(00:00) Hi and welcome back to Reclamation Radio. I am Dr. Kelly Brogan, and what I love about my containers is that the women I attract always have some audacious questions to ask me. So, it’s my intention for the musings that I share on these topics to grow the permission field of what’s possible and also to offer relatable reframes that can jailbreak you from your victim stories.
(00:28) So, you might notice that I’m a bit more familiar and free when I’m answering these questions in our private spaces. So, take a listen and I hope you’ll take the opportunity to submit your questions to me in my membership Vital Life Project. And today’s audacious ask is about perfectionism. She says, “I’m torn between softening my own perfectionism with the idea of good enough and fearing that teaching this to my daughter might encourage complacency even though the constant craving for more is exhausting and unsettling.
(00:58) ” I’ll start out by saying you’re right. All right. You’re right to have trepidation around like squashing that. And again, you know, I’ve learned a lot of what I believe about polarity dynamics and masculine feminine energies from um David Deida. And he will be the first to say, of course, in my paraphrase that it is the nature of the feminine to be insatiable.
(01:25) It will never ever ever be enough. You will never ever ever get to the point where you do not want more. And thank God because we came here to create, right? And our desire is the vector of that creation. Without desire, we shrivel up and die, right? So the question really is, I’m thinking, right, Erin, is how do I relate to my desire? Right? How do I relate to others desires? Right? My daughter’s desire.
(01:59) So powerful. We were joking on my team. Somebody was saying that, you know, she she sings to her daughter when she wants stuff like she wants more of the stuff all the time, right? Like you you can’t always get what was that song like? You can’t always get what you want, right? And immediately I was like, “No, you can. You can always get what you want.
(02:20) ” We need our girls to know this deeply. So the shadow of relating to the feminine without consciousness is entitlement. I want to give it to me. Or even worse, whenever and wherever in your life you feel, you know, the presence of these two words, owe and deserve. He owes me. I deserve this. Whenever those words are present, your victim consciousness is raging.
(02:50) You’re in a triangle with a villain, right? And you’re playing you’re playing a part because no nobody owes you anything ever actually and you don’t deserve anything. You don’t need to. It’s not a meritocracy this life. So your experience of your desire is something to begin to develop a conscious relationship to.
(03:12) And I think the phrase that helps me the most at least orient towards the invitation is something I learned from Ming Tong, a Qigong teacher of mine from and it’s a Chinese word and forgive me if any of you speak Chinese and I’m misrepresenting this but my understanding is it’s it’s Hāla and the meaning is all is well and getting better. All is well and getting better.
(03:37) So how you know data calls this like coming into fullness like how can you experience the absolute fullness of the moment whether you’re like you know having explosive diarrhea or making ecstatic love like how can you experience that you came here for all this form? You’re a woman, right? Like you love form.
(04:02) You love being filled up by stimulus and feelings and tastes and smells and touches and drama and you love it all. Right? So, how can you feel like wow like I made all this in my life? Like I made it mean all this like I am, you know, I am the the queen of this domain and I love it. I’m devoted to it and it’s perfect.
(04:26) Right? So how can you feel like the absolute fullness of your life of the experience you’re doubting? Of course, appreciation is the way we do that, right? And I have found like when I make gratitude lists or whatever, it doesn’t work for me. I don’t feel anything, right? So, I have found that it’s much more powerful for uh especially when I’m struggling like during my water fast.
(04:51) This was a daily practice for me every single day. Finding appreciation in like the teeny little moments. I like the teeny little moments that feel good, right? So I was headachey and nauseous and terrified and like all of this shadow coming up and I was laying on the couch and the the blanket felt really soft on my right big toe like for real and I would just focus on that sensation for like 10 seconds and like appreciate and and I I use the word like com comfortable. It feels comforting.
(05:24) I feel that feels comfortable even though the rest of me does not. Right. So, or like I’ll look outside and I’ll like watch like the little bamboo leaves like and I like I like how they all line up when the when the wind blows them like in one direction and then it move, you know, like these little things, right? Growing your capacity for appreciation is how you will begin to live your life in real fulfillment and how you will step outside of the addiction game where you’re just going from got that thing.
(05:54) And so when you grow your capacity for appreciation in these small ways and it can be bigger ways, you can you can tell your beloved, you know, or your children or your friends like, “God, I just appreciate you so much like da da da and have the courage, you know, to say that before they actually die and you’re at their funeral or whatever.
(06:15) ” This growth of capacity for appreciation for what is is how you will balance out and anchor the desire for what isn’t. Right? So, so when it’s not here in your life and you want it, thinking about it should feel really good. So, desire feels it’s it’s orgasmic energy, right? Like it’s it’s sexual energy.
(06:37) It’s life force energy, right? If I think about my imaginary partner and I imagine, you know, like, oh my god, I can’t wait until his like mouth is hovering over mine and like he’s like pulling my hair like that. Like my whole body feels on fire, right? That’s connecting to desire. I can just touch on it and then rest knowing it’s on its way when I’m ready.
(07:01) So how about I get down to the business of preparing to feel all that pleasure and fulfillment and awesomeness that I say I want in these small ways every day. So you know with with kids I think it’s really essential. My kids know that our rule in our house is that we all do what we want.
(07:21) And that’s why I mean there have been times where I like don’t go to things that parents would go to for example or like you know for I don’t celebrate you know calendar holidays whatever you want conventional holidays like I don’t any of them so like Thanksgiving I don’t go last year I I was by myself I would rather be by myself than doing whatever that is with him. Okay.
(07:46) So that means that when I am there, it’s cuz I want to be there and it has a whole different meaning, right? So I teach my girls that it works. Sometimes it’s hard. You know, I planned a trip to see my girlfriend recently a couple hours away and I wanted to drag my kids along. My kids are older now. And the last minute my daughter, my oldest, was like, “Mom, I really don’t want to go. I canceled the trip.
(08:08) I’m not making her go and I’d rather be with her than I’m going to like, you know, put her at her dad’s house or something like that.” Right? And she was right. It was planned stupidly, right? Where I was like trying to be with my girlfriend and then trying to also like have my kids along. It was like boring for them.
(08:21) Right? So when you start to trust your desire more and you know that you’re never going to want something that you shouldn’t have and can’t have and you also can discern the difference between desire and entitlement and desire fear, then you can just start to ground down in what’s going on, you know, right here and now.
(08:41) And how can I start to actually desire recognize that I desire what I have? I actually desire what I have or you know, as I referenced, I wouldn’t have it. It wouldn’t be here. It’s this is super hard. It’s super hard work. And it’s it’s everything, right? Because coming into reunion with our desire is is probably the most powerful thing we can do as women right now. Period.
(09:04) It’s the organizing principle that we offer. So people love to ask me questions and I love to ask questions of others because inquiry is play but some of my interviews and answers are too hot to handle for reclamation radio. So in my membership vital life project, I have created a private podcast that gets delivered to wherever you listen to podcasts where I answer your questions that arise because of my provocative subject matter and I also share interviews that might otherwise be censored that I call the sovereignty
(09:36) series. So you’ll get access to these private podcasts and a private chat by joining my membership vital life project. I’ll see you in there. [Music]
