Tiger KNOWS what he wants. He FEELS his needs and goes for them! Right now he wants to knead my chest and purr for me. I guess he wants to comfort me and get some comfort for himself. It’s a good lesson in instinct and trusting your heart.

What the F is going on?!

My last show and my last blog posts were all about my MISERY that I have this progression problem. When I’m a newbie, everything is hunky dory and I thrive and succeed AND I’m a happy camper. THEN once I start to internalize expections required to accomplish said task WELL (any task at all), then I FREEZE, get miserable and usually dump said task and/or project no matter how much I wanted to do it.

And the latest recipient of my obsessive worry and imminent drive to give it up was Voice Acting.

My underlying lack of confidence was playing havoc with my ability to even try at home. Even at HOME! What, as Cheryl said in her comment about that show, a pickle! This made me sad enough and frustrated enough to binge as I haven’t binged in YEARS! Of course, Voice Acting wasn’t the only murky trigger in the mix, but it was the major player.

For all of my usual ability to self-analyze myself TO DEATH, the whole “I start off great and THEN FAIL” was a puzzle.

Then Dawny posted this comment on the show notes page of Day 106 – my binge confession – er podcast episode:

…I too hate how we find something that’s to be fun, but because of our addictive compulsive personalities, we become obsessed, and it becomes something other than what it was intended to be, or started out as …

I Was blind but now I see!

AHA! Dawny is a GENIUS and nailed my problem. It all made sense…it all fell into place. This ‘Progression’ was REALLY perfectionism. When I didn’t know what was expected of me, I was able to enjoy and experience the moments of any project or activity. But the MINUTE my obsessive brain internalized expectation – LOOK OUT! It is like an endless super computer of criticism went on constant alert for the slightest flaw or breaking of the rules.

How could I POSSIBLY ENJOY ANYTHING in that state? No WONDER I gave up stuff left and right. It wasn’t because I’m a failure, it’s to stop the damned critical voice and the FEELING of failure it gave me.

Remember those KINDLY robot aliens?

I have always said the Robot Aliens are there to help me, not hurt me. (Even though this latest visit was physical overkill imho). Well they came to the rescue again! Not only did they move my obsessive mind AWAY from VOICE ACTING and onto worry about bingeing and telling you about it, yada yada yada, they made me PHYSICALLY unable to perform. I cannot do voice work on a full tummy. It gets in the way of my breath control. An overfull gut of this magnitude is like having a boulder in your pants pressing on the diaphragm.

Hence problem “solved”.

No voice acting, no nagging voice, no worries….

Robot Aliens, you GOT IT WRONG!

…except I WANT TO DO VOICE ACTING! You kindly robot aliens saved me from the wrong thing!

So now, we all know, the robot aliens are actually part of my subconscious. This means I need to retrain my subconscious to accept trying, to cut me slack, to allow me to feel, to know that stumbles ARE NOT F-ING LIFE THREATENING!

Tiger to the Rescue

There is no better meditation then a Tiger on your Tummy! Now I can seek out more help to calm my mind.

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A post shared by Laurie Weaver – Host COD (@lauriedreamweaver)

Helpful quotes I Found Following my Calming Cat Massage

From Ann Smith, author of Overcoming Perfectionism: Finding the Key to Balance & Self-Acceptance

Slow down.

Do this right now,” she said. “Walk slower, talk slower, be slower about accomplishing what’s on your list. Act like there is no hurry to get there. Perfectionists are always thinking, ‘After I get this done then I will breathe,’ and they never get around to it because there’s always something else to do.

From Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D on his article On Being A Perfectionist from the blog at MentalHelp.net

Excellence is attainable because, be definition, it allows for the fact that we will fall short of perfection. Excellence presumes that we are doing the best we can do on a project. In fact, excellence presumes that we are trying hard to do even better than we may have done in previous efforts.

Because excellence is attainable, there is motivation in that direction. A job well done feels really good. That good feeling does not necessarily come from the praise of others, but from an inner feeling of satisfaction.

To borrow an old saying, the perfectionist is like the “person who cannot see the forest for the trees.” In other words, there this is an individual who becomes so focused on the tiny details that they forget that there is a purpose to what they are doing. That is why some perfectionists become procrastinators.

Filled with so much anxiety about having to do every little detail to perfection they become discouraged about ever starting their project.

The Result

Yesterday, not only was I able to rehearse and record my animation character for voice acting, I was able to listen to all of my recordings as feedback and change my performance choices when I felt they needed it to bring more to the character. I KNOW that my acting is not perfect. I will get much feedback from my coach, David. But I feel really good about what I will bring to my take. I feel like I made an effort to STOP making such an effort, and to be like Tiger, focused on what I want to share with the audience, not on how I’m going to get there.