get rid of it? I love and I just experienced that. Well, pretty much every day. You know, I was talking to somebody yesterday about it, which is what made me think of it. You know, there's always something there's always something coming up. Yeah, yes, that actually is.
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And that's just life, right. And I think
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I remember actually having to go through the process of learning that understanding that that was the you know, I think when I'm grown up, it'll be and it won't be, it'll just be more, just something slightly different.
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Yeah, it's a bummer, isn't it? It's like, oh, I just want to I just want to get to the nice bit. The Nirvana
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if you don't mind can go fast track. My ex boyfriend used to get so annoyed with me because I'd say, we can have so much fun. He say, we are having fun now. Right. So my noggin is to do with my daughter who admitted she was struggling with social media. We talked about this all the time. And months ago, I agreed to pay her five pounds if she could stay off it for a week. This was her.
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She said to me, mommy, I need an incentive. And I said, sure.
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Okay, great. She still hasn't succeeded. She asked to start again. And I said, Sure, of course. And then apropos nothing A few minutes later, she said, Oh, you know, I wish I was good at art. And I said, Yeah, well, you could be because you are living through an era where there are tutorials online for absolutely everything. And the art tutorials are incredible.
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And being good at art, or not even good at it enjoying it is a really, really powerful thing.
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And why didn't you just learn?
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And she said, wow, yes, of course. And I said, if you look at all the time you spent on social media and swap that for spending time trying to do art.
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And she did, she ran upstairs, got some art supplies, came downstairs and did some artwork and was so thrilled at the end of it. And I thought, gosh, that's what we're trying to get through to them is this displacement. The problem with the social media or their stuff online is it's just split.
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What's it displacing? Yeah. And if they can find joy in something in real life, then they're not going to feel that need to go back to social media.
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So she's still off it. You're
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right now social media has got all sorts of online stuff. The art tutorials are incredible, really, really fast.
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Yes. And these apps or that the social media apps are all done. designed to keep you that whole business model is to keep you there on the app not to, you know, even dating apps, they're not designed for you to find your best love, because then they lose a customer. So now let's have a review. Yeah,
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I've got one here, which is a lovely one from Tammy. And she says, Because of your episodes, I've had conversations with my children about vaping pornography, and even Andrew Tate, who I must admit I didn't even know about before your podcast. It's been such an eye opening journey to be able to have these open conversations with my teens, armed with the incredible facts that you so meticulously find out. I think you told me that's really lovely.
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Yeah, absolutely was a really long review. Absolutely wonderful.
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And Tammy, we will come on to more doing more of the stuff that you've been asking about, which has more to do with in entitlement really. So we will come on to that. Don't worry. So let's come on to raising perfectionist or dealing with supporting a child who's a perfectionist. Now there are people who were at like a status symbol. And you know, all my kids stayed up all night trying to make sure that they'd finished this and done the project really well. But it can feel horrible if you're having to deal with it on a day to day basis. Yeah,
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it's been tricky for me personally. Yes, it's obsessive. I mean, I'm a classically trained musician.
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And there are many of us who are perfectionists or I'd like to call a recovering perfectionist, it kind of goes with the gig.
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Yes, yes. It's never good enough. And it comes from a space of something, it's not good enough. And therefore perfect, must be good enough, right? Because it's perfect. But we know perfect doesn't exist.
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And it's trying to strive for something that doesn't exist.
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And
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it's a really difficult one. Because at the same time you think, Well, the great thing about perfectionism is that you then end up with an amazing skill, or you end up with an amazing product. Yes, you know, people who are determined to be to produce something as perfect, we'll keep going. So you know, it's how do we tell the
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difference. So if we can channel it, it's amazing. So we learn these really good skills. But the problem is when we if we just keep doing the perfectionist way, we get burnt out. It's super unhealthy. It's obsessive. And it comes from a space of lack and scarcity. And I'm not good enough, therefore, I need to be perfect. So it's unsustainable. It's the road to burnout.
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Yes, absolutely. And so when we're talking about perfectionism, the way to think about it is it's, it's about unrealistic goals.
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And it's a very, sort of all or nothing way of thinking it's quite black and white, you're either you could get 98%, and an exam. And all you focus on is the 2% that you didn't get exactly rather than being relishing the fact that you did so well,
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because it's externally driven. Perfectionism is externally driven, it's a feeling of not good enough. And we need the world to confirm or specific audience to confirm that we're okay that we're good enough. And we are striving to get the whole world or a specific audience to go Yeah, you're good enough, you're alright. And we can never really get that it never really feels okay, maybe in this project that they thought I was good enough, or what about the next what about the next and, and the way out of perfectionism is to go inside, and feel good enough in yourself. And once you go, okay, I'm good enough, I know, this is enough. And what I'm doing is good enough, then you don't need to be perfect. You don't need the external validation, that continual confirmation, which is
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unachievable, aren't achievable. And I love what you said about the sort of audience because the audience in terms of perfectionism can be different. So it can be other oriented, which means that you set unrealistic standards for other people, it can be self oriented, so setting those standards for yourself. It can also be socially prescribed, so you get the sense that the society is expecting things of you that perhaps are unattainable, like being the perfect parent.
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That's just not possible. Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think they can overlap. So I think when we have high expectations of ourselves, then we project them onto other people. 100%.
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And I've seen that 100% And I noticed that people who are very judgmental, often they are people who set very high standards for themselves. Yeah. And so it's hard on them, too.
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Yeah. So the antidote to that is self compassion and the more self compassion, we can build up and self feeling okay about ourselves, then the more the bigger our capacity is, to go, oh, yeah, they're doing their best to.
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Yes, absolutely. And so it's good if we can actually get on top of this. So how can we spot it?
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Well, there are certain things that that tend to happen. So there's delay. So starting tasks, becomes difficult because you're you fear failure, or finishing them becomes difficult because you're scared you haven't quite done as well as you should. So that's one of the things that can sort of you can you can see in someone who's a real perfectionist, feeling enormous anxiety about the idea of failing at anything is unreasonable levels of frustration. You know where you, you don't write something quite perfectly, you tear it up, throw it in the bin and scream for a bit. This is an unreasonable level of demand on yourself.
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Frequent catastrophic reactions or meltdowns, when things don't go perfectly, like I just said, refusal to try new things, because you're scared, you're gonna make a mistake when you try that thing. And being very self critical and self conscious. These are all little indicators going on, I'm spotting that. And the reason I'm going through this list is because those are things that you could then use to say, I've noticed this, either to yourself or to your child and say, it sounds like it feels like maybe you're being too hard on yourself. And are you noticing that and get them to sort of see that they? Because quite often, I think, particularly with younger kids, I mean, she's talking about someone who's quite young here, in terms of this big growing up Bayes. They can find it really challenging to understand what's going on, they just feel the fear. Yeah,
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it's really challenging. And I think it's really tempting to kind of jump in and go and really praise them and go, I know what you're doing is amazing. It's really great.
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It's really great, because that's naturally what we want to you know, stop this perfectionist striving because it doesn't really feel imbalance. But actually, that can exacerbate it. Because then that particular audiences are really you think I'm good enough? Okay, that's good. What about next time? What about next time? Well, I will say holding it up in from it as an internal, an internal
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way of doing I love that you bring that up, because that's one of those things that I've been thinking about a lot recently, because they always say, Praise the effort, not the outcome. And my daughter explicitly said to me, mommy, I remember, throughout our entire childhood, you've always said, you've always looked at effort, never focused on the outcome. And yet, I've had quite a perfectionist daughter. And I've thought more and more about it. And I think what we shouldn't be talking about is praise, more than noticing. So I think the problem with praise is that we're still judging. Yeah. And they still feel it like, oh, they judged me as being acceptable this time.
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So actually, if you move, step away from praise, you can just say, Oh, I noticed that, you know, you've done this, but do it very likely. And and if you're thinking, I'm just got to notice good things, then it doesn't become a big performance. You know, when you sit down at the table, you say, oh, you know, thank you so much for putting the glass out. For me. That was great. Well, you know, just noticing little things that fill up their cup of feeling oh, yeah,
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I think that's really valid, rather than making it a judge judgment. Oh, thank you for bringing this and you're amazing. Yes, I noticed. Thank you. That's enough. Yes,
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because I noticed people who were very judgmental of me, praising me, and then I realized that actually made me more angry, because I think, well, you're just judging me, you know, now you're judging me worthy.
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And if we've somehow interpreted and that, you know, we have to be a particular way to be acceptable for whatever reason, that that's part of our identity, you know, maybe we're really bright and you know, that becomes part of our identity or, or we need to be I need to stay being really good in school because I get praised, or, you know, all of those kinds of things. And then we have to just keep an eye on that and make sure that it's not the only judgment thing that they are the only the only thing that they're using as a guide and internal guide. Yes, it needs to come from inside. And I love the idea of of the praise, we praise. I praise efforts. Actually, I can hear that. I do that. Like exams. I always, you know, do a well done special meal or something before the results come out. This is for effort. I don't care what you got. This is for you the effort the work you've done. Yes. And also like the classic when they're little and they're doing drawings, you know, never you know, we'd never they were there was sometimes began. Well, don't you like it?
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Don't you think it's good if I wouldn't praise the drawing, like occasionally, because they got used to that in school?
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Yeah. And I go, Oh, you've used orange, or there's a spiky bit there. What's that? You know, rather than Oh, wow, what a great story.
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Yeah, or love the elephant and then they go that's not Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's a cow, mummy. Whatever,
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ya know, the words we use are really important.
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And I love this sort of point about school because the academic environment can actually really make our kids feel that when we know that we know that the way the current academic environment in England particularly, is set up to feel very all or nothing, and that they then feel that if they don't do well, they'll fail at life. Yeah. There's also research that shows perfectionism can be quite closely related to issues like OCD and eating disorders. So there could be a biological element to it, you know, in inherited element to it. Yeah,
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culture, nature, nurture. Yes, we inherit the culture on our family as well.
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It can be related to the desire to reduce parental stress and get attention so it could be that they're worried that you they give you a quote get stressed about things. Yeah, they don't want, they want to make you feel better. So, so low self worth, as you've mentioned, which is a very clear one. Yeah.
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We, you know, maybe it's it, maybe it's important that it's not always, you know, really bad self worth, like, we don't know if it's, but it's, there's maybe an element of it, but it also can be big deal. And I
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think if we're perfectionist, because we've learned that from somewhere, and we're hard on ourselves, and we're much more likely to push that on our kids 100%. And it's very hard on them.
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And as we've said, many times they are sponges. So if they've watched us doing whatever we're doing and wanting to look or be or act perfectly, then they will unconsciously take in that I cannot be imperfect. And it's really important that we show our kids that we can be imperfect that we mess up and do things badly that, you know, we don't always go out of the house looking a particular way. I certainly don't do that. Yeah, absolutely.
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You know, just general in general, that, you know, we mess up and that's okay, it's really important message to
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give them and we can use I think, I can't remember the episode that I dug this bit of research out. But this narrative conversation that we can have with ourselves, where what we do is we say, Oh, I burnt dinner. So I think that was really stupid of me. And I think next time I'll learn to do this, and we're going to eat sandwiches tonight, it's gonna be delicious. And that's, and it's okay, no one died. As I was, when I used to be on TV every week, the big fear was that we would go to black, because you know, because there's an awful lot going on behind the scenes. And, and even when things went wrong if you put the wrong because if you were in the producer suite, and you put the wrong name up for a fragment as a seven, second, everyone would go. And we'd turn around again, no one died. It's okay. Because you kind of have to put it into perspective,
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you absolutely do is really important. And I loved your point about schools being being the focus being the academic, and I think there is when we can actually step in and be quite conscious around it.
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Because as we've talked about ad nauseam, the narrative in school is is academic, you know, you want to be, you know, be succeeding in those ways. And so if we can consciously step in and balance that out and and be, you know, quite aware that you can not also not do well in school and still have a great life. It's fine. Yes. You don't have to be perfect.
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Absolutely. And I do think media stories can sensationalize the downfalls of failure, and make people feel scared that things could go wrong. And I mentioned it in real I did on Instagram. When I was chatting to this teenage boy, and he had said, he passed the driving test. And I was so excited for him. And he said, No, I don't I don't like it. And I said, What do you mean, you don't like it? And he said, I don't like driving, it's not safe. Oh. And I said, Why don't you like, what do you mean, it's not safe? And he said, have you seen my Instagram reel? So have you seen my social media? It's full of people crashing? I don't like it. Oh, interesting. And I just thought, gosh, that's a really interesting when you start probing what our teenagers have been fed, here's a boy, he's probably seeing all these amazing crash videos. He's taking it because he's that kind of, boy, he's taken it as that's not safe, which it isn't. But you know, life is full of not very safe, you have to sort of move on. So it's really interesting. We have to kind of think about that, too. And that's, and it's and I think what I think one of the great things is actually just having a conversation with them. I've noticing it and then saying, okay, so you know, what do you what are you seeing, you know, trying to get down to their level and see the world through their eyes? Very, very hard.
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What
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are you trying to, you know, it's a striving mechanism, what are you? What are you trying to achieve by it?
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You know, what would it be like, if you know, when is good enough for you? What would it look like if it's good enough, and because I think that's, that's the antidote, one of the antidotes to perfectionism is, is really accepting, okay, this is good enough, and I'm putting it down now because it's finished. And it will never be perfect, because that doesn't exist. And I think for any kids who are sort of, maybe in the music world, or the sporting world, and maybe they do, or other other activities, that's kind of where you're striving to reach a certain level, which is really amazing and exciting and challenging, but can tip over into this perfectionist, just kind of being aware of that because and pointing out that it doesn't it just doesn't exist.
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This perfect. And, again, as you say, nobody's going to die if you play a wrong notes. Or if you fall over at the end of the race or you might feel like in the moment but you know, it's this balance this perspective.
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Absolutely. And here are the problems with because if your child is perfectionist, you know they can really develop their anxiety they can they can get more and more anxious about it, which is not something we want in our kids at all. Children who are perfectionist often mask their pain and turmoil so they'll they'll often because they're perfectionist they may not want you to realize what's actually going on inside, you'll just see the impact that it's having. But you won't actually know everything, all the kind of conversations that are going on inside their head, which is what I discovered with my daughter, when we actually had lots of conversations. And I started to see inside the way she was seeing the world. And I thought, okay, that's that's a confining place to be, yeah,
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can be torturous, it's really important. It's very stressful. I'd have it's really important. And I think also worth mentioning is, is sometimes when we have this perfectionist tendency, and we try and you know, work with it and change it, we then think, Oh, well, we have to go the opposite way. So you know, then then I'm not going to try at all, or just put, you know, take your foot completely off. And that's also, you know, that's not always helpful, either. So it's, it's really possible and really important that we can be ambitious, we can we can want to do really well. And then stop
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and stop. But also, I think it's really useful is when they make a slight mistake, you can say, you see, nobody didn't do anything.
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That's absolutely fine. Yeah.
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And, and and go through that with them, actually. Because sometimes you have to walk them through how it didn't matter.
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Yeah. And then they can consciously acknowledge it.
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And that's where we learn isn't it
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is where we learn. And actually, the more times, you go through a thing, and you think, Oh, actually, I didn't do that quite right. And it was okay, then it's about building this resilience, isn't it? And the resilience won't happen immediately. It has to you have to acknowledge it, and then start building it piece by piece. And
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what do you think about it? How do you feel about this piece of work? Or this thing you've done? Not what everyone else thinks?
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So yeah. So start off with step one, just say, I'm noticing that you seem to get very frustrated and things aren't quite perfect. Is that? Is that how you're feeling? You know, like, try and talk to them about it and say, help them to understand that protectionism does exist, and it's being overly critical, and that it's hard on them, and that you'd rather they felt more supported. Teach positive statements, like, you know, that narrative conversation like, oh, when something happens to say, oh, nobody's perfect. Oh, I can only do my best, you know, talking out loud when you make little mistakes. So they notice that actually, the big people around them who seemingly successful are still managing when they make mistakes, and make mistakes, and making mistakes, or perfectionist children do tend to catastrophize. So using my daughter who's quite perfectionist actually started regularly using this mantra, which is I don't know where it came from. I'm sure it was something like a basketball player, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take Yes. And that gets because her problem is she would sometimes not do things because she was scared that she would shame herself or she'd fail she wouldn't and she now will have a go at it. She's just learned to have a go and everything. And and it's okay.
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Yeah, if you don't win, I think
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sometimes we put on I'm putting my hands up and we're on audio next to each other that we have, like perfect. So if we want to like a long spectrum, and I've moved my hands away from each other, and then we put the thing next to each other. So we're perfect right next door to absolutely dreadful. And we think if we're not perfect, then we're absolutely dreadful. Exactly.
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Why doesn't move Yeah, if we can move the hands apart that you know, there's million shades of gray in between which ones you want to pick today.
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Spot on, it's the gray thinking we need to get them used to thinking that life can be this can be lots of gray.
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Yeah. Lots of subtleties to life. So one of the problems we talked about was that they find it hard to start tasks sometimes or to finish them. So one thing you can do is you can say, let's say they've got a task coming up, you can say let's break it down. Let's break it down. So you can start it. Or let's break it down. So you know where you're finished? Yes. And help them finish it. No, that's really say, I think that's enough.
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Yeah, yeah. When is it finished? That's, that's really good advice. And because I think we often misunderstand the not being able to get started thing that they can't be asked that they're just being lazy, you know, all sorts of different stories, we tell that they can't get started. And it's often it's overwhelming, or, you know, it's not going to be good.
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And all the other things that you talked about, it's worth just unpicking that.
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Yeah, and it's no point doing it because I can't do it perfectly well.
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Actually, no. And talking about once again, it's this growth mindset that we've talked about a lot. Understanding that the journey is really worthwhile, regardless of what the outcome is. And knowing that you once you get started, you can actually try and enjoy that journey rather than worrying about whether the outcome is going to be perfect. So it's trying to focus their mind once again, you know, listen to it into our pieces on you know, how to help a child who's struggling in education and things because we've talked about growth mindset a few times. And it's so so important,
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important reminder, revising at the moment if you've got one and revising and I'm we had this conversation yesterday.
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One of them was I I'm never going to finish this subject, I'm never going to get through the whole content. And it was like, Well, you know, maybe not, but actually what you've done, you know, that doesn't mean what you've done is worthless. You've given us really valuable, what you've done. And wherever you get to is a value. It's not either or,
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yes. And actually, what I found really useful with my daughter is when she has been studying something, first of all, take a bone away completely. But secondly, when she comes back into the room, I'll say, hey, what have you been learning? Teach me something. And then genuinely being interested in what she's learned, helps her to recall it and have to reiterate it, but also then she goes, Oh, actually, that was quite interesting. And, and somehow, and it doesn't matter that she's perfect or not perfect. Call.
00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:47.640
That's a really, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's
00:25:47.640 --> 00:25:49.049
a great idea. I'm gonna use that. Yeah,
00:25:49.079 --> 00:25:53.220
I use it a lot.
00:25:49.079 --> 00:25:53.880
And they both love it. And quite frankly, I need it.
00:25:56.009 --> 00:25:58.170
It's not do physic.
00:25:56.009 --> 00:25:58.170
Yeah,
00:25:58.200 --> 00:26:13.529
that's stepping on moving on the handout one over to my husband, help your teenager identify what they can actually control and what they can't. Because again, quite often, you know, these are all skills, and we slowly learn it.
00:26:13.529 --> 00:26:24.000
And we don't notice that we've learned to it, but actually realizing that, you know, this thing I can do something about this thing is nothing that I can do. And it's not in my control.
00:26:24.029 --> 00:26:27.299
So I need to let that one go.
00:26:24.029 --> 00:26:31.170
Yeah, I find that that's a great idea. Yes, I'm actually my daughter who struggled with OCD.
00:26:31.799 --> 00:27:02.579
When we went I bought a book and we went everyday, we talked through the program every day, we talked about it. And basically it was mental junk that she was fixating on and, and she said, I've learned that we've all got mental junk in our heads, we've all just stuff and, and I've learned that I can decide what to shine a light on and what to let go. And this is not something that's easy for some people, and then they'll fixate on something. So it's actually teaching them that you actually have the power to choose what you spend your time thinking about. So
00:27:02.579 --> 00:27:04.109
you know, to me 10 years of mindfulness.
00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:47.130
And also, be very clear with your team that you don't want them to spare you from their feelings. Because again, a perfectionist child might may not want, because they may want be worried that you about how you might react, or you might judge them too harshly or you you sort of need to be able to say it, I don't spare me, it's okay, I'm still going to love you. Because it's this whole the attachment theory where which I've been reading a lot about where it's the most important thing is that they feel loved, regardless of what they do, or achieve. It's all about just feeling except of who they are seen
00:27:47.130 --> 00:28:05.099
and heard and understood for who they are in that particular moment. Yes, yes. Yeah. But and it's and that's really important as well, because perfectionism isn't about the thing they're doing ever. It's about the feelings behind the thing they're doing always. So giving those feelings space and acceptance is super key.
00:28:05.250 --> 00:28:42.359
Yeah, yeah. And defining success and recognizing realistic heroes, because that's the thing, you know, coming back to that all on nothingness about school, and you think, Oh, well, if you don't get this exam result, then you might as well just crawl into a hole. And actually, one of the things that's happened recently is I've had the chance to get my daughter into an office just to see what it was like. And it was a complete revelation for her. I talked about it in the last episode. But what's really interesting is they need to see other people doing things in a sort of successful way that are not connected to exam results.
00:28:38.430 --> 00:29:08.759
Or, and actually, if you can be very specific, again, these types of children need these things pointed out. So you can say, look at how, how can that isn't it amazing that that person dug up that road, and they've covered it, and you can't see where the repairs rarely? You know, you look at people, you know, the people who come and fix the phone lines, and they're up on those masks, and they're doing all this amazing jobs. And you can say, Wow, I bet that I would find that really, really hard to do.
00:29:08.789 --> 00:29:18.210
But those people seem to do it without a thought. Yeah. So you can point out other people succeeding in life and being good at things which have nothing to do with being perfect.
00:29:19.230 --> 00:29:20.519
Way to do everything. Yes.
00:29:20.670 --> 00:29:34.950
And when things go wrong. Again, you know, when when we do when my kids do things wrong. I've learned to just say, Oh, you haven't mastered that skill yet. You haven't got that rather than off. For God's sake. I've told you about this before. Why
00:29:34.950 --> 00:29:35.880
haven't you got that? Yeah.
00:29:36.690 --> 00:29:41.789
You'll get there. You'll get there. Just try to try this this time. Try this right. Yeah.
00:29:41.789 --> 00:29:57.930
And we have to be careful of ourselves. When we mess up stuff. The words that come out of our mouth. We mess up. I know that I'm guilty of that or have definitely been that we pick our words and we we took kindly to ourselves. Yes, at least out of earshot. Yes. Do the swearing and the cursing.
00:29:59.608 --> 00:30:05.278
Yes. Absolutely the whole thing. Be careful what you say about yourself because you're listening and and your kids are listening to
00:30:05.579 --> 00:30:09.240
listening and picking it all up. So compassion, compassion, compassion,
00:30:09.240 --> 00:30:38.130
compassion, yes, all of that. So I think that's pretty much covered it, I put a PDF link in the podcast notes to a piece that's written by anxiety candidate.com, which I thought was really useful. And a lot of the information I got for this in terms of the ways to deal with it came from Amy Marie Morin, the speaker who made the secret to becoming mentally strong. I quite like some of her stuff. So that'll be linked up in the podcast. And
00:30:38.130 --> 00:30:40.380
that's interesting.
00:30:38.130 --> 00:30:54.960
It's linked to anxiety because it always is, and anxiety is very much future based. So perfectionism is very future oriented. And what's it going to be like? How can I be in the future, which is worth just bearing in mind, trying to bring them back into the present moment right now? It's good enough right now.
00:30:55.109 --> 00:31:11.880
Yes. And I did this off. You talked about the birds singing and how that calms you down. My daughter was having a meltdown. The other day, I just said, right, put everything away. Come outside. Let's just sit and listen to the love. And I explained to her why that happens. And I just said, breathe. Let's just breathe. And it was she said, Actually, I feel a bit better.
00:31:11.910 --> 00:31:14.640
How amazing and the birds don't seem to be perfect.
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:16.500
They just sing. Exactly.
00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:18.869
They just exist. They're enjoying themselves.
00:31:19.348 --> 00:31:20.699
Why is episodes good enough?
00:31:23.130 --> 00:32:16.559
I think it's probably 72%. Yep, that's it. If you don't like it, guys. We don't really we're good. We're good with it. We're fine. Yes, that's it. Right, that's it. If you enjoyed this episode, let somebody else know, send them a link or give us a review on the platform that you're listening on. Or you can come to the website, which is www dot teenager's untangled.com, where you can find my blog, my all the episodes, you can research them using keywords, and also sign up for my newsletter. Suzy is very active on LinkedIn at the moment, I am making lots of noise. Because she's doing quite a lot of business stuff, which doesn't mean she's left us she's still around. She's still up for supporting anybody who needs support.
00:32:16.589 --> 00:32:27.390
Yeah, I'm doing all sorts of things just pivoting a little bit. So where can we find you can find all my links and everything on my website, which is www dot a mindful hyphen.
00:32:27.390 --> 00:32:51.059
life.co.uk. Brilliant. Yes. And just lastly, with perfectionism, just an important thing is that, you know, we relate so much more to people who mess up 100% lie and just telling our kids that and they'll they'll relate to them. Like, the more you're relatable, nobody, nobody you can't relate to anyone who's perfect. And they are riddled on social media because the perfect ones we go. They're not like,
00:32:52.019 --> 00:32:56.640
I mean you you strive to be a bit more like the perfect people but you don't like them.
00:32:57.329 --> 00:33:01.079
Someone was suddenly go, Oh, yeah. And
00:33:01.079 --> 00:33:16.529
also the same thing with particularly with girl relationships. Girls tend to start liking more once they've seen that you're vulnerable in some way. If you don't show your vulnerability, there's anything to build on as though you're untouchable. Yeah.
00:33:12.509 --> 00:33:18.359
Good pet. I like that point. All right. That's it for this Week.
