Overcoming challenges and limiting beliefs

Michelle Kuei was permanently disabled as a result of a hit and run car accident when she was 11 years old. Growing up in a society and culture where beauty is weighted heavily on appearance, the stories that she was telling herself were harsh, brutal, and cruel. For many years, she allowed many of her negative beliefs about herself to rule. The idea of loving herself felt strange and she was afraid to be seen and known. Her story is one of courage, determination, and vulnerability. But more importantly, it is about having the confidence to face fear in everyday life. Facing our own worst enemy, facing our own judgments and harsh criticism. By letting go of her own judgments, she allowed who she is to flow freely and accept herself with unconditional love.

When she was growing up Michelle always thought that she didn’t belong. A lot of it came from not feeling good about herself, she didn’t see herself as normal. There was a lot of judgement involved. Self-criticism and putting herself down every time she wanted to try something new. Growing up was pretty challenging because the way she looked made her stand out.  During the recovery period after the accident she had to wear metal braces that were attached to an ugly pair of shoes. Michelle couldn't find anything to match. She was 15 years old and struggling with her body image, not feeling good about herself and struggling to communicate with her peers. When she arrived from Taiwan she didn't speak English at all, didn't know how to converse with people or express who she was. There was a lot of holding back and feeling she didn’t belong anywhere.

Many people feel they don't belong so you need to get to point of self-acceptance. Michelle feels her self-acceptance started to come into play later when she had reached a point where she was trying to figure out who she was when having a relationship with other people. In her 30s she wanted to go into the dating world and every time she went out on a date she felt she was looking for validation from someone to like her for who she was. She had a big question mark of exactly who am I? She was looking for the help or identity whilst trying to fit into the pieces of the puzzle and be considered as a normal person. Through that journey, she realised that finding yourself is not something that you find or seek from elsewhere. It’s not something external. It’s really a journey where you go inwards. That was one of her aha moments. One day she was crying for no reason, looking around and feeling completely lost and not knowing who she was. She was doing a lot of people pleasing, pretending to be normal, going out and looking for outside validation. Inside she felt she was an empty hole trying to feel and never felt complete. At this point she realised that no one was coming to save her so she had to save herself.

Michelle feels that finding yourself is not an activity that you do outside of yourself. She believes that your being is naturally happening. You already are. There is no doubt you are perfect, brave or beautiful but in our overall consciousness that waking up to the moment of realising that who you are is already happening, is already perfect. None of us are really finding anything outside of us. There are a lot of things that happen to us in life, events, injuries, trauma or divorce. With any type of life event happens we try to protect ourselves so we cover ourselves to survive and continue living. A life event such as the pandemic makes people withdraw and disassociate to protect themselves and others from things they used to care for. When people do that they go into a victim mindset - things always happen to me and only bad things will happen to me. What we are saying to ourselves, our inner voice or the way we speak to ourselves means the way we create stories in our mind leads to a lot of resistance and fighting that we have to go through. Whether it's a relationship with another or ourselves, the story we are living in and telling ourselves matters. Part of the challenge is to recreate your own narrative.

Becoming and unbecoming is part of the process. Under the impression that we have to become something to be something, in reality there is nothing that you need to become – you already are. The realisation is that we pick up all these beliefs and societal constructs or limiting beliefs as we go through our life journey but a lot of them don’t belong to us. There is an unconscious bias about how a woman should be, how she should behave, how she should dress. All of these are external limitations that play upon on a woman but who created that construct? Not me, I am perfect just the way I am!  I have a voice and an opinion and when appropriate and when asked I will share my expression and voice. Its about unbecoming not becoming. Becoming sounds like someone had an expectation and you need to follow thorough in order to become and fit in that expectation. Unbecoming is coming from realising that who you are is at the core. The value that you hold in your life, the belief that you have and how you want to show up. Looking inward bring inwardness out. It feels like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. You are not becoming the external version of yourself, you are becoming the internal version of yourself assuming that the internal version is gold.

Michelle is optimistic that everyone is born perfect. The definition of perfectness is something that exists outside of us that people are placing and helping us to understand. The human brain does not understand anything that is not labelled. We learn words, phrases, language and stories because we are trained to give meaning to the things that we don’t understand. The fact that being perfect is actually something someone else has defined for us. Michelle’s theory is that we need to redefine that perfection, we need to redefine perfectness because you are already perfect for who you are at this very moment.

The desire to be a perfectionist is actually perfect. Everyone is on a journey so if we are trying to be a perfectionist there is a desire inside of us to accomplish. If we take out the negativity and the connotation that being a perfectionist is something bad, being a perfectionist just means you want to make sure that what you present and when you present yourself you are the best version of who you are. The idea of being a perfectionist is not a bad thing. Our mind thinks it's a bad thing but in reality perfectionists are just doing things at their best. A lot of perfectionists suffer from anxiety because they can’t live up to their own perception of themselves. There is a discrepancy in terms of coming to the realisation that my perfectionism is perfect versus my perfectionism is really causing me to be anxious and debilitated. It’s about how our relationship to the word and how the expectation was set in force.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Michelle at https://elevatelifecoaching.org

Escaping the box. Breaking free from anxiety.

years and built her career despite suffering from anxiety, panic attacks and OCD for 40 years. Over the last few years through she has done a lot of work to try to find freedom from the disorders that have disabled many areas of her life.

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety-related disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting more than 40 million adults aged 18 and older. Anxiety disorders also affect more than 25 percent of teenagers ages 13 to 18.

Wendy considers anxiety as being the feeling of being in a constant fight of flight mode. She grew up in chaotic household with untreated, generational mental health issues. She took on ideas and thoughts about her safety, the safety of other people and the safety of the world - things a child is not equipped to deal with. From the age of six she suffered from panic attacks and the feeling that she needed to control her surroundings to try to calm down her anxiety.

By achieving things externally Wendy felt it would cure her from what was going on internally but she reached rock bottom with her mental health issues when she had had achieved all the things she thought she needed. Although she had a house, a husband and a career she loved, inside the box she was still struggling.

Wendy now realises that she tried to mask her anxiety by adopting perfectionism and people pleasing traits.  Her role as an attorney involved a huge amount of work and it’s something she was, and is, proud of. It provides a sense of achievement and makes her feel that she is helping people but now she thinks it was also another way of trying to make her parents proud of her and to make her feel better about herself.

Finally though Wendy realised that no physical sensation comes without a thought preceeding it. That you need to cultivate awareness and recognise where your anxiety is being stimulated and what thoughts are behind it. The roadmap to change is to find the thoughts behind it, understand that these thoughts are optional and then choose new ones that serve you better. Thoughts create an emotion or feeling which stimulates an action that creates the result that you live with. You’re reacting based on an emotion.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Wendy here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can find out more about Wendy at www.WendyTamisRobbins.com Wendy is also the author of The Box: An Invitation to Freedom from Anxiety,

Hamilton to heart attack. The theatre of perfection

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Enjoy the experience as much as the result. Musical theatre and managing perfectionism.

Julian Reeve was a Music Director for over 25 years with a career that combined music and business and took him around the world.  He joined the Broadway team of Hamilton as Music Director and took it on it’s first national tour in 2017 before suffering from a heart attack which was triggered by maladaptive perfectionism. He is now based just outside Los Angeles where he is a perfectionism contributor, speaker, and author.

Julian started out as a musician before moving on to musical direction, which involves the running and creative upkeep of a show. Musical theatre can be seen to be a process rather than being creative as its essential to keep producing the same piece of music every night without mistakes to ensure the longevity of a show. The Musical Director also has to build team spirit and ensure high-level performance without burning out. Resilience is important. Julian feels you need to find the parts you enjoy and forget the bits you don't like to find the positivity which is the only thing that keeps you going. The Music Director is sometimes thought to be the least musical person in the room as their role is less about the music more about being the best leader and facilitator. Julian found his resilience by looking outside the box. He was always motivated by finding out what made his team tick and what got them to perform at their best every night. Even after five years on the same show you can still discover new things.

Julian had no idea he was a perfectionist until he was in his 40s. He suffered his heart attack 3 months after starting Hamilton and he feels his perfectionism was the cause. In his childhood he suffered from low self esteem and bullying, which led to bad lifestyle choices. Perfectionism has numerous explanations but research has shown it falls into two categories - adaptive and maladaptive. The adaptive part is what is recognised as good perfectionism, the part that gets good results, but the maladaptive side can lead to anxiety, depression, burnout and even suicide. Nothing is ever good enough. Perfectionists battle between the two and need to create equilibrium to regulate their experiences but this needs knowledge. We need to find a way to speak to perfectionists in a different way. They need self-compassion. This is made up of three elements, self-kindness, mindfulness and common humanity.

Julian now works with children and adults but his book is aimed at 6 to 12 year olds who can learn perfectionist behaviour in childhood. They need to develop self-management techniques. Warning signs include low self esteem, putting themselves down, mistakes being unacceptable, struggling to celebrate when they do well, fear of failure, all or nothing thinking and there only one way to do something.

Perfectionists need to learn self worth, to value themselves enough and to learn to love themselves.  They need to be able to say ‘I’m worth more than this’, to slow down and readdress. Perfectionism can be exciting if you can hone the gifts perfectionism gives you to the point where you become high performance.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Julian here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can get in touch with Julian at www.julianreeve.com or www.captain-perfection.com