Perfectionism & Body Image

Through my work as a body image coach and boudoir photographer, I noticed how many women struggled with perfectionism and how connected it was to body image. This episode talks about that as well as signs you might be a perfectionist, my own personal healing journey, and how to let go of the idea of perfection.

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Transcript

Rebecca Sigala: 0:01

Welcome everyone. It's Rebecca here with the Body Image Revolution. I'm so happy that you're here today and if this is your first time, I will quickly introduce myself. My name is Rebecca Sigala. I am a body image coach and boudoir photographer. Through both of those experiences, one-on-one coaching and photographic healing experiences, I help women fall in love with what they see when they look in the mirror and feel sexy as fuck in their bodies, as they are. So that they can be present, so that they can have amazing sex lives, so that they can feel confident when they walk into a room so that they can pass body positivity onto their children and just be whoever the hell they want to be. I am super passionate about this. I've been doing this for the last decade, and I have different ways that women can work with me. They can either do my healing boudoir experiences or they can. Go through my amazing program, the New Sexy, which is a completely virtual program and can be done from anywhere, or come on here and join us as we go through amazing concepts and ideas to help women shift their mindsets about themselves and about their bodies right now. So let's get into it. This episode is actually inspired by a challenge that I'm doing right now on social media. It's 30 days of me exposing my own truths, and I'm really excited about it. If you've been following me for a while, you know that I'm very vulnerable, or at least I try to be, and perhaps this wouldn't be so scary or different for me, but I actually do feel that it is different because I've been doing a lot of inner work and I've released a lot of shame that I've been holding onto. And by releasing that shame, I feel that it allows me to share these stories that I may have shared in the past from a completely different perspective. And I think it's really actually very cool that as we do this work, Our perception of our own stories change and we see things in a new light as we heal. And that's super liberating for me because I think part of what makes us feel stuck and like we can't change is when we see ourselves and our stories in a very specific way. But when we see the whole thing in a different way, it makes it easier for us to make changes in our lives and in ourselves because we're less attached to this identity that we've created, that we made our past experiences mean about us. And it's some pretty big stuff guys. I'm just grateful for this journey and for this inner work that I've been doing in the past year, and I am also very grateful that I have the platform and the opportunity to share it with you all. So, I may or may have not mentioned this on the podcast before, but what I wanna talk about today is perfectionism. And I actually wrote about this for day three of the challenge, so you can go check it out if you'd like to. But I wanna go a little bit deeper with you guys here because that's what we do on the podcast. Of course, I'm going to share with you how perfectionism has shown up in my own life, as well as the ways in which perfectionism and body image intersect because there is a lot of intersection there. I only realized that once I started to let go of my own perfectionism more, and I was like, Hey, literally all of my clients are struggling with perfectionism. There has to be a correlation to this and body image, and sure enough, perfectionism is something that feeds into and perpetuates diet culture and beauty standards. It's almost like it was created purposefully as a way to keep those things alive and to keep us small and powerless. Hmm. Something to think about. Anyway, let me first define for you what perfectionism is. Perfectionism is the tendency to demand of others or oneself an extremely high or even flawless level of performance in excess of what is actually required by the situation, and it's associated with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health problems. So these are 10 signs that you are a perfectionist: self-criticism, you hold yourself to a different standard. Your self-worth is based on achievements and performance. You're in a state of constant comparison to others. You're a perpetual procrastinator. It takes you a ton of time to finish things. You have a very hard time relaxing, there's excessive time spent on achieving your personal goals, you might have persistent thoughts of not being good enough, and it's always all or nothing. So whether you're a perfectionist or not, stay with me because this episode is going to have some really important things to learn, whether or not you consider yourself to be one. So I'm gonna start with the first way that I saw perfectionism and body image being connected for me in my own life. It for sure started in high school and went well into my early adult years. It was this idea of all or nothing. I actually thought it was a strength of mine because I thought I could go all in on something when I wanted to, that I was hardcore and disciplined when I wanted to be. But in reality, it was holding me back in a lot of ways. For example, if I was all in trying to be quote unquote healthy, I would exercise every single day, if not more than once a day, and I would really focus on eating a specific way, being in a calorie deficit and not having anything that I considered to be quote unquote bad for me. But if I wasn't doing that, I'd be on the couch watching marathons of sex in the city and Grey's Anatomy, and not really focusing at all on eating nutritiously, and moving my body consistently. It was like a, I don't know, fuck that shit mentality. Convincing myself that I didn't really care enough about it to do it, but really it was because I was yo-yoing back and forth between these two mentalities. The problem with being an all or nothing type of person is that it's not sustainable or realistic, and oftentimes will end up taking a ton of time to do things, procrastinating or not doing things at all, and being self-critical about ourself through that entire process. This also happened for me with doing homework in high school. Like I never really did homework unless I knew that I could do it perfectly. And as an adult, I didn't wanna host unless I could cook fancy meals and have my house perfectly clean. The list really goes on and on. Those are just a couple of examples. Usually when we're in perfectionist mode, we are not honoring our body's cues and what they really need. We're just a slave to some kind of perfect visual that we have in our minds, and we're not being kind or compassionate or really taking care of ourselves. When I was finally able to let go of perfectionism, at least in this exercise and eating realm, I realized that I was way more consistent with taking care of myself. You know how there's those people who could actually eat just a couple of Oreos instead of the whole package? Shockingly enough, I became one of those. I always thought that was crazy. Like how could someone have one Oreo? How could someone leave one fourth of their donut? Like, what the hell? But I learned that it's not about having more self-control in those situations as I originally thought. It's about letting go of perfectionism and. Actually not restricting yourself, because if you're restricting yourself, when you're not restricting yourself, your mind and your body wants all of those things that they might not be able to have next week, versus everything is always available for me and I can eat the things that I like when I like to eat them, and we just don't go into that scarcity mentality that we'll never be able to eat what we want to eat again. We also don't feel guilty afterwards and send ourselves into that whole fucking spiral. I know you guys know what I'm talking about. Also, when you're a perfectionist, you're trying to prove yourself. Even if it's just proving yourself to yourself. Perfectionism, to me is a silent battle against our negative self-perceptions of being lazy, stupid, not disciplined, or simply not enough. It's like I have to prove to myself that I'm disciplined and I'm not lazy. So let's take the next three weeks and just lose a bunch of weight. There you go. Like, look what I did, or I have to prove to that person that made fun of me or a relative that made me feel less than that I am good enough. So I have to act perfect, be perfect, and look perfect all the time. How fucking exhausting. Emotionally draining, for sure. Learning to let go of it is a process, but it's definitely worthwhile. So here are some other ways that I've grown body image wise, because I've let go of all of this perfectionism and they're small things, but they're significant. They're not really small. Things like not needing to take a million selfies before I find one that I like. I completely stopped the body comparison game. I released the idea that my body needs to look a certain way to be beautiful. I started believing that I'm enough as I am right now. I feel confident in public without needing to wear makeup or having my hair perfect, quote unquote. Perfect. And I take care and prioritize myself even when the circumstances are not ideal. Those are just naming a few things. I'm sure there's lots and lots more. Listen, I can't say that. I'm never a perfectionist anymore. I feel like it often does come out in my work. Definitely in photography or even small things like the aesthetics of my Instagram grid. I know it's a little crazy. I think it's like. Things that I like to have a certain way, but I guess the main thing is that I'm not attaching things, being or looking a certain way to who I am as a person. It just means so much less. I'm not dependent on those things to be confident in myself. It's not about proving myself anymore. Maybe it's just a little obsessive compulsive, artistic, whatever thrown into the mix, but, If I wouldn't have done this work of releasing my perfectionism, I also wouldn't have gotten this far. I wouldn't be where I am with myself or in my business. I definitely would not have started this podcast. I feel like I probably mentioned that a bunch of times before. I did not wait until I had all the equipment and I didn't wait until I felt super confident and that I knew exactly what I would be talking about. I didn't have 10 episodes recorded before I launched. I just fucking started and I let go of this idea that it needed to be perfect. Same thing with all of the educational content that I've created for my group coaching programs. I started and with time I changed them. I upgraded them, I refined things, and now it's in a place where I'm so freaking proud of it. If I had waited until I thought that it was perfect in the first place, I probably still wouldn't have had a virtual course right now, and just think about it, over 70 women have gone through my virtual programs and course materials in the last couple years, and they've radically changed their relationships with their bodies. And none of that would've happened if I was just sitting here procrastinating my ass off because I didn't feel like it was gonna be good enough or that I was good enough. I just feel like there's so much women hold themselves back from, because they're waiting for things to feel super aligned and perfect so that they can feel like they can move forward. But the truth is, Perfection is a fucking fallacy. There will always be a little something more that you could change or improve. Same thing with our bodies. The endless amount of beauty products and Botox and weight loss and toning that we could do that will actually never be enough for us and you guys know this because when we got to our goals in the past, we still had this feeling that we could just do a little bit more and then we'd be happy, or then we'd be confident, or we'd love the way that we look in the mirror. But in reality, that doesn't come until you decide that you are enough already, that your body is enough, that it's always been enough. And that doesn't mean that we don't take care of ourselves. That means that we're doing things from a different place. A place of self-love and compassion from knowing our innate worth and letting that serve as a motivator to do the things for ourselves instead of shame being a motivator because it's simply an ineffective one, and it's not fun. It's not a way to live life. I love this quote from Elizabeth Gilbert. I want to share it with you. She said perfectionism is just a high-end couture version of fear, just fear and fancy shoes, and a mink coat pretending to be elegant when actually it's just terrified, because underneath that shiny veneer perfectionism is nothing more then a deep existential angst that says again and again, I am not good enough and I will never be good enough. Ugh, it's so true. Perfectionism should not be worn like a badge of honor the way society wants us to because of course, society and all of these industries that we speak of profit off of our insecurities and that feeling of us never being enough, letting go of it also doesn't mean that we have to let go of the person that we are of being a detailed oriented person or a really good business owner, or an attentive mother. We can recognize the places where perfectionism is no longer serving us, the way it blocks us and actually prevents us from feeling enough as we are. Just recognizing it. Recognizing the places where perfectionism is no longer serving us is huge. Then we can recognize the way that it blocks us and actually prevents us from feeling enough as we are. And releasing all of that is gonna be so freeing. But really the first step is just acknowledging it, being aware of it, and even just that softens the criticism that we feel towards ourselves. Because now we know where it's coming from, and that's already a huge shift. So today I leave you with these two questions. Are there ways that perfectionism is showing up in your life? And what are some possible consequences of approaching life with this perfectionist mentality? Okay, my loves another episode that I thought would be five minutes and lasted so much longer. You guys are queens. Own your brilliance, your darkness, your mistakes, your fucking beautiful mess. It's all part of what it means to be a human. On a side note, I have exactly 10 spots this month for women to begin their healing boudoir experiences. The portrait part, the actual boudoir session will happen in a couple months, but we would start this incredible one-on-one process right now. If you're a woman who is already on the self-love journey, you've come a long way with your body image and the way you see yourself, but you're ready for that next level of radical acceptance and deepening your relationship with your body. This is that next level unique, one of a kind healing experience that's gonna help you integrate and embody all that work that you've been doing so that you can be even kinder to yourself. Love what you see when you look in the mirror more often, and just embrace your sexiness and your uniqueness and all of those parts of you that make you, you. And that's it for today. You guys talk to you soon and have an amazing week.