High-Functioning Anxiety | The Perfectionism Mask

Welcome And Why Capability Can Hurt

0:20 SPEAKER_02: Welcome to WordPress Anciety. I'm Carol Parrott and today I am joined by Dr. Carl. In this episode of the hi, I'm Cheryl Paris and you're listening to Work Stress Anxiety. I hope you're doing real well this afternoon. And guess what? I have the lovely Dr. Carla with me. Hi Carla. Hello, how are you?

The Hidden Costs Under The Surface

1:06 SPEAKER_02: Excellent. So in this episode, we're talking about the hidden costs of looking capable. And one of the things that I find really interesting, uh, Dr. Carla, is that especially us high-functioning women, we look calm, we look capable, we look completely on top of things. But from your point of view, what might people be missing underneath the surface?

1:37 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um I think it's definitely the emotional piece, um, the taking care of myself, the putting myself first. Um, I think a lot of times women that are successful and have everything going for them oftentimes rely on that and it becomes their identity more, more than who they truly are and what they truly um feel and think. It it kind of we step into that, these roles and then lose ourselves in the process. Yeah.

The Success Without Self Cycle

2:09 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

2:10 SPEAKER_02: Now I know that you you have this thing called success without self-cycle.

2:15 SPEAKER_01: Right.

2:16 SPEAKER_02: In can I ask you to explain what it is, but in the context of what it might look like in a normal working week.

2:25 SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. So I can um kind of share it from my experience. So prior to coaching families, I was a principal um of a large, you know, um high school. And it was I was vice principal working to become principal. Um, I basically spent, I don't know how many uh over a decade in school to get a doctorate, over two decades to get to the position I was at. So I just say that to say, uh, if you are a high achieving woman listening to this, I've been there. I've done all the things. And then I just, it was the my first step of trying to like start a new life for myself was realizing like I was gonna have to let go of that identity of being a principal.

3:09 SPEAKER_00: Like that's not who I am, that's just what I do. And the first step was letting was letting go of that because I became attached to that as my like who I was. It wasn't even Carla anymore. It was just like, oh, I'm a principal, I wear a suit, I do this, I do that, right? And I just started to really just put so much pressure on myself. And though I was performing at a much higher level, I was trusting myself at much, a much lower level. So it was more of uh, I do this, I check the boxes, I, you know, I know I kind of almost became a robot, somebody that I didn't really like.

3:45 SPEAKER_00: And it it got to the point of where I was just very dysregulated, very um, you know, just I kind of broke down. I didn't have an actual breakdown per se. Yet I I was just not living the life that was healthy for me and showing up the way I wanted to show up. And that's when I kind of had to make that switch, make that change.

4:08 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Identity Collapse And The Couch Season

4:09 SPEAKER_01: Cool. Yeah.

4:10 SPEAKER_02: Can I just ask you something? Because um I I don't know, I don't know if I had a breakdown, but I would I suppose I would have called it a I would have called it a breakdown because um I was off work for about seven months and in those seven months I can't even believe I'm saying this. I literally sat on the sofa for seven months. I don't even remember washing or dressing or eating or doing anything else apart from sitting on the sofa. And if it wasn't for my daughter who was she was still quite young then, maybe um five or six, still at that stage, constantly asking questions all the time.

4:59 SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know. I think she she's the one that kind of brought me back to myself and kind of like, you know, Cheryl, you need to sort yourself out. Whatever this is that you're experiencing, this is not you, and you need to sort you need to sort this out. So you say that you you don't think you had a breakdown, but I suppose what I'm trying to say, I know I know this for a fact, it's not just women who kind of um are professional selves, we it almost like it becomes our identity because we invest so much of our time, money, um, getting qualifications and whatever we're doing, that when we get to where we want to get to, it it becomes all-encompassing because we're finally there and you know we work so hard.

5:51 SPEAKER_02: And I'm just wondering for you, did you have that real identity crisis?

6:00 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I think so. And I think like I think the way the reason I said it wasn't a breakdown was because I was thinking of like in one moment in time, everything collapsed. And that didn't happen to me. It was more of like a uh like over time, just this level of overwhelm and the level of which I had to manage my energy just to perform and be on all the time, um, and and never take a rest, never uh take a break for myself. And I just lived in this constant cycle of stress, anxiety, and overwhelm.

6:37 SPEAKER_00: And I didn't almost know it for for a good period of time in my life because I just thought that was normal. You know, like it's normal to react that way. It's normal to wake up at 5 a.m. and work till 10 p.m. No, that's not normal. You know, I mean, can can I do it? Did I do it for ages? Yeah, I did. Yet, like, was that healthy? Absolutely not. So I think I don't know that I had um, I definitely at one point in my career had a bunch of panic attacks, got that under control. Then, you know, so it it might not have been um, you know, but but what you're saying is actually quite normal as far as like you had this high achieving life, this career, you you you did not, you no longer had that career.

7:24 SPEAKER_00: And I think you mentally, physically, and emotionally, like not leaving the couch doesn't mean you're lazy. It means that your body needed to like recoup and re-regulate you. And you you like it happens to a lot of kids that are like high achieving kids in at senior year of high school, and then they go, they're off to college, and that summer there, they just kind of like they need a moment, you know. So I think um, I think I also went through something similar, like you, when I started my business.

7:53 SPEAKER_00: It didn't ever feel like I was doing enough or I was busy enough or I was working hard enough. And no, I'm actually probably working at a comfortable, healthy pace right now, you know? So um what you say is very normal. And I think um it might not be something that happens overnight, it's just a long period of time, and you kind of almost wake up and you go, Oh, I'm I I have to live my life a different way. And this is the way that's gonna work for me. Yeah.

Busy Culture And Burnout Warning Signs

8:18 SPEAKER_02: Cool. And it's interesting you say the word busy because society in general, I'm talking generalizing here, kind of says you aren't anything unless you are busy.

8:35 SPEAKER_01: Correct.

8:36 SPEAKER_02: You know, unless you are filling all of your time doing um meaningful stuff, and I mean, you know, quote unquote meaningful. Um, but what do you what do you think um are the early warning signs that someone is not longer just busy, but they're quietly crossing from busy to chronic stress to eventually burnout, early warning signs that we often ignore.

9:09 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's I a lot of it is um not not like the perfectionism piece, not being able to let it go. Like, do I like to make mistakes? Absolutely not. I know they're necessary, they're learning experiences, but no, I don't want to make a mistake. Yet if you've gotten your project or your assignment or whatever it is you're accomplishing at your job to 80, 90%, it's good enough. Move on. And that doesn't mean you're lazy. That doesn't mean you don't care. That means that you trust yourself, you did the best you could do with the time that you've had, and it's time to move on to the next thing.

9:43 SPEAKER_00: And I think um that perfectionism gets in the way. I think the overthinking, like, I can't fall asleep until I figure this out. I have to write it all down. And then waking up in the middle of the night thinking about it. And you just never are turning yourself off and turning your brain off. You've you've could just gotten in that cycle of like, it's consumed you. And I always think of the Gandhi quote, he says, I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.

10:10 SPEAKER_00: And I know that you're not necessarily supposed to take that word for word and but I have. And every morning I wake up, I meditate, I pray, I, you know, I kind of take time for myself. And if you're not taking a little time for yourself, five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and you're in that overwhelm anxiety that you can't let it go, you can't stop thinking, those are the signs that you know you need to take it, you they could take it down a notch and you know, give yourself a break. Yeah.

10:43 SPEAKER_02: Now, I have a real problem with the P word to perfection. I can tell you, I can tell you that. Um, I remember when it's well, it seems such a long time ago now, but I remember when I recorded my first podcast episode, I recorded it about 33 times. You know, to the point I couldn't even I couldn't even speak because it was really funny. Me and my daughter were laughing about it because my daughter knows, we're laughing about it today. She knows because she didn't even she didn't even know that's how many times, but she knows what I can be like or what I could be like.

11:22 SPEAKER_02: Whereas now it's like I re is it good enough? Yes. Could I have done better? Maybe. Will I do a better job next time? Absolutely, and that's that's that's how I am now about pretty much anything. I do it to the best of my ability with my mental energy that I have at the time and and what will be will be.

Perfectionism Recovery And Good Enough

11:45 SPEAKER_02: But what I find interesting is that a lot of capable women often minimise their own exhaustion until their body or their relationships that they have around them, whether it's with a partner or a children, forces that conversation. And I I um I'm just interested, is that something that you've experienced? Maybe not yourself directly, but what you've seen as well?

12:14 SPEAKER_00: Oh no, a hundred percent. I mean, I've experienced it myself and I see it in a lot of my clients. Um, one, I mean, I kind of at the same time I left my career, changed shifted into my own business. I was going through a divorce at the same time. So it's kind of like everything kind of collapsed at that time. I wasn't showing up who I wanted to show up at my career. I wasn't showing up the way I wanted to show up in my marriage, and it all just kind of fell apart. Um, in hindsight's 2020, now I'm in a much healthier, better place, relationship-wise and career-wise.

12:46 SPEAKER_00: But point being, yes, I have a hundred percent experienced that. And I work with a lot of moms who are also like you were you have a lot of high achieving women that you um that this podcast go to. But a lot of moms have trouble, you know, putting themselves first. And they don't have to shift out of the identity of mom, but it's kind of still holding on to the identity of who you truly are outside of being mom. And that can be very difficult. Um, so yeah, there the marriages suffer, the relationships with the kids suffer, or the relationships with coworkers.

13:22 SPEAKER_00: Um, so yes, absolutely. Um, and I guess awareness is the first step. As soon as you start realizing it, you can shift it. It's just gonna take some work. Yeah, yeah.

13:35 SPEAKER_02: Cool. It's really interesting what you say, because I think um I'll be honest, I'll be totally honest with you. When I was uh when my daughter was growing up, and she was, I never worried about her. You know, she was with her grandparents or she with with her uncle. She had she's got four, six foot four uncles, and I I never worried about her, and I always felt really guilty about that. You know, how can I be a mum and you know, not be worried about her? But I I never did. Um and I I remember asking myself that that question, as well as several other questions, as you do as a mum, and I I just decided that as long as I am being the best mum to her in my the capacity that I have, I'm just gonna let it go.

14:26 SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna let those those um what other people expect of me as a mum that that I should react in a certain way about certain things. It's really interesting what you say because thinking about the workplace, I think one of the things, the expectations, especially around women, is that we're often because we're mums, a lot of us, we're often be we're praised for being reliable and organized and endlessly available.

Boundaries That Protect Your Energy

15:04 SPEAKER_02: And I was just gonna ask you, Dr. Carl, what's your experience of that? That the fact that we have this, these, I don't know, labels of success, for want of a better word. And they are to me, because to me, they are labels, they you know, the they're just uh illustrations of what what good looks like, but that's a lot of weight to carry around, don't you think?

15:29 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's the the beginning of the process is letting some of that go, like the expectations of society, the expectations of other people. And you know, if you're a mom or you're a a career woman and you're balancing your life, you're better off than those that aren't balancing their life. But you may get passed over for something, or you may um, you know, feel uncomfortable, or the biggest thing is the biggest action we can take is to say no. And that's very difficult for people to say no to their kids, like, no, I can't bring you to that person's house tonight, or to say, you know, no, I'm not gonna be able to complete that project by Friday.

16:11 SPEAKER_00: I do need to, you know, till Wednesday because of whatever reason. So I think um setting boundaries and kind of protecting ourselves and protecting our own energy, that can be very difficult for people, especially women, because you are supposed to be the supporter per se. And we have to learn that it's not about pleasing others, it's about taking care of ourselves first. And that's not selfish in a bad way, that's selfish in a good way. Because if you are no good for yourself, how can you be good for anyone else that relies on you?

16:42 SPEAKER_00: So it is a lot to carry, and you have to realize like, well, you basically have to make a decision with yourself and say, I'm not gonna carry this anymore. It doesn't mean I don't care, it doesn't mean I'm not gonna work hard, but it means that I'm gonna think differently. I'm gonna believe in myself, I'm gonna trust myself, and I'm gonna set these boundaries. And if other people can't deal with that, that's their problem. It's hard to do. Yeah.

Reaching Out For Support

17:10 SPEAKER_02: Now, if you be you know, before we go out, if there was one thing that you could say to a woman who who's saying to herself, when people are asking her, I'm fine, but she she knows within herself that she's quietly spiraling, you know, towards chronic stress and even burnout. There was one thing you could would say to her, what what would that be, Dr. Carla?

17:39 SPEAKER_00: I would say um that she is not alone because there's millions of other women out there thinking and feeling the same thing. And I would encourage her to reach out, reach out to a good girlfriend, get grab, you know, reach out to a therapist, get some support for herself and really show up for herself. And by that I mean, you know, go to the therapist's appointment, talk to the friend, take a day off, you know, give yourself that pause and it takes time to reconnect with yourself. And you're not alone and have grace with yourself and and one little decision at a time, and you're gonna get to that more balanced place.

18:22 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

18:24 SPEAKER_02: Great. I want to thank you so much for joining me, Dr. Carla, today. Thank you so much. Thank you.

18:30 SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it. It was fun.

Final Takeaway When “I’m Fine” Isn’t True

18:33 SPEAKER_02: I really hope you enjoyed that episode. If there's one small step to take from today's conversation, I think it's this. It's to notice when you are saying I'm fine. When you're actually not fine at all. You know, I want to act up to call it or not.