Rachel’s Room🛋️

Happy Wednesday, Cadre crew. Hello. Hello. Oh, she's bright. I rearranged my furniture so the sun is in a different place than it normally is at 2pm on a Wednesday. I'll give folks a few minutes to trickle in. I think I forgot to label my live today, but we're gonna talk about not enoughness, which, if you know who JC is on this app, he talks about not enoughness all the time. I struggle with high perfectionism and feeling inadequate and not enough. And I had a really interesting session with my therapist today about this subject, and it gave me a couple reframes that I wanted to share in case they were helpful for you.

So. Hi. Be happy. Hi, Rachel. Also, don't forget to hydrate. Here's a little hydration. Asmr. Gotta crack myself up if no one else does, you know? Okay. So today I talked to my therapist about how I am in the process of trying to find a new apartment because I cannot afford my rent anymore. It is criminal. It is. It hurts my feelings how much rent is in Seattle, and my lease is up at the end of March, and they are once again raising rent, and your girl is not gonna pay that much. So I am looking for a new apartment.

And in the process of looking for a new apartment, I have noticed how much anxiety I'm having around whether or not it's the perfect apartment. And I have, like, a list of things that, like, I am looking for in an apartment. And there's. And then there are things that I don't care about. Right? There are things that are negotiables, things I don't care about, and then things I really want. So as I'm looking at places I've noticed, like, I'll find a spot and be like, oh, this feels like I could probably make it work.

And then I leave, and I go through this whole rigmarole in my brain of, like, ah, I know I could make it work, but does that mean it's really the right one? And, like, should I just take it? Because, like, what if nothing else comes along? Because I have this deadline, but what if I take it and then something better comes along and I just get this, like, decision fatigue. That's a lot of it rooted in perfectionism. And so I was talking to my therapist about this because I feel like it's getting in the way of me, like, actually making any decisions in a lot of areas in my life.

I don't know if I talked about this last week, but I'm also noticing, like. Like, I'm Starting to get hyper fixated on things. And my perfectionism is attaching to that. So, like, in the morning, it'll take me an hour and a half to two hours just to get dressed because I'm hyper fixated on getting the perfect outfit together. When all I'm gonna do is go down to a coffee shop where people I love and know work, and I'm just gonna work. Like, it's not, I don't need. I'm not going to a gala or like a graduation.

It's just putting on regular clothes to go to a coffee shop. And it's a waste of my time at this point. It's getting in the way of my day to day life. So I was talking to her about this in terms of how it's, you know, it's. It's disabling me from. Not disabling, it's enabling. No, in. Why can't I find the right word? It's making it very hard for me to make decisions. Excuse me. And she was, she, she gave me two reframes that really helped. The first one was, well, have you ever tried just accepting that you're a perfectionist?

And I was like, no, like, I've just tried to let go of it. And she was like, well, what if you just accepted that you're like, that you have perfectionistic tendencies? What if that was just like one of the idiosyncrasies about you that, like, sometimes you can be a perfectionist? Like, what if that was just okay? And I, and I, I found that very interesting because I had never thought about my perfectionism as like a quality to accept. I always thought of it as a flaw to fix, kind of like overthinking or anxiety.

Like, I thought of it as this sort of like negative, unhealthy, maladaptive quality that needed to be changed. And so thinking of it in terms of like, oh, what if it's actually just this, like, sort of thing about you that's like, yeah, like, maybe sometimes not your favorite thing, but also like, you're someone who likes to get things a certain way. What if that's. What if you can accept that? And allowing myself to think about that, like, kind of gave me some freedom to be like, oh, like. Cause the other thing she said to me was, it sounds like your perfectionism because you think it's a bad thing.

You don't allow yourself to do things the way you want to. And she was right. Because a lot of times when I'm writing or when I'm making Videos or whatever it is I'm doing with my work. I think that my perfectionism is something that's actually getting in the way of me doing things. But then what ends up happening is I create work I'm not happy with. I create work I'm not satisfied with because I don't put in the level of effort and energy I do when I care about things being a certain way. And so in some ways, like not by not embracing my perfectionism, I'm then not actually showing up as my authentic self, which means I'm not producing work or art or finding apartments that align with things that I want and desire.

And so I just, I thought that was a really interesting reframe because also, like this perfectionism is purely, it's purely directed at me. I don't project my perfectionism onto some, onto other people. Like it's purely about myself and my own actions and my own choices. And the second thing she said was, actually, I'm gonna take credit for this. Cause this was a reflection I had while I was in therapy. But I couldn't have done it without being there with her. So she also gets a lot of credit. But I had this kind of epiphany where I was like.

Cause I was telling her it's like every apartment I see, I'm like, it's not enough, it's not good enough. It's not good enough. It's not good enough. And I had this moment where I remembered after getting divorced, having a lot of reflection about my ex husband in therapy and getting really overwhelmed with wondering if I had perhaps done this thing where I had in my mind made him not. Not good enough. When he was just good enough. Like I had this like anxiety and fear that I'd let go of a good man.

And that my inability to see things as good enough got in the way of me actually maintaining a positive relationship when, when the reality is, and I can have this hindsight now, five years later, after doing a lot of work in therapy. The reality is it's not that he wasn't good enough. It's that he wasn't the right fit. And I, and I had this moment in therapy where I realized, like, oh, like what if I'm creating this negative narrative for myself about things like apartment hunting or anything else in my day to day life where I'm telling myself that I have a problem because things aren't good enough when the reality is they're just not a good fit.

And if something's not a good fit, I'm making a good choice based on my needs and my desires. The same way, like, if I'm dating and someone's not a good fit, it's not that they're not good enough. The same way, if someone doesn't want to date me, it's not because I'm not good enough. It's just not the right fit. And when I had that sort of. That reframe, it allowed me to think about, like, oh, I'm just. I'm looking for places that are hopefully going to be the right fit. It's not about me projecting enoughness onto these places and then not meeting up to my standards.

It's about, is it a good fit for Rachel? Because what's a good fit for me is not a good fit for XYZ person over here. What's not a good fit for me is a good fit for a person over here. So it's not about enoughness. It's not about a bar. It's about matching and fit. And that, I think, also allowed me to embrace, really embrace exactly what I want and be okay with that and own it. Like, I want a funky, old, quirky building that has a lot of natural light and a better, better base rent, and I can walk to a coffee shop and, you know, and have enough space for the furniture I have.

And. And I get to. I get to say that that's the right fit for me. Obviously, there are circumstances where I'm not going to get every single thing I want. And, like, thinking about goodness of fit rather than being good enough, I think allows me to embrace this sort of, like, this is my desire and this is what I want. So it's coming from a place of, like, I'm going after something I want rather than a place of anxiety, right? And so it's coming from a place of desire rather than from a place of scarcity.

And just that energy shift alone gives me more optimism, more hope. It relaxes my nervous system. I feel less overwhelmed and less stressed because every apartment I see that isn't a good fit is not about me. It's not about me projecting my perfectionism. It's not about my problems or my issues or my anxiety. It's just about it not being the right fit. So I really love that reframe, and I want to try and adopt that in many places in my life. And I hope that that was helpful for anyone watching right now who might also struggle with perfectionism or just maybe getting down on yourself about the ways you are, which maybe are just fine.

You know. So that's my little thing today. Dutch mosh beetle. Thank you all for being here. I hope that you all have a peaceful, restful day and that you remember that you're really lovable and wonderful. And I'm really happy you're here. And I will see you same time, same place next week. And maybe soon. New place. Cross your fingers crossing mine. All right. Goodbye, lovelies. See you next time.