Performing "good" vs Showing up and doing the thing as you are

Welcome to season 2!!

Today I'm talking about perfection - or the performance of perfection - gets in the way of all the best parts of life. That includes recovery of all kinds, a sense of joy, of freedom, and can even delay launching season 2 of a podcast (who knew)!

So take a few big breaths, know that you're perfect exactly as you are, and join me for a shiny new season, devoid of any "shoulds" and "supposed to's" that could get in our way.

Learn more at LizMcKean.com.

You can also connect with me on Instagram @liz.mckean, or send me an email at Liz@LizMckean.com.  I'd love to hear from you!

All my love and gratitude for this podcast's beautiful cover design, created by the very best & most magical Mo Houston of JoyScout Studio 

And podcast production/editing masterfully done by Sean Gritters. You can reach Sean by emailing seangritters@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Really, the thing that I can share that I believe has the most value that comes definitely from the you know most deeply loving part of me is to just show up exactly as I am and know that for the people that it's that need it, that it's right for, that that'll always be enough. And I also want you to know that, that that you're always enough inherently. You have you are worthy of such good of a wonderful life. You deserve to feel good in your body. You deserve to understand what's happening in your mind to the extent that you have the ability to make changes if you choose to, if you desire to. You deserve to know that your life is yours, that your body is yours, that your mind is yours, and that this world is better off because you're in it.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

So.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Welcome to Starfish Hypnosis. I am your host, Liz McKean. In this podcast, we meander through our conscious and subconscious minds, and we do that without a lick of shame. In these episodes, you are going to hear stories, you're gonna hear a lot of metaphors because that's how I make sense of the world. We're gonna take some big breaths together, and you are going to hear reminder, after loving reminder, that you are not doing it wrong. Any of this. I'm so glad that you're here. So let's go. And welcome to season two of Starfish Hypnosis. I am so excited to be back on the mic and speaking to you and just ready to ready to just do podcasting again in this way because I I missed it. And when I left off season one, if you listened to that last episode in the previous season, I think I mentioned, you know, in season two, I'm excited to be maybe not needing to be quite as experimental, like to be a little more intentional, might have some guests on. And I gotta tell you, that little statement and sentiment that was in my mind was such a blocker for like hopping back on the mic. Like I was really glad to take a little time and kind of reassess. And also, there is such a strong story in my head that still says you have to do it right. And especially because it's, you know, the second season, it has to be just right. And if anything is gonna get in the way of forward movement in any way, personal, professional, whatever, it is trying to make something just right. So we're gonna talk about that a little bit more today because I think there's more to be said on like a broader life um realm about having that need for things to be just so keeping you from maybe living the life that you could love dearly and also kept me from podcasting as quickly again as I wanted to. Um but before we do that, I'm not gonna change our breaths because I love our breaths, and I've I've heard from some of you that you enjoy them. And even if just one person has a few breaths with me before the podcast fully starts, then that's a good reason to keep doing it. So if you're new here, we take three big breaths in the beginning and at the end of every podcast. You can do it, you can skip it, you can do it a hundred times, whatever feels good for you. But wherever you are, take a deep breath in. And then a big sigh out of your mouth. Ah isn't that nice? Do that again. Biggest breath you've taken all day. See if this time your exhale can be slower, almost double the time. Yeah, and feel the shoulders melt as that exhale fully, fully lets go. One more big breath. That's when we're gonna hold. So hold that breath at the top. Notice if your shoulders got really tense. Can you keep holding the breath, but let the shoulders get soft? Maybe you smile. Maybe you sip in just a little bit more breath and then let it go. That's the stuff. I missed doing that with you. So, like I said, I want to talk a little bit about having that story that things have to be just so, and having that get in the way of things being okay. Like I could apply this to so many things, but I want to start and kind of ground it in something I read recently. Actually, it might not have been that recent, but I read my notes about it to myself more recently. And it was by Holly Whittaker, who is an author and used to be a podcaster. I'm sure she'll probably do it again someday. And I really, really, really love her work and her the way her mind works. Um, I like the way she talks about and looks at recovery and how she's allowed her view and perspective and just thoughts on recovery to evolve over time. And it's it's been very aligned with my own evolution. And I was fortunate to find her very early on in my own journey of trying to stop drinking. And I think I can't imagine how I would have survived, you know, had I not come across her and other writers that she kind of opened up my eyes to because I was trying so hard to do it the way I was supposed to do it. And I I just don't think that ever really works when it's something so personal as how you live your life, how you get through incredibly hard things, how you get sober for some of us. In other podcasts, I've gone into more detail on that. So I'm not gonna jump way down that rabbit hole, but I will just say that for me, the traditional route of going to 12-step meetings and having that just be the plan forever and ever, amen, um, was actually incredibly detrimental for me. And that does not take away from its power to be supportive for others. So if that's your path, please know I support you. Um, but I didn't know there was another option. And then when I read Holly's work and I listened to her podcast that she had years and years ago with Laura McGowan, who's another really wonderful writer, um, it just was this shift in, oh, it can be different. Oh, it's okay to be like that doesn't work for me. Oh, it's okay to be a little pissed about this, you know, it was just this whole different way of looking at it that finally that gave that felt like it was giving me something instead of taking something away. Because everything I was looking at when it came to stopping drinking, because for me, my only way of coping with anxiety, with life, with with just being a person was in the bottle. It was the only thing that had ever worked. So when that started ruining my life in its own way, and you can apply this to things that are not alcohol, everybody has their own coping mechanisms that can start ruining their life. Um it was all about being something being taken away. And I've used this metaphor before, and I'm gonna use it again. Like I really struggle with the concept of I'm on a raft. For me, alcohol was my raft. For me, life was choppy waters full of man-eating sharks. And I say that as a person who actually loves sharks and know that they're not really man-eating creatures, but in, you know, culturally speaking, I think this is how we think of sharks, right? So if you tell me you just have to get off the raft, like, you know, the metaphorical raft, just get rid of the raft, then you're all better. All I'm thinking is like, I mean, the hell I will. I'm not getting off this raft and that I don't know how to swim. There's there's sharks in there. Like I'm I'm unsafe. This is the maybe this raft is terrible and ruining my life, but also it's the only thing that I have that's gonna keep me from dying, you know? And and if I'm gonna die, maybe I choose death on this raft versus in these waters with sharks. So it's it's hard for me to wrap my head around just ripping away the thing when the thing is there to help with other things. That doesn't mean that the thing doesn't need to go. It doesn't mean I didn't need to stop drinking. I absolutely did, I'd be dead right now or in jail. But it does mean that I couldn't that couldn't be the only thing. That couldn't be the solution. Like it couldn't just be you are you are the problem because you are drinking. Stop it. It had to be, why are you drinking? What what wisdom does that come from? What is the pain that you have that you haven't been able to find anything but this to help with? Let's find something else. Let's show you something else could work. For me, it was yoga, and then we can consider stepping off the raft because now I'm stepping onto dry land or onto a you know sturdy or boat or to something that I just or maybe, maybe I just realized I can swim, you know, like there's so many ways to take this metaphor and also this journey. And and again, I don't want to say that that's that for some people it's not about just jumping off the raft. Maybe that works for you. For me and for the people that I work with, we just have to go a little bit deeper. And by a little bit deeper, I mean a lot deeper, but in a really lovely way, in a loving way, and honoring the wisdom of the body way. So Holly wrote an article about her evolution of just talking about recovery and talking about sobriety. And even those words, I think, don't work for everybody, and that's okay. It's okay if our language is different. I think it's beautiful that there are that we that we have options. And so many of us, I think, particularly women, like we we don't know for so long. I didn't know for so long, decades and decades of my life, that like my life is mine. It's my life. It's there's a reason I call it that my goes before the word life. It didn't ever feel like it belonged to me. It always felt like something I was supposed to do something with, and it had to be the right thing, or else I was bad, or else I was gonna get in trouble. And when I looked at getting sober that way, it was never gonna work because that was essentially just applying the same model of like the your life is not yours, do it right. That already was so intolerable that I was drinking. So now you're gonna tell me stop drinking and do it right. It was like, oh, this is there's just something really wrong here, and it's not working. And when I approached it in a way that was not, I mean, performative, really, to use the word that I think is a little overused, maybe that was the only time that it was gonna work. So what she was talking about in her evolution is that she realized that she was very attached, as so many people are. And for some people, this is very useful. Again, don't want to, I'm not not trying to tell anybody that their path is the wrong way. I'm just offering up another perspective in case anyone feels that they are wrong or bad or broken because the quote unquote right way isn't working for them. Um, and again, I'm using alcohol here as the conversation, you know, focus. But please know that this might be other substances, this might be other coping behaviors, this might be literally anything that you are doing to feel better, that you know in you somewhere that it's not actually working, it's not actually helping, and you need to stop, but it just feels impossible to stop. So she was talking about how she was very attached to abstinence as a requirement for recovery. Abstinence meaning not using any substances. So, no, regardless of what your drug of choice was, not using anything, anything else. I mean, there's a lot, there are some like groups of people out in the recovery world that think that you absolutely shouldn't even be using medications like like antidepressants or um, you know, psych meds, etc., which I have actual a deep quarrel with. And she was saying that she realized abstinence was just another way that she was performing goodness and even talking about abstinence because in this in this kind of article, it was almost a confessional that she was writing, which afterwards it was interesting to see her like look back on that article and be like, oh, I didn't, I didn't I have nothing to apologize for, you know, it shouldn't even be a confessional. Um that she had started using um weed again. She'd I I think probably smoking weed again or however she was using it, and felt like she couldn't admit that, you know, even though she was using it in a way that felt right for her, felt good for her, felt actually supportive of her recovery and mental health, um she was supposed to be abstinent, so she had to perform abstinence to like her community or whatever. And and holy shit, like what a beautiful thing to tell people because the amount of people that are out there doing, you know, like recovery, mental health, I mean, life, work, parenthood, whatever, in a way that works for them, but they can't actually enjoy it. They can't actually like benefit from it fully because they have to perform a different version of it for the rest of the world or their family, friends, whatever, like what a what a mean thing to do to your sweet little brain, you know? And I find that come up for me again and again and again. I find that whether it's talking about recovery or talking about business, podcasting, um, coaching, hypnosis, all so many things that I do when I'm just in it, when I'm just in the zone, and specific, especially when I'm working with somebody. So I I like to think that when I'm podcasting, I am speaking to somebody. Like it actually feels very personal to me. So I hope that feels that way for you and your ears. Um, but also when I'm, you know, if I'm teaching a yoga class, if I'm doing coaching or hypnosis with a client, it's I'm just there. I'm just in the moment. I'm not doing the thing where I'm like kind of outside of myself judging what I'm saying. I sometimes I do that later. But in the moment, I'm really in it. And that's when I'm at my best, and that's when I help people the most. And I'm not performing anything because I'm just every part of me is just focused on the moment. And that is so beautiful and so incredible. And I could not do the work that I do if I hadn't, if I hadn't worked really hard to get to this point. Because there was a time I remember when I was first teaching you, and I remember when I was even, you know, working in healthcare. Like I was trying so hard to do things just right that every single interaction became sort of a performance, you know, sort of a let me show you how good I am, let me show you how right I'm doing it, let me make sure the words that are coming out of my mouth are so inoffensive. Unoffensive? Well, grammatically correct, or maybe not, that you can't be mad at me, that you have you have no choice but to like me and respect me and think I'm good. And then when you think I'm good, I can think I'm good. And that's exhausting. I mean, that was exhausting just to say. And that is something I've worked on very intentionally for a really long time. And so it's so interesting to have come to this place where I ended season one of the podcast. It was fun, it was just all an experiment. They just felt like the stakes were, I mean, high in that I want this to be really good. I want it to be helpful for you. I'm, I mean, to be totally transparent, paying to put this out into the world. But also low in that it's brand new. There's no should. There's no should for how this is supposed to go. There's no such thing as supposed to. You know, it was just, I'm trying this and I know I think I'll enjoy it. And I think it will be helpful. And I think, you know, hopefully it will aid in the growth of my business that I'm also building. And then, and I did it. It was great. And then I was like, all right, now it's time to get serious. Now it's time to do it right. Do it the right way. Look at these experiments and create the supposed to's. And that is what I took, you know, it was supposed to be like three or four weeks off, and it ended up being closer to six, or maybe we might even be going at seven now. Because I was like, all right, what is this supposed to be? Is it supposed to be something that I bring guests on? Is it supposed to be something that feels like um, you know, hypnosis, that feels like uh meditation, that feels that that like the podcast in itself is a resource that can help you feel soothed in the way that I want to help you feel soothed if we were to work together. Um and I mean, I gotta tell you, that's some bullshit. Because even though I love there are podcasts like that that I really enjoy that are essentially guided meditations or even guidance guided um hypnosis sessions. They, there's a lot of overlap there. Um the way I work with people is so deeply individualized. Like if you and I are working together, I start out learning your favorite color so that I can weave that into the work we're doing in your subconscious and you're part of it. You know, it's very two-sided. There's, there's, I'm not doing anything, you know, to you. It's very much with you. And and that's why it helps. That's why it's so powerful because it's your subconscious. So the work we're doing together and the words that I say are for you. So in the podcast, my goal is to give you metaphors that maybe help you make sense of the world the way and your mind and everything that we talk about here, the way that they help me make sense of my mind and the world, et cetera, is to, I don't know, hopefully make you feel less alone in some of the things that you're going through. If you urse are someone that has some coping mechanisms or behaviors or anything like that that you're feeling a lot of shame around, I really hope that you're able to listen to this podcast and understand that you're you're so wise, that that that everything that you're doing to feel better, even the stuff that sucks, that that like, you know, objectively you can step back and be like, this is this is bad for everybody. There's still wisdom beneath it because you are a person with a body and a mind that wants to feel good and you deserve that. And we just need to turn, you know, turn you to the uh to different tools, and that might be something that requires more one-on-one support. But I really deeply believe, like the deepest part of my core, that the thing that has to come first is uh just uh challenging that shame. So I hope that this podcast helps to do that. And I also hope that it helps you to get to know me if you are someone who is coming to this space and to this um uh medium. Medium, media, man, words. We should really probably get a podcaster on here that knows how to speak words, but you know, we're doing our best over here, and that's the best we can do. But if you're coming here to consider whether you might want to dive into this kind of work, whether I'm the person that maybe you want to do it with, then I hope it also allows you to get to know me because there are a few other places that I show up that I am as much myself as I am in a podcasting space. It's just such a long conversation. It's this, I guess, you know, in the in the industry, in the biz they call it long form content, that like I don't know about you, but I I mean I don't have much tolerance for putting on a performance anymore, anyway. But I certainly couldn't do it for a full, you know, 30 minutes of talking and I wouldn't want to. There's a freedom that comes in uh speaking into this microphone in the comfort of my home, knowing that it is gonna get to the people that need to hear it, and yeah, essentially not being attached to what that outcome is. Because once this work gets to you, you get to decide what feels good. You get to take what you like, you get to leave the rest, you get to listen to it once or a hundred times, you get to do it, listen to me at 1.5 speed or point or 2.0 speed. And if I sound like a chipmunk, that is that is great for you because I think chipmunks are adorable. So however this lands, those those are just are my kind of uh intentions on this side of it. And none of those intentions require me to do it the way I'm quote unquote supposed to do it. Because by definition, that assumes I know best what you need. That assumes that I know exactly how you're gonna receive this. That assumes that um I don't know, that that I'm an expert on anything else except for what uh is in my mind and my heart today. And really the thing that I can share that I believe has the most value, that comes definitely from the you know, most deeply loving part of me is to just show up exactly as I am and know that for the the people that it's that need it, that it's right for, that that'll always be enough. And I also want you to know that that that you're always enough inherently you have you are worthy of such a good of a wonderful life, that you deserve to feel good in your body, you deserve to understand what's happening in your mind to the extent that you have the ability to make changes if you choose to, if you desire to. You deserve to know that your life is yours, that your body is yours, that your mind is yours, and that this world is better off because you're in it. So as we go into season two, without really changing very much at all, my promise to you is that that's what you're gonna get. You're always gonna get me exactly as I am. I'm gonna tell you stories of what goes on in my life that I think are relevant to the kind of conversations we have here. I am also delighted if and when questions come in, if you have questions. About me or the work that I do, um, and and you know, if it makes sense to to talk about it right here on this podcast. Because I think, you know, as they say, there's no there's no dumb questions, there's just curiosity, and that's very welcome here. Yeah, and and and also if all you get out of this is taking some deep breath, it's pretty awesome too. I think you're pretty awesome. And you don't have to perform that. So I'm not going to either. Cool? Cool. We just high-fived in my head and in my heart. Maybe we hugged too. Maybe a little fist bump if we're if we're feeling extra cool. I just pictured the little uh emoji with sunglasses. Okay, I think we've reached the end. Alright, my friends. So one more time. Feel free to breathe with me or to skip it. But maybe you give yourself a moment to unclench your jaw, let your shoulders soften, and take a nice deep breath in through your nose. And a big sigh. Let something go. Good. Even bigger breath. Slower exhale. Yeah, as you exhale, feel those shoulders melts. Like go a little more of the day. Last one we hold. Big breath in. Fill up the belly if you can. Good. Stay with that inhale. Hold a little longer. Maybe feel the rib cage expand. Maybe feel your heart space expand. Maybe smile. And then open your mouth, let it go. Good job. I'm so happy that you're back, that I'm back, that we're back. And I can't wait to see you next time. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Please be sure that you've hit that subscribe button and send this episode to somebody who you think would enjoy it. You can find me on Instagram at Starfish Hypnosis, same thing on threads. And of course, if you'd like to work with me, go to my website at LizMakean.com. A big thank you and hug to my dear friend Mo Houston at Joyce Scout Studios, who created the beautiful artwork that is the cover for this podcast. And another big thank you to my editor, producer, Sean Gritters. He's incredible. And if you'd like to work with him, his email will also be linked in the show notes. We will see you next week.