Beyond Business Podcast Ep 8

Written By Debbie Lee

Episode 8

Perfectionism, Productivity & Cycles with Vix Anderton

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EPISODE SUMMARY

This week I’m talking with Vix Anderton, a Somatic Mentor and Facilitator. Vix’s work is grounded in nervous system resourcing, using the principles of embodiment, cyclical living and authentic relating to help rebel perfectionists manage their energy and emotions to bravely build more sustainable and authentic ways of being.

In this episode, we dive into how perfectionism shows up for us as individuals and business owners and some of the ways we can support ourselves to approach it with compassion and find what ‘good enough’ looks like. We talk about how we interact with some of the bigger challenges we are facing in the world today and how we build a meaningful relationship to the impact we make through our work.

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If you would like to find out more about Vix and her work you can connect with her in the following places:

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:03 - Debbie (Host)

Welcome to Beyond Business, the podcast, the show for impact driven ecopreneurs who want to be part of a bigger change and make a difference that reaches beyond your business alone. This week I'm speaking with Vicks Andreden, a somatic mentor and facilitator. Vicks' work is grounded in nervous system resourcing, using the principles of embodiment, cyclical living and authentic, relating to help rebel perfectionists manage their energy and emotions to bravely build more sustainable and authentic ways of being. Vicks and I dive into all of this and more in this episode, so I hope you enjoy what is a rich and vibrant conversation. We are good to go. I was going to say I always instinctively say good morning Vicks, but actually it's good evening where you are.

01:01 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, it's 20 to 6. It's definitely the end of the day.

01:05 - Debbie (Host)

I wonder how your day's been. How are you arriving? Are you arriving with us?

01:11 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, it's been full and it's day seven of my menstrual cycle, so I've got that kind of early spring. I had a day like this two weeks ago and by this point I could barely string a sentence together. So, day 24, I'm like, oh yes, spring, I can do all of the things. This is incredible. So, yeah, I've been really productive. I'm doing a course at the moment around leadership and communication in the face of social and ecological collapse Fun topics. It's intense, but, yes, I had three hours of that to start my day with.

01:54 - Debbie (Host)

Oh wow, I'm curious to find out more about that. Actually, we could like spend the whole episode there, I think. Do you know the other thing I love. I love how it's so normalised to you and feels comfortable to me to check in, like to start to check in, around our menstrual cycle. I wonder if you can remember the time before when you didn't have that awareness.

02:23 - Vix (Guest)

I can. It's a while ago now.

02:27

But yeah, it didn't even occur to me. I mean, I used to take the pill for many years as a way of controlling my endometriosis, and so I didn't experience particular shifts over the course of my cycle. But I remember when I might have been during the pandemic, definitely when I was back in London. I remember talking to a former Air Force colleague of mine who was working for Amazon and she did the whole like how are you doing? I'm like yeah, yeah, I'm day, whatever it is of my cycle, and I could just hear this like I hear the tumble meat in the background and I'm like, oh yeah, everybody talks like this, but I think it's so.

03:03

I mean, for me it's such, I guess it's becoming a bit of a shorthand right particularly as I think more and more people have a sense of, I mean, I appreciate you knowing what day seven like, where that kind of sits in the archetypes. For other people who maybe have less awareness, I might say, oh no, I'm in really in the spring phase of my cycle and in a little bit more context. But it's such a shorthand for, yeah, kind of encapsulating this is broadly how the world looks like from where I am, and if I told you it's day 27 or day two, I imagine you would have a very different response to me. So, yeah, I love it as a bit of a shorthand and a way of establishing the norm of our cycles impact us.

03:54 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, absolutely, and I love the reference actually to the seasons. I think that that's what I would use more because I find it so relatable when we talk about spring. It's like we, instinctively, we can associate spring with those little shoots poking through and the new beginnings and that real sense of what's coming next.

04:21 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, well, it's interesting though, because, if anything, about who's we? So? I grew up in the UK, in Northwest Europe, and so, yeah, the seasons I've got friends from like in bulk and like the Celtic Wheel of the Year, like that makes deep sense to me. But I live in the tropics now and ever so slightly in the southern hemisphere, so it's January, which means it's taking a piece of summer here, but in the tropics I can see the wet or dry right. So I'm really yeah, I'm really starting to explore, I mean, what this model looks like for people who don't have that kind of intuitive understanding of the seasons. I'm hanging around with something around like sort of the growth cycle for a plant.

05:09

Yeah yeah, or fruit, or I haven't quite got the metaphor right yet, but yeah, for me it's one of those implicit examples of the way that kind of like Western culture has homogenised, or Western hegemony has sort of taken over me. Like assume that you know, and really, unless you're from Europe or and even all of North America, parts of North America, then those seasons mean a little bit less for people intuitively.

05:39 - Debbie (Host)

It's so true. It's so true. Yeah, the seasons look like, yeah, they look so different wherever we are. That's so true. Yeah, it's so true.

05:50 - Vix (Guest)

I know I would dive right in there and I thought well, maybe probably we're offering the context that you and I have now known each other for I don't know what. How old's your son?

06:03 - Debbie (Host)

He's coming seven, so we've known each other for six years. Yeah, that's why I was going to start. Actually, we've known each other for a long time now and I was reflecting this morning since we first came across each other and you became my first ever coach. Your work has really, I was going to say, grown, is really deepened a lot since then, and I see you really having dived into menstruality and cycles as a big part of what you do, and you've also become a published author.

06:49

Since then, you're a menstrual mentor and you're an authentic relating facilitator and, more laterally, an authentic leadership mentor as well, and it's been so, yeah, it's been so cool for me to watch this real evolution of what you do, and I know the theme that runs through all of that is tied back to perfectionism and how perfectionism shows up for many of us, and I was really struck by this quote that you I think you published on Instagram recently, and you talked about how perfectionism has very little to do with pursuing perfection and actually a lot more to do with like covering up this feeling of not being enough, maybe not doing, and I know for me it's this like never quite feeling like I've done enough. I wonder if we could maybe start there and talk about why perfectionism has become such a central theme of your work.

08:12 - Vix (Guest)

Oh, I mean, thank you for all of that. Yeah, I appreciate the reflection of somebody who's I think you might have been one of my very first clients. I'm going to be back, go ahead, yeah. So perfectionism sort of became the organizing theme for me. When I realized that, like that was the organizing theme in my life, a lot of the things that I now teach and the tools that I use with my clients came from what I was finding to be supportive of me. I became a coach after I burnt out, I left my corporate career and yeah, so I was really interested. They really sort of finding the things that they're working for me, and I remember that sort of 2020, 2021 is after I've done my embodied coaching certification.

09:13

I'm seeing something from Tad Hargrave, who runs marketing for Hippies, and he was sort of talking about the fact that coaches and healers and practitioners like us tend to collect a lot of planks. Yeah, we tend to like have lots of things that we can do with people. And he's like you need to stop collecting planks and build a boat. And I was like, right, what's my boat? And I was working with a couple of mentors, I worked with a brand strategist and playing around and it just the penny just dropped one day and it was like, oh, of course, like it's perfectionism, like it was capitalism all along, and we can talk about the relationship between capitalism and perfectionism as well. But yeah, it was kind of like, well, this is my experience, this is my journey, and it's a little bit of a cliche sort of the wounded healer archetype, but yeah, that was sort of the genesis of it and the more I've talked about it, of course, the more I see it in the people that I work with and my experience of perfectionism very much has been.

10:25

You know, I have a ridiculously high standards for myself at times, but I've never been one of those like, oh, how have I not been? I hate making mistakes, but I've never been somebody to really sit there for hours to the late night like the kind of stereotypical perfectionist of dotting every eye and crossing every T. The high standards of things have, the more I've understood it have really been driven by this root trembling fear that the rest of the world will realize that actually I'm not good enough. Yeah, that I'm not as good as people think I am, and it really stems from this. Yeah, just, it's never good enough, doesn't matter how hard I work or what I do, there's something in me that never feels filled up by it. So everything I've been doing since authentic, relating menstruality, somatic work it's all been to kind of like practice, like what? How do I feel filled up? Like what does enough look like?

11:39 - Debbie (Host)

And even one step further than that being it not be enough and for me to still be comfortable or at least find like not being horrifically uncomfortable with being uncomfortable and yeah, I was really struck there when you described it as this root trembling fear, and when you describe it like that, I got this real sense of it being something that lives in your body rather than something that lives in your head.

12:12

And I can't remember the statistics, but I read somewhere that the thoughts that we have every day, like 97% of our thoughts or something like that, or it's the same thought on, repeat and repeat and repeat. Okay, yeah, yeah, and I think that when that's the case, sometimes it's hard to even notice the thoughts that are going on, like I know myself. But there's stories I tell myself that I've become so normalized to that I don't even realize that they're there anymore, and I think it's then that this that's where going into our body can become so helpful, and I imagine that's been a real shift for you and why embodiment and embodied coaching has become such a big part of what you do as well.

13:10 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely, because it only works in both ways, because perfectionism is rooted in the body, like it has a somatic imprint and it's hard to feel. It's hard to feel that fear and much easier to kind of like check out of your body and overthink and overdo. And yeah, there's lots of overs that happen for perfectionists and I'm pretty convinced that in some way, shape or form, it's like how do I not feel what I'm feeling? Like, how do I get some distance with this stuff? That feels really uncomfortable. And so, yeah, working with that, learning to be able to do something different means kind of going the opposite direction and coming back into the body in a way that feels tritrated, like not too much, not too fast, right, I've been a perfectionist for pretty much my whole life.

14:08

It's taking more than five minutes to learn to be okay with going the other way, especially so many of us, in my view now, actually, we're trained to come out of our bodies Like really early. I'm sure you're seeing this with your boys at school. They kind of like sit down, you can't go to the bathroom until a certain time and it's so alien to us. So we're really good at not being in our bodies and then yeah, so coming back into them not to denigrate the intellect or to take away from that like being able to analyze information, being able to view something into actually still a really important skill but it's adding in. It's like, oh, I've got this intellectual wisdom, now I can add in this kind of somatic and emotional wisdom and the place where I'm starting to really explore for myself and my own journey is a spiritual aspect to that as well, and it's like adding these pieces back into the puzzle that I seem to have lost. Or, quite frankly, western society capitalism like took away from me quite deliberately at some point in my life.

15:24 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, that's true. I really relate to this, like the I guess nurturing on building in this really heady space, and really I always really enjoyed school. I was like a super, super conscientious student and I really thrived on maths and physics and subjects that I saw as being really rooted in logic, like I loved the fact that I could do, you know, I could figure out a maths equation and get a very tangible answer at the end of that, that answer being marked as right or wrong, like it was sort of black or white. You know it was either right or it was wrong there was joy in being excited.

16:13 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, yeah. And you know what this is, why perfectionists have such a hard time being solo entrepreneurs? Because our coping strategies were based on the structure of school. Like it's right or it's wrong, I'm getting really clear feedback. I'm either getting an A or I'm not. And I know exactly what.

16:32

I remember doing really good at geography. Geography and economics were kind of my subjects when I was at school Because they had enough enough flair in there, but there was still a sense of like right, right, the answer is like this and this is how you get good grades and it just, it really clicked for me. And there's, there's still a lot of that in the corporate world perhaps not as much, but just enough for us to still feel safe enough. So perfect just tend to do really good at school and they tend to do really well in corporate jobs and they burn themselves out or something kind of shifts and they go actually I'm missing something. And they become solo entrepreneurs and and then it's just a bit of a shit show for a while because we're all running around going but where's, where's the A? Like what's, what's the right answer, and we put so much pressure on ourselves because, like, well, I just like the thing, I did this thing on Instagram and it didn't work, and I don't know how I did it work. And we just we just put ourselves into perfectionism overdrive, looking for the right answer, because that's what we've been taught to do, that's how we learn to to thrive.

17:39

Because, like the A, the gold star was like it's okay, you're enough, yeah, okay, okay. So if I do this again, I'm going to be enough, okay, great. And and I hate to break it to people like that is not coming if you work for yourself. And to make matters worse, that perfectionism is a stress response and in the terms of, like my teacher, mark Walsh, you know, stress makes us dumb, conservative and mean, and what you need if you're an entrepreneur is to be creative and connected and all of these other things. And you can't do that if you're in a perfectionism stress spiral. And so, like, around and around and it goes because like, well, it's not working. I better work harder and I better do all these things that used to work for me, and people just end up like banging their heads against the laptop. And why isn't this working? Why am I not happy? It's too much.

18:29 - Debbie (Host)

We're here laughing about it and, like I can, I can laugh along with you and make light of it. And I know that, like when I have been in the depths of that, like it feels, it feels more important, it's just sparing, it's like despairing, because I know for a long time there was this real for me, there was a sense of like what is it that I'm doing wrong? Like I seem I feel like I'm doing everything and I feel like I'm doing everything right into the best of my ability, I'm trying my best and it's still not working. Like what is it? And then that can really. Then I find it so easy to then internalize that, just as we say they're like oh, it's me, it's me, that's not enough, let's try harder and do more, because that's what's worked so far.

19:20

You know, in school it's like, oh well, if I got, if I didn't get, an A star. But I, I know that you know, this time I only got an A and so if I work that little bit harder next time, I can get that A star. But I think the irony, the irony is that when it then comes to running my own business, it's that method. It's not only that, it's not helping, like in many ways it's actually quite detrimental because it's taking me away from the things that really do make a difference. So you touched on that. Like creativity, so being able to come up with creative solutions to what I might want to offer people. Or connection, like arranging conversations with real people, like those things when I'm squirreled away, trying to like perfect the wording on the social media post or rewrite another section of my website, like none of that really actually helps hold the problem.

20:30 - Vix (Guest)

No, exactly With infectious claim to love learning, like with infectious, I know, we're always doing another training course and yet we're so close to learning, like we refuse to experiment, like it has to be completely right the first time or clearly it's pointless and we give up and so we don't actually see things, see things through. And it's really interesting you talk about, like how you've seen my coaching practice deep in. You know, I've been a coach for seven years now and it's really only in the last, like two or three, that I would say that like I found it, like I found the thing, and even then, like it's still evolving, it's still deepening, still like which? Like now, which direction is it kind of going in? And I saw something today from and I can't remember her actual name, her handle, instagram is why don't you say something?

21:24

And it really struck me that in a lot of other industries, people become an expert in something and then they become, then they start coaching as a skill set, where so many of us become like, oh, and I did this, I want to become a coach, like I knew that I really enjoyed the skill set. And then we like we flap around, trying to be like, well, now? Now, what am I going to niche in, like, what am I going to be an expert in? And so, like, the expertise kind of comes in later and so no wonder we feel like we're not very good and we're beginners because so much of the time we are and that that addiction to training courses I noticed this myself.

22:01

I took a year off training in 2021, the first time in like five years and, oh my God, debbie, to actually give myself time to get good at something, rather than like introducing something else that I was a beginner at, it was I mean, it was a breath of fresh air and a game changer to actually give myself time to integrate and time to deepen and to feel like, well, yeah, I've got to, I've got to grip on this now, rather than constantly putting myself in situations where I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not very good at it because I'm a beginner and I just reinforcing those, those, those thoughts of the, well, this isn't working, I don't know what I'm doing. Quick, I better quit and do something else and or move on to the next thing.

22:47 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, exactly, it takes us back to cycles and missing that integration time and, yeah, I think that when I first before I had my business, I've always been interested in entrepreneurship as a hobby, I would say, and I used to read a lot around lean startup methodologies and the I don't know. There's like there's lots of these frameworks and I know they're used even in corporate settings as well, and agile that's the word I was looking for agile working and I I know a lot of those originated in, like, car manufacturing and tech industries, where they're based very much on optimizing machinery and like, yeah, making sure that we, like, I guess the whole point is to shorten a production cycle so that you can get a viable product out there to the market as soon as possible.

23:54 - Vix (Guest)

And.

23:55 - Debbie (Host)

I think that there's something where we then take those methodologies and try to apply them to like our human work patterns, yeah, and in doing so, like we forget about that integration and rest time, we sort of skip over it and assume that we have to go from one sprint, one sprint of activity to the next sprint, and so it continues and doesn't stop. And that really reminds me of what you just described like when we're always sprinting and always learning, there's not space and really let it all soak in.

24:36 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, exactly. I'll tell you something that just came into my head. One is a former client of mine had something that she called the graveyard of ideas, and it is exactly what we've just talked about. Oh, had a good idea, try it out. Oh, it didn't work exactly as I wanted it to. I'm spinning a bit sticky now Clearly means it's not the right thing to do. Ditch it and onto the next thing.

24:57

And cycles, I think, can really help with that. And the other thing that really struck me as you were speaking with us like, oh, this, how much of stuff is optimized for machines? Like, how much is capitalism and the constant pursuit of growth? And like, how do I get more, more profit, the less input? Yeah, how do I exploit labor and resources to make the most that I can in the shortest amount of time possible? Like, how much that's like just built into all of this, and how dehumanizing that is. Like there's no humanity, there's no aliveness in, you know, the MVP cycle, the agile learning, the agile kind of project management. They're based on a similar format of the cycles but there's no, oh, there's no humanity left in it. They're built for machines and for capitalists to make profit off of.

25:55

So yeah, for me, one of the important things about cycles, particularly the second half of the cycle, like the what Red School called the V in negativa, which is the kind of the more inwards it's the autumn, the integration, the discerning, the being, with the discomfort and what's working and what's not, and then into rest, into something that looks like a winter, and I love that Red School call it repotentizing and it really is. It's like how do we bring the life force back into something, particularly, you know, as we're learning and so many of us do tend to push the cycle to its extreme. There is something like how do I come back and like put water back in this one so that I can, I can go again and whether that cycle is, you know, day to day, week to week, month to month, season to season, or even even project to project, like it's such a valuable and for me it's valuable to all, and it really, it really centers my humanness Again, it centers my imperfection, and that this is, this is a process and this is something else I've been playing with a lot.

27:09

Recently I had a chat with a client and he was like I'm just trying to get, just trying to get clear on things. I was like, oh, but what if clarity was a process and not a destination? What if purpose was a process and not a destination? And I feel like trying to get to these things and that they're not meant, they're not, they're not meant to be gettable to right, you can't put it in a shopping trolley. Somebody told me it's like, it's like so how do I, how do I live that? How do I allow myself to be in the the ebb and flow of sometimes I feel really clear about things and sometimes I don't, and sometimes I really know what I'm doing and a lot of the time I don't, and there's just like this natural ebb and flow that, for me, just like just give me deep permission to to just be okay as I am, just be human.

27:58 - Debbie (Host)

It's. So I'm struck by so many things in there. Like one is, I guess, and I like we're all winging it to some extent, I think, like it's been. So I find it so interesting Now I, becoming a business owner, I'm meeting people who are, you know, much more, much further along the journey than I am and people who seem, you know, in many respects are very well established and yet you, just as you're sharing it's like actually there's so many of the challenges that are common to whatever stage of business that you're at.

28:37

It's the things that, yeah, we all seek. I'll kind of that, I seek this like nice, like nice linear, laid out journey that I go along and take off the boxes. And A big part of my learning has been what you said there about sitting with a discomfort, like I know I want when I feel uncomfortable. I just want to like avoid that and jump on to the next thing, because it's not nice to feel uncomfortable. It brings up so many questions and I find that that's where embodiment practices can come in, so to be so helpful and so supportive and just I've heard you talk a lot about this one percent, like just allowing myself to feel it, even that one percent more.

29:27

Yeah, yeah.

29:31 - Vix (Guest)

So I often phrase for people like, if you want to feel more space or more comfort or whatever the thing it is that you really like, like, what would one percent more of that of that feel like? But that's it. I just want to pick up on what you said about the discomfort and the questions. I'm going through a period of this myself. I'm really, I think, partly in the wake of the situation in Gaza, feeling really challenged and I've had a bit of a I don't quite know how to. I'm going through a bit of a dark night of the soul in relation to climate change and capitalism and things, and it's really prompting these questions in the of you know who am I and what do I stand for and what do I want to offer? What is meaningful to me? You know if, if you take the kind of the doomster, as they're known, the adaptor attitude of the society as we know, it probably isn't going to last that much longer, well, in that case, what is meaningful to me? And it strikes me that those there are not easy answers to those questions and the only way to get answers to them is a little bit like battling in quicksand, like if you try and just get out of it tends to make it worse. Like at best you get out of it quickly but you're not actually better equipped or better resourced to answer the questions that are there. It's like, how can we sit and go through this and the feelings of being stuck and trapped, and it's, it's horrible. There are days where I'm just like I'll do anything, do anything to feel like some sort of sense of movement. But because I've been practicing this for a while now in different forms, something in me is able to tolerate it a little bit better. And on the days that I can tolerate it, I do get the sense of the longer that I can sit with this and I can really be with the feelings and really meet my grief and my fear and my confusion. That through that I'm starting to glimpse hope and clarity and but but like the only way to those places is to go through all the stuff that feels really, really horrible and to really feel it and to and to allow it to inform me that I realized this during my mentality training, that I am I'm a no person before I'm a yes person, like. I know people in the world my sister's one of them who just seems to get these really clear and they're called downloads, right? You just get this like, really like, right? Yes, I see it's perfect, exactly what it's going to be. I am not one of those people.

32:08

I'm increasingly learning that I have to be like I hate this and this is annoying me and what about that? And this is terrible, and no, and I have to go through all of these knows and all of the yuckness about it and after enough knows, it's like I've been gone around like you know 11 points of the clock and then send it's like oh oh, this isn't a no here. Oh, okay, I don't know if it's a yes, but it. But this could be a path forward and it feels really important to me to acknowledge that that's a really a really valid way of getting to a yes, of like feeling all of the knows and feeling all the discomfort and the I don't know what to do. And, yes, at some point I'll take myself out of the victim mentality and I'll do something about it, but right now I just, I just need to sit in the fact that I don't know and I don't like any of the options and I've just got to feel it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

33:04 - Debbie (Host)

It really. Yeah, it really takes me back to the theme of perfectionism, because I think when you describe it like that, like I don't know, there's something that when we describe those experiences, they it to me. It brings, I don't know more simplicity to it or something in the description. But I know, for me, when I'm in those moments like it feels messy I would say that's the best way to describe it I just feel all over the place Like I just want to get, like get it all together, and I can't, like I can't, focus on things, I find it hard to concentrate, I'm like easily distracted and it's messy and it's imperfect. That's it and it's not. Yeah, it is. It's really uncomfortable, really uncomfortable place to be.

33:56 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, and it's that. I think it's the perfectionists at heart are control freaks, right? That's one way that perfectionism kind of manifests itself. It's like I feel, I feel scared, like I'm, I feel this, this fear, the fear of not being enough. And the way that I deal with that is like how do I exert control in my world? Because if I'm in control, then everything's safe and I'm fine. And the messy middle where things are unclear and I don't feel in control and I don't have my shit altogether, like that is deeply uncomfortable for perfectionists. And and there is something about how do we really and I've got news everybody, yeah, I think Elizabeth Gilbert said this once like when we've never been in control.

34:45

One of my teachers, rick Smith, likes to sort of say he woke up one day and realized that he'd been like desperately trying to steer the bus and realized the steering wheel is not even connected. Right, like we are, like life, life is inherently uncertain and totally out of our control. And we need to, we need to find a way to be okay with that, because when I can be okay with that, what I can do, I step out of in what authentic, relating terms we either call the posture or the collapse. So I'm either helpless oh no, save me, I'm a victim, it's all like, it's all terrible. Somebody come and rescue me. Or I'm like, right, okay, I'm totally into discharge, I'm doing everything, it's all by myself, I'm making sure the sun rises tomorrow and again, I'm exaggerating for comic effect. But we move between these two things and the thing that brings us out when we can really be with that discomfort. That's how we really get to step back into our agency. It's a little bit like the serenity prayer, right, when I can really accept what I can't change.

35:42

Or you know Stephen, the son of habits of highly affected people, and he talks about, you know, our circles of influence and our circles of control and I really accept the things that I can't control. I can really accept the discomfort. That's when my agency kicks in and I can turn my attention to the things that I can do something about and I'm not going to control them. But I can have agency. I don't have to be a passive participant of life Like I get to be an active agent in this, you know, in all the ways that I want I have yet to figure out, like how I'm going to solve the Gaza situation or how I'm going to stop climate change. So those are the things I'm going to have to learn to accept and accept the discomfort and recognize okay. Where do I have agency in those situations?

36:32

Yeah, I can't call it into the net and I can't get into change's mind tomorrow, unfortunately. But what can I do? Where can I exert influence in my sphere?

36:45 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, and where can I? How can I resource myself to just listen, even if it's listening a little bit more? Yeah.

36:54 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, it's a port to deeply listen to ourselves, to deeply listen to each other. Yeah, sometimes doing something, sometimes the action is doesn't look like very much at all, it doesn't mean we're not doing something and yeah, again, that's sort of the internalized capitalism of it. It always has to be more and bigger and faster. That is into a real mess. So I think it's positive to try to do something different.

37:29 - Debbie (Host)

There's something for me about those small steps as well and then being much more sustainable, like one small step can lead on to another small step can lead on to another small step, rather than going full force into it and then having to take that real step back.

37:47 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, and I agree entirely and I kind of also want it to be okay if you don't have to take any steps. Like it's not from the place where I start with clients like, right, fix, how do I fix my perfectionism? Like you don't, because trying to fix perfectionism is perfectionism in action. You're good, like you've made it this far. You look like you're doing all right to me, like you know, right, it could be okay. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to be a successful entrepreneur, you don't have to make £100,000 a year. Like none of this is compulsory, so where's the aliveness?

38:32

in something, because you know so often I'm trying to get somewhere and you know I'm trying to get something finished and you know it's like I always want to be further along than I am. And I had this beautiful phrase from a podcast by Mosaic Voices recently, which was the only things that are complete are dead. Yeah, anything that's finished, like perfect, it's finished, it's done, it's no longer living, and that sucks. Like I want to be in the aliveness of things, like I want to feel that in my body, like I think completeness and getting to the end of something is overrated. So so, yeah, maybe you do take a small step forward, but I don't think it has to be. I don't think the point. I mean, what's the thing? The point is to get anywhere.

39:24

The only place you're taking steps towards is death, like that's the only thing that's that you know is coming. So so, yeah, how do you find the aliveness and the I mean, dare I say it the perfectionists From? Yeah, I'm still like what really this could be. I don't know why this. Yeah, my kids.

39:57 - Debbie (Host)

My kids are in this gummy bear. It's like a very, very carton-y cartoon character and they love to have they. Quite often I request a gummy bear disco, so we turn this really like the music up really loud. I really take the lead from them. They just go wild and I think, wow, like this is it. It is so. It's the embodiment of fun and it's like it really reminds me I love it and it really reminds me how much like I can miss that sometimes.

40:35 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, and I get it. It's like it's, it's hard. You know we we live in a system you know I was talking about this the other day we've just been reading Rest is Resistence by by Trisha Hersey. You know we live in a system that is inherently unsafe for all of us. You know, if you're lucky, you're three months away from losing your house, right? Most of us don't have those kind of savings, so we live in this as well, but it is constantly unsafe that you know our day to day existence, like how you pay the mortgage or the rent next month, how you put food on the table, like those on those are not guaranteed, and so there is this deep pressure from from all around us.

41:21

Never mind, then, the kind of the internalized version of that that manifests as perfectionist and says, well, you know, it can't be, it can't be enough just to make this like I have to, I have to be successful, with no definition of what successful means, but I think that clearly just means more. I have to have more Instagram followers and I have more clients and more of whatever it is, and so it's, it's hard. It's really really hard in that type of system and this kind of thinking to, to be able to let go to the point that you can be like, yes, this is, this is what I want to do today, this is the thing that brings me meaning and purpose, and it's to have a gummy bear disco. Yeah.

42:03

Yeah, I was really wanting to acknowledge that for people, because it's been really easy to say well, yes, just enjoy it, but but no, like we live in a system that isn't isn't built for us to enjoy it. It's built so that a handful of people get to make an awful lot of money, while the rest of us do our best to survive.

42:25 - Debbie (Host)

So I feel like so I guess to to close this off, there's two things that I really appreciate about your work. One is how much you role model what you do with real integrity and real depth and, yeah, for me like really paved the way to show what's possible. And the other aspect of it is how you bring this real sense of compassion and understanding and kindness and it's like, yes, there's all these things that we want to fix, and there's this real softness in it, like actually none of it, you know, just like you said there, none of it needs to be done, like we're all I love. I know you often say like nobody needs fixing, you know, and so I wonder if anyone listening would like to find out more about you. Where might be a good place to start?

43:28 - Vix (Guest)

You. So you mentioned that I wrote a book a while back now. So, yeah, I would definitely recommend the book. Somebody described that as a love letter to perfectionists. That's how it, that's how it feels. So it's called enough and imperfect antidote to perfectionism, and that's available, sadly, just on Amazon. One day, one day, I need, like an independent, ethical online bookstore where you can download ebooks and self publish. If anybody knows of one, please let me know. That's that's. That's there. The other thing that I have come out.

44:04

You mentioned websites earlier, actually that sense of just calling away and your website on your own. I'm collaborating with a colleague of mine, susan Tutt. We're going to be doing a four week course over March where we'll be supporting people to get their website done, like very much built on the premises of cyclical living, that approach to projects, dealing with the critic, discerning when enough is enough, when it's like it's good enough to publish and it's. It's going to be okay, and I think I saw a post from you, maybe just earlier today, that I had to break it to you, but chances are nobody's going to see it anyway and out there, and then you can iterate on it again once it's there. So that's coming up in in March if anybody's interested in in that.

44:53

Yeah, and then I also host something called the living room once a month, which is based on authentic relating principles and it's a space where people can come and be heard and be seen and and practice dropping the the masks and the armor of perfectionism and, yeah, experiencing this kind of like deep compassion that you that you mentioned. So, yeah, those are a few places for people to start.

45:25 - Debbie (Host)

Amazing, amazing. I'll be sure I'll put the links in the show notes and, yeah, I can personally vote for all of those coming highly recommended. I love, I love the name, the living room.

45:36 - Vix (Guest)

It feels so fitting and cozy and welcoming and warm just like you to secret that that was a clawed AI suggestion, and I do.

45:49 - Debbie (Host)

I really like it too. Yeah, it really fits. It really fits Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, fix. It's been such a pleasure to chat. Really, I feel so. I'm in a small room at the minute and I can feel my cheeks flush because I'm so energized from the conversation.

46:09 - Vix (Guest)

Thank you so much.

46:11 - Debbie (Host)

Really appreciate it.

46:13 - Vix (Guest)

Yeah, thanks so much.

46:15 - Debbie (Host)

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of beyond business. If you've loved what you've heard, I would be incredibly grateful if you could rate and review the podcast so that together we can create a global ecosystem of change makers, pioneering business as a force for good. Until then, I look forward to speaking to you in the next episode.

Debbie Lee
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