← Proxy with Yowei Shaw
Proxy with Yowei Shaw
Presenting: I felt too seen. Um, dragged. (from Basket Case), Plus an Update
00:39:25
Basket Case is a new show about mental health. In this episode, host Nicole Kelly (NK) takes on perfectionism, an issue that Yowei has personally struggled with. Plus, some breaking news about Proxy. Listener survey: bit.ly/proxysurvey ...
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- [00:00]
Yowei Shaw
Psst. I don't think I've ever made that noise before, but I am thrilled to tell you that Normal Gossip is back for its eighth season. Join the delightful Rachel Hampton each episode as she shares the juiciest gossip from the real world with a special guest. I had the extreme honor of guesting recently and the production team told me I had a very expressive gossip face, which I couldn't help. There were so many twists and turns. Normal Gossip was named one of the best podcasts of 2024 by Tom, Time Magazine and Vulture. You can listen now to the new season wherever you get your podcasts, and catch Normal Gossip live this September when they go on tour. For more information, check out normalgossiplive.com.
- [00:49]
Nicole Kelly
Hey.
- [00:49]
Yowei Shaw
It'S yoa quick announcement before the show, you might think of me as an intrepid reporter on the Emotions beat, but for the past year I've had to pick up another beat too. Basically, I am reading everything I can, making calls left and right, trying to figure out how to make a successful show in today's terrible podcast economy. By successful I mean make enough money to cover all the show's production costs without dipping into my own pockets anymore. Pitching sponsors is not something I've tried yet, but it's one of the primary ways podcasts can make money. These are not the programmatic ads you've been hearing on the show, which barely make anything for a show starting out. Anyway. I've learned on the Beat that it is important to know your audience so you can accurately pitch your show to sponsors. So would you help Proxy out by filling out a five minute survey? We'd love to know more about you, what you think, what you want. It would really, really help us out. Just go to bit ly ProxySurvey. Again, that's bit ly ProxySurvey. We'll also have that link in our show notes. You're the best. Welcome to Proxy, the podcast that investigates emotional conundrums through conversations with strangers who have relevant experience. I have some breaking news for you today. For the past year, I have been trying to stand up this little independent show, and for better or for worse, I've been doing it publicly on the feed, bringing you into the process. Whether that's the story of starting the show after I got laid off from npr, or the quest to figure out how to explain my show and why these Proxy conversations work, or exploring what does it mean to be on the Emotions beat. Anyway, I've been thinking about all of these episodes as kind of like the prologue to Proxy and we are officially launching the show this April. Yeah, I said the month April. That is when we will be releasing episodes every two weeks at a specific time and day of the week. No more chaotic publishing schedule until then. The team is hard at work trying to crack the case on a bunch of emotional conundrums. We're posting on forums that look like they were built in 1995. We are scouring PDFs trying to get them to work on my Kindle. We are grilling researchers, pumping them for information, and we're still looking for leads and proxies for some stories. For example, are you a conflict avoider in recovery, someone who used to avoid conflict to absurd links but have since found a way through? Or are you someone who lost a best friend because you prioritized a romantic relationship but were able to to come back together years later? Or are you struggling with erectile dysfunction because of prostate cancer or maybe porn addiction or some other reason and would like to talk to a proxy about it? Or are you willing to be that proxy? We're also interested in talking to people who have an emotional conundrum in this political moment, or people who've grown up in a different country with similar dynamics and have wisdom to share. Maybe you're a young person studying to become an artist but are now confused about what to do with your life because you're not sure if you're panicking and catastrophizing or not taking this moment seriously enough. Or maybe you dedicated a lot of time to political organizing in 2016 but are now feeling like all your energy is out. Or maybe you're a federal worker who is looking to retire, but you're not going to take the buyout for political reasons and have questions about how to not be a good employee for once in your life. If this sounds like you or you have a lead, email us at proxythepodmail. We'd be so grateful for your help. Okay, today's episode is what they call, in podcast parlance, a feed drop. Basically, we are featuring a story from another show that we think you'd like. I know that some people think V drops are annoying, like you didn't come here to listen to another podcast, but here's why I believe in them. So in the world of long form podcasts, you might not know this, but there is currently no algorithm pushing podcasts to listeners who might be interested. This makes it really hard for a new show to find its listeners, and really hard for listeners to find new shows that they'd like, which is why for the next few months, while we are grinding away on season one, I want to share some new shows that feel like friends of proxy shows that are asking big important questions about how we feel and where those feelings come from. Can you introduce yourself?
- [05:46]
Nicole Kelly
Um, wow. This is the one question I didn't prepare for at all.
- [05:51]
Yowei Shaw
This is Nicole Kelly, otherwise known as nk. NK is a writer and audio producer and the host of Basket Case, a show about the way that mental health and mental illness are socially constructed.
- [06:04]
Nicole Kelly
It's not really a show where I'm giving you tips about how to feel better necessarily, but I'm really interested in, like, where do these conditions come from? Like, how are they felt socially?
- [06:15]
Yowei Shaw
On Basket Case, NK digs into these common but totally confusing experiences, like grieving the death of a parent, taking psych meds to feel better, or dealing with an autism diagnosis. And basically she asks, that shitty feeling you might be feeling, what's going on there? What is society telling you about that feeling? And are there other stories that could be more helpful?
- [06:40]
Nicole Kelly
From the beginning, I really wanted to lean into the fact that I'm not an expert. I'm not hosting the show because I have spent the last 10 years reporting on mental health. I'm just someone who has my own relationship with mental health and mental illness. I also kind of early on realized, like, there's no way to avoid contradicting myself. And so I also really lean into that, you know, like not being pro or anti, anything in particular. Just sort of like different things are working for different people and different things are really not working for other people as far as the way we approach mental health broadly, but like psychiatry or therapy or whether whether to take a certain drug or not take a drug, like that kind of thing.
- [07:14]
Yowei Shaw
The episode I'm going to feature from Basket Case is about a topic I have personally struggled with, perfectionism. Something that might not sound like it belongs in the bucket of mental illness, but can have detrimental long term effects on mental health.
- [07:29]
Nicole Kelly
I didn't realize how widespread it was. I didn't realize there had been so many studies about it.
- [07:33]
Yowei Shaw
My perfectionism was at its worst in my first few years at Invisibilia. I would record my narration for a whole story, listen back to my own voice, and I would hate it, and then go through the whole process again and again and again. All of which to say, I love this episode. I love how NK gets beyond the advice stop being a perfectionist, lol. And how she found techniques to help that I hadn't heard before that episode from Basket Case. After the break, I present to you episode one of Basket Case titled I Felt Too Seen Dragged.
- [08:33]
Nicole Kelly
Okay, so can you tell me the story of how we met? Like, how we got connected?
- [08:37]
Rachel
Well, I heard about this because last year I did this artist residency at Union Docs, and being a major perfectionist, I was like, perfect. I'll use this as a way to finish something. I went into that residency and announced to everybody on day one, like, I'm a perfectionist. I'm using this space to have some accountability. I feel like I was very vocal about my issues with my own perfectionism and how it was holding me back. And then my perfectionism continued to plague me throughout the summer. There was no accountability that could really fix me or cure my perfectionism, literally. The union docs account DM'd me your story post with the side eye emoji, because your posts have been like, looking for people whose perfectionism has gotten in their way and prevented them from doing the things they want to do. And I was like, okay, thank you.
- [09:32]
Nicole Kelly
So how did you feel when you got that?
- [09:34]
Rachel
I felt Too Seen Dragged. I'm working on this personal project right now, and I literally, last night had a complete meltdown about it to the point where I was almost like, should I email NK this morning and say, I can't do this. It's too raw. What is wrong with me? Who would do this.
- [10:07]
Bea Step
Person'S going to want me. What that person's going to want me. What that person's going to want me. What person's going to want me when.
- [10:13]
Nicole Kelly
I have depression and anxiety? This is Basket Case. I'm nk. I am a cultural reporter, a professional overshare, and still a tiny bit afraid that no one will ever truly love me once they know the real me. And this episode is about how an economy that relies on shame makes vulnerability feel dangerous.
- [10:38]
Rachel
I don't know where I got this idea that I should be producing high quality art or productions of stuff.
- [10:46]
Nicole Kelly
This is Rachel.
- [10:46]
Rachel
My sisters and I sometimes would act out our favorite picture books and our mom would read it and we would act it out. And I remember even then, too, like, getting frustrated at my sister's personal performances and being like, no, not like that. Do it again.
- [10:58]
Nicole Kelly
She's a writer and audio producer who grew up in Minneapolis.
- [11:01]
Rachel
I wasn't satisfied just to have fun with a creative project. I wasn't satisfied just to, like, finish it. Like, I wanted it to be good.
- [11:11]
Nicole Kelly
And her earliest memory of needing things to be perfect is from when she was Only three years old, I think.
- [11:17]
Rachel
We were doing watercolors. I finished my watercolor and hated how it had turned out and just kind of trashed it, like, just painted all over it, like, ruined the image I had created and then ripped it into pieces. I ripped it into teeny bits.
- [11:36]
Nicole Kelly
Rachel's mom rescued the destroyed artwork and carefully dried the pieces. Later she arranged them into two collages and framed them.
- [11:45]
Rachel
And these framed collages are still on display in my parents living room as something of a sick reminder of my lifelong perfectionism.
- [11:57]
Nicole Kelly
Rachel got older and eventually stopped making watercolors, which she wasn't good at, and turned her attention to writing, which she was. When other people told Rachel she was a good writer, she liked it. And soon her ability to express herself in language became something she really liked about herself. But at the same time, the validation she got from writing felt precarious. Not like something she could hold onto, like, oh, boy.
- [12:24]
Rachel
Okay, this is kind of embarrassing, but when I was in high school, in my senior year of high school, I got selected to blog about my college admissions process for the New York Times.
- [12:35]
Nicole Kelly
Oh, wow.
- [12:36]
Rachel
But I remember having the distinct feeling then and making the joke then when I was 17, where I was like, this is it. This is my peak. This is my New York Times byline. And, like, fearing in my head that perhaps it was true. Wow, so that's my damage.
- [12:53]
Nicole Kelly
So the thing she enjoyed the most, writing, was also tinged with fear, a worry always hovering at the edges of her mind that her latest accomplishment would be her last. And maybe also that it was the accomplishments, the awards, the recognition that mattered, and that without them, maybe Rachel wouldn't.
- [13:15]
Rachel
All you need to know about me is that when I was in, like, high school, for, like, an English class, we read An American Childhood by Annie Dillard.
- [13:25]
Nicole Kelly
Annie Dillard remains Rachel's favorite writer, famously.
- [13:28]
Rachel
A writer who notices constantly and has something to say. And like is the queen of, like, narrativizing your life.
- [13:36]
Nicole Kelly
If you Google Annie Dillard, you'll notice people use words like genius, legend, singular, even transcendental to describe her. And when Rachel read her for the.
- [13:47]
Rachel
First time, I was like, this is for me. I was like, this is it.
- [13:51]
Nicole Kelly
Annie Dillard gave Rachel something concrete to aspire. A reputation, a respectable body of work, an accumulation of admirable words and sentences and of surprising, insightful observations. Rachel imagined the books she would write and imagined what people would say about them. And she pictured someone like her, an aspiring writer, leafing through her archives.
- [14:13]
Rachel
Some people love Annie Dillard and Like, I know, for instance, like, my roommate does not like her writing and finds her, like, far too precious, where I'm like, oh, she was, like, a very foundational writer for me. Like, I love that she's sentimental. I love that she's kind of precious. Like, I like those things. I mean, and I think that maybe part of that is, like, I see myself drawn to these kinds of projects that are a little. Someone could describe them as precious. And I'm like, what if I make that? And it's. And that's what it seems like.
- [14:39]
Nicole Kelly
What if you received that same judgment?
- [14:41]
Rachel
Yeah, Like, I don't want to be that.
- [14:43]
Nicole Kelly
Anyway, it's hilarious to use her as an example because she's beloved.
- [14:46]
Rachel
I know.
- [14:47]
Nicole Kelly
For you to focus on, like, what if. What if someone hates me?
- [14:49]
Rachel
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
- [14:51]
Nicole Kelly
After going to college in the Midwest, Rachel moved to New York City, which is exactly the kind of thing you do when you're an aspiring writer. It's part of the grand tradition, especially if you're the kind of person who does things for the plot. Except now, when it comes to Rachel's writing, she often finds herself in a state of creative paralysis when she sits down to write. It's as if the voice of her younger self has turned on her.
- [15:14]
Rachel
No, not like that. I'll know that I'm avoiding working on something because I don't want to have to deal with its imperfections.
- [15:22]
Nicole Kelly
Right. Yeah. When's the last time you did share something that was below your standards or that. Yeah.
- [15:31]
Rachel
I'm trying to think. Well, the thing is.
- [15:48]
Nicole Kelly
Such a long pause. Wow. To be clear, I moved to California after surviving only one year in New York City. So what do I even know about having high standards, about pressure? Am I right? But having high standards is not really what I'm talking about, and it's not what Rachel is describing. Perfectionism is just what's on the surface.
- [16:14]
Rachel
I think that it's. I mean, obviously, like, perfectionism is about control. I think it's all wrapped up in kind of this idea, though, of, like, telling a story about myself and what the work says about me. I think that there's shame in, like, every aspect of it. For me, I'm working on this personal project right now, and I literally, last night, had a complete meltdown about it. I was crying, and I was, like, inconsolable. I was just, like, lying on my bed being like, why am I doing this? I'm so miserable. Why would a person even want to do something that Makes them this miserable. Like, it's that kind of thing where it's like, what is wrong with me? And it just gets to the point where, like last night it turned into, not only I'm having a hard time working on this, but it was, can I call myself a creative person? Am I even good at generating work? Or am I only good at, like, doing work in the service of other people's stuff? Will I ever achieve the things that I want to achieve? Producing work, creating work that, like, I dreamed of when I was a kid, being known for work that I do? Like, will I ever do that? If I keep getting in my own way, Should I give up on that dream? Do I need to stop thinking of myself as a creative person? Am I just a utility player who can produce other people's stuff? Like, just this endless cycle of, like, not only I can't do this, I'm having a hard time working on this, but it just spiraling into, is my conception of myself correct? It's exhausting.
- [17:45]
Nicole Kelly
What Rachel calls perfectionism is really a shorthand for a kind of mental process. It's not something you are, but something you do. It's a way of thinking, a narrative about yourself and the world. It's a story in which you are uniquely, frighteningly inadequate. And it's easy to feel that way when you live in a culture that demands constant maxing in nearly every arena of your life. A culture that relies on that feeling of inadequacy in order to perpetuate itself, in order to sell you something, in order to keep you striving, always striving for a better, more acceptable version of yourself, whether that be through the self help industrial complex, or through therapy or through pharmacological intervention. And that's why perfectionism is an unexpected way to understand our collective mental health crisis, one which has been getting worse for over a decade. Because just as the rates of many mental illnesses are rising, studies have shown that rates of perfectionism are rising too. And perfectionistic tendencies are connected to a whole lot of other mental health issues, including depression and anxiety, eating disorders, post traumatic stress, insomnia, self harm, and even suicide. Researchers split perfectionism into four different self oriented, other oriented, rigid perfectionism, and socially prescribed. Socially prescribed perfectionism is rooted in the belief that other people expect you to be perfect. And studies have shown that that's the kind of perfectionism that's risen the most. So what is the reason for this sudden uptick in harsh inner critics and overwhelming feelings of inadequacy? And why do so Many of us at all ages. Why did Rachel not feel good enough? And what exactly are we supposed to do about it?
- [19:29]
Rachel
Like, how do I possibly just let go of this, like, foundational identity that I feel like is not serving me?
- [19:36]
Nicole Kelly
I'm not a mental health professional and I'm not trying to fix Rachel's damage, but I do want to understand it, because it was all extremely relatable. Like being told at an early age that you're good at something, then constructing an entire identity around it. Like avoiding activities you aren't automatically good at because you're too afraid to fail. Like getting older and finding yourself increasingly confined to this little space that is the need to appear perfect. Because for a long time it felt safe in there. Except to fit your adult body inside that space, you have to make yourself much smaller. And at some point, you have to wonder what it would feel like not to live your life in a crouch. Rachel's suffering was about being attached to a narrative in her mind. So I wondered if maybe the key to disrupting her perfectionist cycle could be by bypassing her thoughts. I just wanted to, like, introduce that. I'm talking to a Somatics practitioner whose name is B Step. They were teaching a class on perfectionism and shame, and the only reason I didn't take it was because I was presuming I would be really busy with making the show. And I was correct. But I'm talking to them on Monday about this topic.
- [20:48]
Rachel
Is that real? Is that a real thing? It sounds so fake.
- [20:54]
Nicole Kelly
Why say more?
- [21:01]
Rachel
I don't know. Like, I.
- [21:07]
Nicole Kelly
But you know who's definitely not fake? Our sponsors, vrv.
- [21:22]
Yumi Sakugawa
There's actually, like, nothing woo woo about this. I hate to say it. It's like, very material.
- [21:29]
Nicole Kelly
This is B Step. And they are a Somatics practitioner and community organizer in Seattle.
- [21:35]
Yumi Sakugawa
It's like, what do I feel in this body below my neck?
- [21:40]
Nicole Kelly
Somatic means of the body. Some people think of somatics as a therapeutic modality, like, maybe what you try when you seem to have hit a dead end with language and talk therapy. And in certain contexts, the purpose of somatic therapy can end at guiding people to withstand the uncomfortable bodily sensations that ACcompany Uncomfortable emotions. Bea does teach the practice of embodiment in their workshops, paying attention to the sensations, emotions, and experiences of the body. But they also belong to a particular school of somatic thought called generative somatics, where deeper awareness about the ways that the body responds to its social context is considered a valuable tool for social change. And for the last Year B has been teaching a class about the connection between perfectionism and shame.
- [22:25]
Yumi Sakugawa
Yeah, I mean, the way that we hold shame inside of Somatics is that shame is the belief that we fundamentally, at a core level, are wrong. You know, it's like perfectionism and shame, they go hand in hand with each other. It's like they are so linked with one another. It's like shame is really telling us that we're not enough or too much. And perfectionism is really like this pursuit of, if I do enough, if I hustle enough, if I try more, if I become more, then somehow I will outrun that shame, I will outrun that not enoughness, I will outrun that too muchness. And they operate with each other in this feedback loop.
- [23:09]
Nicole Kelly
And that feeling, not trusting at your core that you are inherently enough, can make you more attentive to what other people expect of you than to what you really want.
- [23:18]
Yumi Sakugawa
You know, if I'm really in a place where I'm deferring to other people, people, what happens to my longings? What happens to my needs? What happens to my safety? And then what happens to me? I have to, like, be a certain thing to other people, which I think goes hand in hand with self censorship. It's like, oh, I'm not gonna let out my full voice or my full offer or my full, like, creativity, because I'm afraid of how I might be judged. I'm afraid of how other people might see me if I really let out my full self. So, you know, inside of our world and as it pertains to perfectionism, one really big somatic competency is being able to feel for our longings, really being able to feel for, like, what do I want? And really feeling longing as a bodily phenomenon.
- [24:16]
Nicole Kelly
Bea says perfectionism isn't a character trait. It's a way to cope with living inside traumatizing and oppressive systems.
- [24:23]
Yumi Sakugawa
We inherit narratives from everywhere. You know, like, our narratives are our story about how the world works, how we work, how we are, what is and isn't possible. And what I would say is the most important thing is those narratives are shaped by our experiences. They're shaped by larger systems. They're shaped by context that we find ourselves in. So shame really functions in this way to keep bouncing us up into a narrative of, I'm wrong, I'm not enough, I'm. I suck at my art, I'm lazy. You know, these sorts of narratives that really keep us from feeling those really, really, really intense emotions that are underneath and really what I want to Highlight, you know, from a somatic perspective is like if our bodies are the sites of our dignity, if our bodies are the sites of our agency, if our bodies are the of where we learn and where we connect from, to really cut us off from those ways of knowing that fundamentally serves power.
- [25:26]
Nicole Kelly
At the core of somatic practice is a search for that lost dignity, a sense of self respect that comes from being true to yourself and to your own desires. That sense of self regard has implications not just for ourselves, but for the communities we belong to.
- [25:39]
Yumi Sakugawa
Dignity is an embodied phenomenon. And so there's the idea of dignity and then there's the felt sense of, of it. And the definition that I would use of dignity is dignity is the fundamental knowing that we matter no matter what, and that our people matter no matter what. And one way that we might access that somatically is by really feeling for there's ground underneath us. And from the place of that ground, we might really feel our connection to that ground.
- [26:16]
Nicole Kelly
You mean like the literal ground?
- [26:17]
Yumi Sakugawa
The literal ground. The literal ground. We might feel the connection to that ground and then we might like just feel for like, oh, how do I get a little more long in relation to that ground? Like, how do I not like overextend my chin to the sky? But how do I feel just like length in the back of my neck? Or how do I feel the spine, the vertebrae of the spine moving away from one another? And that's kind of like the physical shape or embodiment of more dignity.
- [26:50]
Nicole Kelly
Why is that?
- [26:51]
Yumi Sakugawa
I mean, even if you try it on in your own body right now, it's like hard to hide from here, you know, like, shame really wants us to hide. Shame is really asking us to stay small, to hide. Dignity and shame are quite kind of opposites of each other in many ways.
- [27:09]
Nicole Kelly
Yeah.
- [27:09]
Yumi Sakugawa
And so from here it's like, oh, here's the like again. The physical embodiment, this shape of oh yeah, I matter. And so, you know, what I really want for folks is to be able to restore that piece of themselves that knows, like, oh, actually I. I feel that I matter. I know that I matter. I know that my people matter. And then from that place it's like, oh, a whole world of choice opens up.
- [27:35]
Nicole Kelly
It's what we do from that place of choice, of agency, that interest be. Because from that place we can imagine new systems instead of just reacting to or merely coping with this one.
- [27:46]
Yumi Sakugawa
Like, we get to rewrite our stories and we get to re author our stories in alignment with what we care about and in alignment with the actions we want to take in the world and the lives we want to live, transformation is possible. I mean, the sky's the limit in terms of what stories we can tell. Yes, all of the conditions exist, and there's still some amount of choice of how I can act inside of this world, about how I respond to pressure.
- [28:17]
Nicole Kelly
But feeling that power takes practice. And in the meantime, the capacity to sit with uncertainty is a skill not just for people like Rachel, but for everyone. For somatic practitioners like Bea, it's a skill that is required for both individual and systemic change. Their work is about teaching people to withstand a wider and wider range of emotional and physical sensations, whether fear or discomfort or the thrill of deep love. The word that be uses for that experience, that practice is aliveness.
- [28:53]
Yumi Sakugawa
You know, perfectionism is a very, like, stuck, frozen dead state. You know, it's like there's not very much movement inside of it. There's not very much choice inside of it. And I think somatics is really asking us, how do we come into relationship with our aliveness? It's like, oh, I almost can't tolerate this much freedom inside my body, but I think that's really the task. Like, how do I. How do I tolerate this much aliveness?
- [29:24]
Nicole Kelly
In other words, how do we learn to stop dissociating and feel it all? I love what you've laid out. As far as how high the stakes are. I'm thinking of, like, Rachel alone in her room with her creative practice. But, you know, the stakes feeling, like, no less high, I guess.
- [29:38]
Yumi Sakugawa
I don't think those stakes are any less high, honestly. Like. Like that. What Rachel alone in her room is experiencing is like a microcosm of our larger world. You know, it's like there's a reason why the paralysis is there. And it's like, man, like, what if, like, very few of us felt that paralysis or felt whatever it is that we feel that really keeps us from doing the thing that we're here to do, from making the contribution that we're here to make.
- [30:15]
Nicole Kelly
After the break, artist Yumi Sakagawa shows me how pleasure is the antidote to shame.
- [30:24]
Bea Step
I feel like shame is a very pervasive cultural force that is internalized a lot as well as externally inflicted on others.
- [30:39]
Nicole Kelly
This is Yumi Sakugawa, an interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, and Yumi has amassed a very big following on Instagram through her insights into the creative process. I had at least 10 of Yumi's Instagram posts saved on my phone on subjects like Shame and perfectionism, but also the value of practice, playfulness, and desire. Yumi's Instagram is an archive of her own process of moving from a mindset of fear and shame to one of experimentation and pleasure. And Yumi is also an artist who is capital S successful. She's published several books, her comics have appeared in big publications like the New Yorker, and she's exhibited her art at big institutions like the Japanese American National Museum.
- [31:21]
Bea Step
Success can be not so much about quantifiable measures such as followers or profit or the numbers of people reached. Even though I've gone on to publish books that have gotten, for example, six figure book deals and worldwide publishing, at the end of the day, my most personally successful projects have actually been smaller scale works that really intimately formed a connection with whoever was receiving the work. I think I just started to shift towards defining success more so as the deepness of a connection.
- [32:11]
Nicole Kelly
But maybe it's exactly that, the possibility of deep connection through her art that had been so scary to Rachel in the first place. Rachel's writing is a kind of bid for connection. And in order to feel that connection, she'd have to be open to the chaos of her feelings, to aliveness, the unpredictable experiences of discomfort, fear, longing, or excitement or pleasure or openness. And she'd have to do that without knowing how her work would be received or what parts of herself she would inadvertently reveal in the process. Maybe Rachel's perfectionism was a shield against all of that. Maybe the voice in her mind, no, not like that, was her body's way of protecting itself from feeling an even more overwhelming amount of anxiety and shame. So perfectionism is a distraction. And if shame is how we stay distracted from what's underneath perfectionism, then what happens when we learn how not to look away?
- [33:10]
Bea Step
Yeah, I think specifically for me in the past, I feel like when I would reach creative blocks or feel especially frustrated or stuck, I would just be really mean to myself about it. Like, oh, you should shouldn't be so stuck, or it shouldn't be so hard. Or if I were a better artist, like, it would be easier than that. Narrative pushes me to constantly want to prove to other people I'm not wrong, I'm not wrong. But also fearful that other people would discover that, oh, there is something inherently wrong with me. And I think it was just really sitting with the feeling and the story and mentally investigating, okay, where did this story come from?
- [34:02]
Nicole Kelly
So Yumi learned to sit with her deeply uncomfortable feelings. She learned not to be afraid of them. Then she learned to be Curious.
- [34:09]
Bea Step
And then I think just practicing the self awareness of catching myself when I would get into that story. So then I think every time there's awareness, you create a little bit of a gap between your story and you, the more adult version, observing the story.
- [34:29]
Nicole Kelly
And in that gap, Yumi saw herself in context.
- [34:32]
Bea Step
I was aware of the fact that growing up in a culturally Japanese household, there is a lot of pressure to, I think, conform in certain ways, both obvious and subtle. And I think it wasn't until adulthood that I really started to unpack the impact of those upbringings and how sometimes the shame is so interwoven into your upbringing that it's nearly invisible because it's so normalized.
- [35:10]
Nicole Kelly
And Yumi told me that when she began to investigate the root of her perfectionism, the process took her back to high school in California, to the many Saturdays she spent in Japanese school.
- [35:21]
Bea Step
And I felt like there was some cliquiness around who was more plugged into their Japaneseness. And, for example, like, knowing what bands were popular in Japan. I had classmates and friends who spoke very, very, very fluent Japanese, like a native speaker. And though I had conversational proficiency, it was definitely obvious that I was not a native speaker. And so I distinctly just remember feeling like I'm not Japanese enough. And that was a huge hangup I had for many years of my life.
- [36:05]
Nicole Kelly
So if perfectionism is a fear of vulnerability and connection, it makes sense that it would also whip up our fears around rejection. It's kind of like perfectionism is an anxiety about belonging. But as an adult, Yumi learned to decouple her Japanese language skills from how she felt about herself. She practiced by watching anime and reading comics and listening to Japanese music. She made studying Japanese something fun, something for her own pleasure, her own enjoyment. And in the process, as in her creative life, she learned that the point of speaking Japanese was not to speak it perfectly, but to connect.
- [36:42]
Bea Step
I think in being able to release the perfectionism of communicating in a certain way, then it just becomes a little more playful and fun in how I connect with other people, like my readers, my followers, or people in my community.
- [37:00]
Nicole Kelly
And from that place of choice, of agency, of being in touch with her own desires, Yumi was able to see that her potential for learning and connecting was abundant.
- [37:09]
Bea Step
And I think, similarly with creativity, I feel like the emphasis is less on proficiency, of technical skills, which is still important to me. I still love validation and acknowledgement and all those things. I think it's just that those are no longer, for me, the only things.
- [37:34]
Nicole Kelly
And that the real joy was not imperfection, but completion. The process was the point and the practice was showing up.
- [38:00]
Yowei Shaw
That was the first episode of Basket Case, a new show from Molten Heart and I Heart Podcasts. It was created and executive produced by Jasmine JT Green and hosted and produced by Nicole Kelly. You can listen to the rest of the series wherever you get your podcasts. We'll have that link in our show Notes if you'd like to support the making of Season one of Proxy, which is coming out in April, you can do that by going to patreon.com ProxyPodcast you'll get access to our free newsletter and exclusive monthly bonus episodes featuring interviews about all kinds of emotional questions. This month I talked to NK about her own relationships with perfectionism and how having forced fun and a punk rock attitude have helped us creatively survive.
- [38:45]
Nicole Kelly
I was trying to be more punk. I was trying to like embrace failure and just try to be messier. So I was actually very anti hourglass when I started.
- [38:52]
Yowei Shaw
Oh hell yeah. That's in this week's bonus episode on Patreon. To listen, go to patreon.com ProxyPodcast Proxy is produced by Kim Nadervane, Anakaran Santana, Nick LeBlanc and me, Yowei Shaw. We are edited by John Delore and Tim Howard. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our newsletter editor is Juliana Feliciana Reyes and our mixing engineer is Kyle Pulley. As always, our email is proxythepodmail.com you can follow us on Instagram ProxyPodcast and I'm oueshaw. Take care of yourselves out there and each other. See you soon.
- [39:33]
Kim Nadervane
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.
- [40:15]
Nicole Kelly
Radiotopia.
- [40:18]
Rachel
From PRX.