You’re Not Doing It Wrong (Relationship Series Ep #20)

Do you ever feel like everyone else has it figured out… and you must be doing something wrong?

In this episode, I explore a pattern that shows up for so many people - the belief that there’s a “right way” to feel, heal, connect, or live… and if your experience looks different, something must be off.

Through personal stories and real-life examples, we talk about how self-judgment - not your actual experience - is often what creates disconnection, hesitation, and resistance. Whether it’s meditation, body awareness, or everyday life, your way of processing and feeling is allowed to be different.

I also share why not being able to name or pinpoint what you’re feeling is more common than you think, how comparison fuels the “I’m doing it wrong” narrative, and what shifts when you start trusting your own experience instead of measuring it against someone else’s.

This episode is an invitation to release perfectionism, reconnect with yourself, and redefine what “right” actually means for you.

✨ Reflection Questions ✨ 

Where in my life do I feel like I’m doing it wrong?

Where might I be judging myself instead of allowing myself?

What actually works for me, even if it looks different from others?

You don’t have to do this perfectly.   You don’t have to do it like anyone else.

You just get to figure out what works for you.  And that’s not wrong - that’s the process.

Transcript

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Welcome To Pure Possibilities

Shannon 0:00

Welcome, you're listening to the Pure Possibilities podcast. I'm your host, Shannon. Do you ever feel like everybody else has it all figured out? And

The Quiet Fear Of Doing It Wrong

Shannon 0:10

there must be something wrong with you because they've got it all figured out, and you must be doing something wrong, whether it's life or a certain practice, or everybody else is more connected with themselves. They're doing it this way, but it doesn't make sense to you, or you just don't experience things the same way other people do. I'm recognizing that this has been something that I have been moving through for a long time when it comes to learning from other people. Let's say, for example, this is this happens in several areas of my life, honestly.

Meditation Without A Quiet Mind

Shannon 0:59

When I first started meditating, for example, we're gonna start here. I'm gonna give you lots of examples. So that it might help you to feel like you're not alone, you're not doing it wrong, that there's a way for you to experience life, experience practices that are gonna resonate with you in a different way than they resonate with other people. So my first example is gonna be meditation. When I first started meditating, feel often hear people say, to quiet your mind. Well, I don't know about you, but my mind is pretty much never quiet. And when I'm meditating, my mind drifts off all the time. My thoughts just don't stop. And so what I do when that happens is I notice that that's happening and I redirect myself back to my breath, or whether it's just focusing on my breath, or I start counting because my mind isn't able to wander if I'm counting because I'm focused on the counting. But the more important part when you're in a meditative state is that you are present and you're being with yourself. And whether you're actually following along with a guided practice or not, that doesn't really matter. What matters is that you're honestly taking a little bit of time for yourself, and that alone is very healing. What seems to happen is that we compare ourselves to other people. And when we do that, there's actually a lot of self-judgment that goes along with that.

Lion’s Breath And Self Judgment

Shannon 2:51

I remember there was a time when I was doing a yoga practice, and the instructor was talking about the lion's breath. I don't know if you're familiar with the lion's breath or not, but what you do is you stick out your tongue and go ah. And I never wanted to do it because I felt like it was ridiculous and it seemed silly. And I was like, why would you even do that? And then one day I went to go do it and I realized that I was actually judging myself. I was judging how ridiculous I thought I looked doing it, how silly it seemed. And there's obviously a reason for doing it, but the interesting part about it was that there was nobody around. There was nobody around to judge me. And I recognized that all that time I had been judging myself because of what I thought I would look like doing that practice. And so once I released that, it was very freeing, actually.

Teaching Tools You Don’t Use

Shannon 3:58

And when I'm coaching, there are several practices that I teach that I don't actually do myself. And you might be wondering, why would you teach something that you don't do? Because there's certain things that are very effective for other people. For example, alternate nostril breathing works really well for a lot of my clients. Tapping works very well for a lot of my clients. And I don't resonate with either one of those practices, but I teach them because they actually do work for some people. But there's this part as you're navigating through life and learning different things and healing, where it's leaning into what actually feels good for you and trying new things to see what works for you and what doesn't. Because just because I say this helps me, for example, let's say I love to dance, I love to move my body in that way. Music is very healing for me, but maybe it's not for you, and that's okay. But I am continually offering different practices. And let's say, for example, I say, take a deep breath in and release. What if your timing is different than my timing with the inhale and the exhale? That doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It means that your body is responding differently.

When Visualization Doesn’t Show Up

Shannon 5:31

When I have been in various classes, I would compare myself to other people when it came to visualization. For me, I don't see things in my mind's eye. I don't see images, I don't see colors, generally speaking. I have had moments where I've seen colors, but I experience things in my body. I feel, even right now as I'm talking, I'm feeling tingling in my feet and in my lower legs. And so that's how I feel energy. That's how I experience energy moving through my body. I don't visualize things generally, but let's say I invite you to imagine the waves crashing on the beach. Like I know what those images look like. I know what a beach looks like, I know what water looks like. And so I just think of what that looks like, but a visualization is not actually coming to me. I hope that makes sense.

Perfectionism Blocks Progress

Shannon 6:40

Underneath I'm doing it wrong is judgment, and also there's a layer of perfectionism in there because we feel like if we're not doing it the perfect way, then we're doing it wrong. And everyone's experiences so in life, honestly, is so different. And but what happens is when you feel like you're doing it wrong, sometimes we allow that to stop us from actually moving forward because we think, well, I'm not doing it the right way, and so I'm just not going to do it at all. But I would invite you to allow yourself to practice and play and try different things. And even if you've tried something once, maybe try it again later. I do that a lot with food. I don't like seafood. I want to love seafood, but I just don't. But every so often I try it just to see maybe something's changed because we are constantly changing. And so maybe today I would actually love the way seafood tastes. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm not going to stop trying.

Connecting With Your Body Through Movement

Shannon 7:52

I was talking with someone recently, and they were telling me how they found it difficult to really connect with their body. And I hadn't really thought about it in the way that they were expressing it because they didn't like their body. They didn't love their body. And so they found it difficult to really connect with it. And it made me, it kind of made me stop for a second. I was like, I hadn't really thought about it that way. I mean, I wouldn't say that I used to have a very good connection with my body. And honestly, sometimes still I'll ask myself, where am I feeling whatever I'm feeling? And I don't even always know where I'm feeling it, but I do know that something doesn't feel right, something feels off, and I know that I need to move the energy. And so that's when I'll dance or I'll start doing some type of movement. And then there's so much wisdom in your body that you'll often maybe drift into something else. So maybe I will be intentionally breathing, and then my body's like, oh no, you got to wiggle, and I feel wiggly, and so then I wiggle. It's just we're not always able to name it or pinpoint it. And that's not uncommon.

The Only Right Way Is Yours

Shannon 9:20

It's that underlying belief that there's a right way to feel your emotions, a right way to connect with your body, a right way to do mindfulness. The right way is the way that works for you. And it's not that you're doing it wrong if you're not connecting in a way that maybe somebody else does. I feel like it's so important to me to just like normalize that nobody's perfect, not everybody's doing it the right way. And so it's not about whether or not you're doing it wrong, it's about whether or not you're judging yourself in how you're doing it. Because what works for you isn't necessarily going to work for other people. And what works for other people isn't necessarily gonna work for you. But when you're in a space of judgment, you hesitate, you resist, you disconnect. And when you're able to release that judgment and really feel into what's working for you, you know, for me, it's energy moving, it's a tingling sensation. It's like this inner sense of knowing. And I've learned a lot from several different people. And over time, I've just had to kind of take what works for me and honestly leave what doesn't. And that takes time and it takes patience and trial and error and giving yourself permission to not do it exactly like someone else. And underneath all of that is perfectionism, wanting to do it right, wanting to feel it correctly, wanting to use the best method. And there's no perfect way to do any of this. There's no perfect way to do life, there's no perfect way to heal, there's no perfect way to live your best life. It's whatever works for you. This goes beyond mindfulness. This shows up in various areas of our life. We think we shouldn't disappoint people, we should have it all figured out, we should be doing life the right way. And that's just not real. You're gonna disappoint people. People are gonna disappoint you, you're gonna disappoint yourself, you're gonna have ups and downs, even when you're doing this work, because nobody has the perfect life. So if you feel like you've been doing it wrong, you're not feeling things the right way, something must be off about how you process things. I just want to remind you that you're not doing it wrong. You're just figuring out what works for you, and that's okay.

Three Reflection Questions

Shannon 11:56

So let's go ahead and do a couple of reflection questions. If it feels comfortable and safe to do so, go ahead and take a deep breath in and release. Question number one: where in my life do I feel like I'm doing it wrong? Question number two, where might I be judging myself instead of allowing myself? And number three, what actually works for me, even if it looks different from others?

Card Pull For Trust And Growth

Shannon 12:30

All right, we're gonna go ahead and wrap things up with a card pull from the Magic Up What If card deck. I'm actually gonna pull from deck one today. I usually pull from deck two, but today I am feeling deck one. So today's card is what if I easily believe everything is always happening for my highest good. What if I easily believe everything is always happening for my highest good? We don't always get what we want, but we always get what we need. But we're always getting what we need, and it's always in our highest good because sometimes we don't necessarily even know or understand what's in our highest good in that particular moment, because maybe we're so caught up in what's happening and maybe the drama surrounding it that we don't understand that maybe a relationship ending or a job ending or whatever the case may be, that ultimately we're learning whatever lesson we need to learn, we're gonna end up growing in whatever way. And then you may look back and go, Oh, I get it now. That has happened to me more often than I can even tell you.

Permission To Do It Differently

Shannon 14:07

Just know that you don't have to do any of this perfectly, and you don't have to do it like everyone else, and you don't have to force yourself into someone else's way of doing a practice or their way of living life. You just gotta figure out what works for you, and that's not wrong, that's part of the process in really getting to know yourself again and learning who you are now at this point in this season in your life. And you get to figure out what works for you and what doesn't. And just because somebody else does something a certain way doesn't mean that that's necessarily going to work for you. And what if you allow that to be okay? What if you give yourself permission to do it in the way that works for you? Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day and an amazing week. Much love.