CONNECT with Sheila Botelho Podcast

Trusting Yourself: Making Moves Without Perfection | Ep 434

• Sheila Botelho

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What if you could make moves in your life and business without striving for perfection? In this episode, we explore the power of trusting yourself, tuning out societal ideals, and embracing a self-care approach that genuinely fills you up. It's about making progress in an aligned way, creating a ripple effect of goodness that touches everything and everyone around you.


This Q&A session invites you to reflect on how letting go of perfectionism can unlock a more fulfilling way of living—one where your choices empower both your personal wellbeing and the success of your business. Tune in for insights, and let’s create a life that nourishes and uplifts.



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Speaker 1:

But it is up to us to show and to model a better way, and this environment that we're in here, this beautiful space where we can support each other, is a place where we can remind each other hey, where do you need help, what do you need to let go of, and how are you supporting yourself so that you can have your highest wellbeing and show up the way you're meant to in the world? Welcome to this live. I have some interesting things to share with you today, just some things that have come up in the last 24 hours as I've been having conversations and just being aware of what is happening around me. I find when we dive into a theme which is what I love to do on a monthly basis in this group we raise our awareness of that particular theme and how it shows up in all other areas of our life, and some things are brought to the surface that may have always been there but we just didn't recognize. It's been big in my life and it's also been something that's consistently talked about with women I've connected with over the years, with people on my podcast episodes, with people in my coaching experiences and just in dialogue in general with people who may not even realize that it's coming up, and I feel like it's something we've been socialized into, this idea in our culture, and I don't just mean in North America, it's definitely global, where women in this era still, uh, we're breaking through it now, but because our awareness is raising, but this idea that we are supposed to be all of these things and we're supposed to show up as flawless as we can, as beautiful as we can, as non-frazzled as we can in every circumstance, and it's a very interesting concept.

Speaker 1:

The thing that I really that hit home for me just yesterday was I was watching something and there was a funeral in this show I was watching. I like to sometimes unwind with one little show before bed, you know, a little while before bed so I can unwind and, you know, just find some entertainment with my love. And in this show there was a funeral and the woman who had passed away had left family and friends who just adored her and she showed up in so many beautiful ways but something that someone said in their eulogy for her. They were all sharing all these beautiful things and my heart was swelling and it brought me back into the many funerals that I have attended for close family members over the last eight years, and it just hit me in the gut and this is what the person said this woman I forget what her name was, we'll call her Leslie, why not? Showed up for everyone, and she always put everyone else's needs before her own. And everybody was like yeah, isn't that great, yeah, isn't that great. And I thought there was a time that I would have resonated with that and felt like, wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 1:

And yet this woman in this fictitious show ended up dying of some form of very aggressive cancer. And it struck me even harder because seven years ago, my sister passed away from an aggressive form of cancer, and if you don't know the story, maybe I'll dive into it at some point. You can certainly ask me any questions about that another time, but, needless to say, she was in pain for about a year and then was diagnosed with a form of cancer and then, after getting treatment for it, like within weeks, she passed away. And she probably subscribed to the same thing that I did about putting others' needs before ourselves to be the best mom, the best spouse, the best daughter, the best friend, spouse, the best daughter, the best friend. And you may be thinking well, what's wrong with that.

Speaker 1:

However, I realized that the work that I do and actually I've known this for a while, but now you're going to understand this, this is really what kicked off my work in self-care for ambitious women was after losing my sister and knowing the dreams she had inside of her and how she would often put various things off, not because anyone told her to or made her to. She was always really empowered and encouraged by those around her, those closest to her, and yet inside of herself we had these conversations that she felt she needed to do all of these other things first, for everyone else, before she could meet her own needs for her dreams. Right, and I know I've experienced that. I would love to hear in the comments that this is something that you've experienced as well, and it's something maybe we don't really want to talk about because we don't want to appear selfish. Right, we don't want to think like, well, how can I do all these things for myself when you know I am a yourself first, so that you can better show up to be the vessel you were meant to be, to serve in the way you can, to fulfill your purpose, to be happy, joyful in love, right, all of these things to feel on purpose.

Speaker 1:

It's hard to feel that way when you're not taking care of yourself. And, yes, we eat, we get a little bit of sleep, we might shop for some new clothes from time to time, get a haircut right. But some people are better at all of these self-care things than others, and part of it, in my belief, is linked to how we were socialized to show up in the world to be everything for everyone else and then, with ourselves on the bottom of the list, fulfilling those desires, those truest desires we have. Last, once everything else is taken care of, once everybody else is happy, once everyone's tucked in, once everyone's had their last sip of water, once everybody's not sick anymore, once school is out, once school has started right. These are the dialogues that run through our head and often they're the things that get in the way of us doing what we're meant to be doing.

Speaker 1:

So when that person in that show said they did everything, they put everyone else first. Isn't that great? They didn't say isn't that great, but that was the sentiment. Everyone else first, isn't that great? They didn't say isn't that great, but that was the sentiment I felt. You know, imagine if, in this case, she put herself first and invited other people to partner with her in all of these different tasks, she could show up even more fully herself, more loving, more kind, because she had fueled herself first, she had nourished herself first. That is what self-care is to me. Self-care isn't doing everything, ticking all the boxes and then okay, great, you grabbed a bubble bath, awesome, you had self-care.

Speaker 1:

No, in my opinion and in my personal experience, what has worked best is investing in myself first, and everything else tends to fall into place. And as a mom myself to now two teenage boys and as a spouse of 25 years to thank God, a very supportive, encouraging husband who's very mindful of my needs and who's very self-sufficient in the home grateful he doesn't expect perfection and he doesn't expect me to put myself last, nor do my kids, and it's only because I've trained them in this way. So this came up last night. I was not quite sure what this conversation would be like today, because it was a bonus session here in the group, and I would love to know how this resonates for you. Do you feel something strange in the pit of your stomach when you think about this type of conversation of actually putting yourself first, you know before your say you're a mom of a two-year-old, how would that look? Well, I'll tell you how it looked for me.

Speaker 1:

Okay, of course, there's always going to be times where a teething two-year-old in the middle of the night, or a screaming newborn in the middle of the night or the middle of the day yes, they're going to need us immediately. However, most of the time, if they're napping, if they're eventually getting some sleep, there are ways for us to let go of other things in our lives so we can invest in ourselves first. And what it looked like for me was, yes, going to bed earlier, and I know it sounds like well, that's no fun. I would go to bed earlier and wake up earlier so I would have time for myself before everyone else woke up. Sometimes, if I woke up at 5 am, my baby would wake up at 5 am. It's like they knew.

Speaker 1:

But that wouldn't happen all the time. It happened maybe once or twice, and I showed up as a mom far more fulfilled and nourished when I took that time for myself to pray, to meditate, to go for a walk, to do some yoga, whatever it was, whatever I felt like doing, not anything. That was a prescription that I absolutely had to do whatever I felt like. That is also self-care listening to what your body truly, truly needs, and so that's how that looked. And part of this letting go of perfection and letting go of what everyone else is needing from us is also letting go of the things that no one's really told us we have to do, but we feel in the culture or we we've just been, it's been modeled for us. No one's ever said it to us, but you need to have all the dishes done before you go to bed, or or you need to clean every Saturday morning, or you can't hire help because real women can do it themselves. Oh, my goodness. We need to let go of all of these old ideas and do what is in our power to do.

Speaker 1:

It may not be in everyone's budget to be able to hire help, but when you can, I highly encourage you to do it, and in my case, from a very young age for my kids, I had them involved. I delegated to them from a young age because I wanted them to learn this is how we cope in a home, this is how we, we team up and we do things together, and so they can cook, they can clean, they can cut the grass. They're going to be washing my car tomorrow. It's raining right now. Like I'm always giving them things to do, I can do it, I've got some time but I want them to understand how life in a home works and they get to understand how it works and I get to tell them that, hey, when you're living your best life and you can hire all the help you want because I invite you to do that it's great. You're going to know and understand who you're hiring and what they need to do, so you're going to have more compassion on them. It's a win-win really.

Speaker 1:

So there's ways we can do it. There's sharing the load with other moms, other friends. I know I'm talking a lot about like family stuff, but even prior to having kids, I was kid free for 10 years and from the get-go with my husband, we separated what tasks we would each do and you know he would clean, he would cook, he would do these things and we just kind of, you know, moved and gravitated into the areas that we felt good and we'd always help out in other areas when we wanted to be of assistance. So there's ways of doing this and, of course, yes, getting extra help. There's so many people whose livelihoods will be improved if we can hire them to do the things that we just either don't want to do or don't have time to do.

Speaker 1:

But this idea that we should have to do everything, that's perfection, right, and it's been handed down to us through generations of patriarchal structure, right? I had a conversation with someone recently who was they gave an example of something of how how can women expect to do all these different things when they, you know, to do the thing that they really want to do, because they have all these other responsibilities and historically, the male population has had people supporting them in every way, giving them the food they need to eat and the home all looking great and all of the things right. There's so many more evolved males in the world, and it's great, and yet I still see it and hear it all the time in conversations with women from all over the place, not just in Canada, in Europe, in Australia, in Africa, all over the place. They are talking about this very thing. But it is up to us to show and to model a better way, and this environment that we're in here, this beautiful space where we can support each other is a place where we can remind each other hey, where do you need help? What do you need to let go of, and how are you supporting yourself so that you can have your highest wellbeing and show up the way you're meant to in the world? And when you're happier and healthier, everyone else wins. And when you're happier and healthier and making more money, everyone else wins in other ways, because women are the ones who love to invest in community with our dollars. So I leave that with you.

Speaker 1:

That is the thought that came for me to share, and I'd love to hear what you think about it. How does it resonate? How does it make you feel? Sometimes, even when I'm talking about it, I think, oh, how is this going to be perceived, how is this going to come across? Is this going to seem like elitist or like selfish, like women have to be selfish? That's not the case at all. I'm talking about creating interdependent relationships with others, in our homes, in our work lives, in our businesses, with our friends, even. You know.

Speaker 1:

I will say one last thing. Working in a very male-dominated workplace years ago, I remember the gender kind of roles that would fall into place even there, and I never questioned them, you know. Oh, you need the kitchen cleaned up. Oh right, yeah, I should get on that. Wait a second, I don't even drink the coffee. I'm never in the kitchen for me. Why am I cleaning it up? Anyway, little thought for you there. So fun to learn these new things. We look back and we learn from our experiences, don't we? I'm excited about what we're going to be learning about ourselves and about our culture and how we can be the change that we want to see, first in our own personal lives, in our homes, in our communities, in our workplaces, so that we can have that ripple effect in helping liberate other women to do the work and to live the lives that they really, really want to be living. Thank you for being here. Have a fantastic rest of your week, take care, thank you.