VBB 363 Christina Marlett: The Recovering Perfectionist And The B.I.T.C.H.

Intro [00:00:01]:

Virgin Beauty Bitch Podcast inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being defiantly different. Your hosts, Christopher and Heather.

Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:15]:

Welcome to the Year of the Continued. If you're just connecting with us for the first time this year, Heather and I are inviting women to reconsider the word Bitch. It's a word many women don't have a comfortable relationship with. So what we've done, we've taken the word, broken it down letter by letter, and put meaning to each of these letters, and hopefully also show that there is a possibility, a reason for growth in these words, in this word, and in these letters. As we move ahead in episodes 360 and 361, Heather and I describe the meaning of Bitch. And in upcoming shows, including today, we will explore the real application, the real-life application of Betrayal, Identity, Trust, Change, and Healing: B.I.T.C.H.

Christopher [00:01:27]:

Today, we have a special guest, a friend who introduces herself as a recovering perfectionist turned spiritual ninja and self-care revolutionary. She's a top-flight self-care coach and the founder of Courageous Self Care, which supports high achievers to take inspired action while practicing effective, strategic self-care. She's an author, speaker, entrepreneur, mother, and partner to an amazing husband. Hi Paul. But today, we're going to talk about her life arc in the context of B I T C H. Welcome back, Christina Marlett, to Virgin Beauty Bitch.

Christina Marlett [00:01:56]:

Thank you so much.

Christopher [00:01:58]:

It is such a pleasure having you. Now, I believe personally, that everyone has a betrayal story, a personal heartache that they will never, ever forget. What do you think when you hear the word betrayal? What does that bring up for you?

Christina Marlett [00:02:14]:

Well, going right into my heart. Let's just start right there. I think the betrayal that I experienced was that, being someone who worked hard at school and got good grades, I felt assured that if I focused on intellect and gathering knowledge, everything would work out. And I used to have a shirt that said THINK, and it had a brain neuron on it. And I thought, like, once my dad said to me, " You're always thinking, aren't you? And I'm like, yes, I am. And I thought that was such a compliment. And then I learned that thinking isn't your best friend because probably the way I was doing it was way more over than anything else. And then I ended up with a shirt that said Don't Think, Don't Think, Don't Think, Don't Think over and over and over.

Christina Marlett [00:03:11]:

So things got a little better. So the betrayal felt like, if I just worked hard enough on that one part of me, it would all be good, and success would be assured. And what I've learned since then. So I feel like I've moved past the betrayal is actually when we are unified, when we connect and are cohesive with the mind, not just the mind. The mind doesn't get to drive the bus anymore in my brain, because it was so critical to be a perfectionist. It was. There was so much judgment, both outwardly and mostly towards myself. And yeah, that was one big betrayal.

Christina Marlett [00:03:56]:

So now when I focus on unifying, being unified in mind and body and breath and soulful self, that feels whole. But the betrayal was like, if you focus on the mind, everything will be fine, and you will feel whole. And that was certainly not the case. I felt lonely and empty and bewildered and dismayed a lot of the time, and just mystified.

Christopher [00:04:23]:

So the message. The message becomes the betrayal. The message of, yes, this is the way that it is going to get you to where society thinks is successful. That's the betrayal?

Christina Marlett [00:04:35]:

Yes.

Heather [00:04:36]:

I think there's something to that too, to say, you know, when we think, you know, that society says we're if we think and we're thinking ahead and we're ahead of the game, that's how you're going to get ahead in life or be, you know, on the up and up of what's to come next. And I've just been thinking a lot about lately, you know, in society, the way that we deem people either further or not as far ahead of each other, and just what an endless chase that is. So I really appreciate that that was a really big betrayal for you. And then how it was internalized to kind of like that consistent critic that kind of continues to betray what your full capacity is, no matter what that looks like for you individually.

Christina Marlett [00:05:19]:

Totally. And then just one other thing that's popping up is I didn't know this until maybe a decade ago, that that quote from Marianne Williamson, that our greatest fear is not being too small, but shining our light. But when we shine our light, we let, allow, give others permission to do the same. Paraphrased. And what I used to experience a lot of is people would say to me, oh, you're such a hard act to follow. And so for a long time I just said, " Oh, I don't want to outshine the next person, so I'd better make myself smaller because I want them to feel good. And so there was the betrayal in the messaging that people can't handle their own feelings. Like, for the longest time, I was protecting people from feeling their feelings and having their thoughts.

Christina Marlett [00:06:12]:

And I remember being at an event, and I just had this epiphany. I'm like, you know what, I'm charismatic. I'm not going to apologize for it anymore. If you happen to have to go after me, you're going to be able to grow and stretch into what you feel is your biggest. So I just said, I'm claiming my charisma.

Christopher [00:06:30]:

That fits so perfectly, dovetails so perfectly into the next letter I, which is Identity. You were claiming and finding truly you without even knowing that you weren't you. The moment that you change from Think to Don't Think, your identity got shifted.

Christina Marlett [00:06:53]:

Yes, yes. That so happened, and I was able to work through it and verbalize it in my first book, which was called How Ugly Awkward Dancing Changes Everything. And the tagline is, Live Life With Freedom. Screw how it looks. Because for the longest time, it was all about how it looked like my image was so important to me as a teacher. That's what I started out as, a high school teacher. My image was everything.

Christina Marlett [00:07:21]:

And then there was a lot of dismantling of that when I got into the world of personal growth and spiritual development. And yeah, my identity became. It doesn't matter what it looks like on the outside; it's about what it feels like on the inside. And I really got to learn that when I trained as an embodiment coach, which was coming like, yeah, reducing the thoughts and coming into sensation and trusting that that is the divine speaking through.

Heather [00:07:49]:

What a great, you know, differentiation between image and identity. Because I think those two things get conflated so easily in a world where, you know, your surface is kind of what people originally perceive of you, at least from the onset, or perhaps what we believe, or come to believe. But you know, you really have taken it down to say this everlasting need to perform for this image is not the real deal. The real deal is, how does it feel for me to walk through this life and for me to be proud of what I'm doing?

Christina Marlett [00:08:27]:

Totally. Yeah. That performing personality was rampant in me. All I knew for a long time.

Christopher [00:08:35]:

Now, this, this other real you, this authentic you, when did you learn to actually trust it?

Christina Marlett [00:08:45]:

You always ask the best questions, Christopher.

Christina Marlett [00:08:51]:

One moment pops into my mind, which is, I'd been doing lots of work with mentors and coaches, and attending. Like I went all over North America for a few years, traveling most really actively seeking transformation and doing a lot of embodiment. And there was a day when we were traveling, we were at a resort in Montana, and we were all packed up, ready to go. I was in the car, and I said, you know what, a six-hour drive. Let me just run back and use the washroom. I still have the keys. So I ran up use the washroom. And then my body didn't go towards the door. It wanted to go into the kitchen.

Christina Marlett [00:09:34]:

I'm like, what? What is this? And I went through the kitchen, and for some reason, I just opened all the drawers, and in one of the drawers was my keys. My keys to the house and to the car. And I'm like, what? How did I know that? That's crazy. And even better yet, I trusted the instinct, the sensation, the intuition to go to the drawer. So ever since then, I've had so much more trust in what my body is saying. And I know that the mind, 90 plus percent of the time, just loves to make up tricks and lies to keep you stuck where you are, because familiar equals safe. And that really indicated to me that, okay, I can trust what is coming through here.

Heather [00:10:18]:

Wow. I think that that's a huge piece of the puzzle because, you know, our ability to self-trust is so quickly eroded by, you know, the people that we care about, their opinions, the people who uphold our relationships. And, you know, with so much of women’s, through the centuries, although changing now, thankfully, with it being relational. Right. That so much of our value is placed on who we are in relation to someone else. It really does give a great deal of power into the hands of someone other than yourself.

Heather [00:10:52]:

So, you know, to not only kind of peel back those layers into that authentic self that Christopher had said, and I know it's kind of a catchphrase terms right now, but I think that there's something so fundamentally beautiful that we're really diving into that more and more and more as a society, that it isn't about just our relations, but what is behind all of the things that other people expect of you before you get to any of that. And then learning to trust that inner core. Right, that inner core that is almost your North Star.

Christina Marlett [00:11:27]:

Yeah, totally. And what I've learned from one of my mentors, who I just adore, Dr. Sue Mortar, is that we have this column of energy that runs from overhead right down into the earth below us, it goes right through the core. It's called your Sushumna, or the Central Channel. It's made of light. And that is the truth of who you are. And the more you focus your mind on what it is to breathe up and down through that core channel. The more you learn who you really are, and the truth of who you are is that you are powerful, you are.

Christina Marlett [00:12:01]:

You are brilliant, you are magnificent, and you are the creator of your life in the best way possible. And everything is serving for your highest expansion.

Christopher [00:12:10]:

I think at some level we know this. However, as a coach, you've talked to hundreds of women going through and men going through their process. Is that the hardest leap to make? Distrust of self?

Christina Marlett [00:12:31]:

Absolutely. Yeah. Because people are brought up to think that their thoughts are true and to idolize the mind, and especially to idolize one side of the brain, the analytical part. That's how you do well in school. At least that's how I learned to do well. And the more you can memorize and repeat back, the better you'll do that Betrayal coming back.

Christina Marlett [00:12:59]:

And so learning that this is one of the core things that I work on with clients is when you're getting guidance or when you hear something on the inside, if it has a negative tone to it, it's not true. It's the ego, it's the protective personality making stuff up, and you don't have to believe it. If it's neutral or positive, then, yes, it's your intuition, it's your inner guidance, and you can trust that. And often it's uncomfortable. It's telling you to do things that make no sense. It's saying, okay, abandon this thing that you've built. And you're like, WHAT? Is it part of my experience? So, yeah, the trust is huge.

Christina Marlett [00:13:37]:

And trusting that that is the truth. Like, it's so much easier to believe that you're a victim and that things happen to you and life is hard and you just have to survive. That's easy. Although going through it isn't that easy. It's uncomfortable. But it's much easier than taking the leap and trusting that the universe is a benevolent place and that you're meant to grow and expand.

Heather [00:14:02]:

Well, I'm glad to hear, you know, it's not just me that a lot of your clients. So I think, at least for me, and some of the conversations we've had with other people on this podcast, that you know, truly have shaped me in many ways. You know, there's that kind of tipping of the iceberg, shall we say, of when you start to tune out all the noise, and you really start to look within, and you start to really notice what aligning within really means. And, you know, that transition of noticing into how am I going to kind of push out the noise more permanently, and make the change to live my authentic self and be able to speak in a way that honours that.

Heather [00:14:58]:

You know, that authentic self deserves to be here. It belongs, you know, it has something to contribute. So, you know, in your experience and also with your clients, what is that phase like that you've seen, maybe personally or with them, where they've kind of, they've made this noticing. They have a clearer sense of where they want to head or what's important to them, and they're trying not to let old patterns get in the way.

Christina Marlett [00:15:26]:

Yes. So there, there are a few approaches around that. The one that I used to do was like, focus on the issue, work really hard at it, see some results, keep working hard, and hopefully things will improve. But what I've shifted into now is, there are just a few practices that if you do on a regular basis, you don't even have to, like, pour your attention into, in quotes, fixing a problem. You don't even have to focus on personal growth. It is more than I've noticed in my life that things just start to unfold like, wow, I didn't take that personally. And I didn't work hard at not taking it personally.

Christina Marlett [00:16:09]:

It's because I've had this evolution from connecting with that authentic central channel, that core, and doing some specific practices around it that, oh my gosh, I didn't have to control that situation. Progress. So we can tend to put our attention on, like, Einstein has a quote that it’s, If the definition of insanity is trying to, and I'm paraphrasing again, if you think you're going to solve the problem with the same consciousness that it was created, that's the definition of insanity. And so if we're focused on the outer world to make our changes, that's so hard. Like, there's so much effort, it takes so long. And it's frustrating speaking from experience, but when we come in again, unifying mind, body, and breath in ways that amplify the process.

Christina Marlett [00:16:51]:

And then you just have delightful surprises of, wow, this has changed. Like, I was on a trip to Mexico with my family. My kids wanted to travel for years. So finally we made it happen, and they just didn't like it. And I thought they would love the place that I had chosen. And because I'd been there for some retreats. It's a really sacred and special place. There was no door to the bathroom, so it was hard for the teenagers. It was a Boutique resort with open air Bungalows. It was phenomenal.

Christina Marlett [00:17:36]:

So all week there was, you know, complaining happening and victimy mindset, and I could just feel like, wow, a version of me a few years ago would have been devastated. And at the end of the week, my daughter said, oh, well, we survived the week. I'm like, what are you talking about? This was one of the best weeks of my life.

Christina Marlett [00:18:03]:

So I didn't let their experience impact my enjoyment. And as a mom, oh, my gosh, such a huge difference from how I would have shown up. Like, I used to take everything personally. Daggers in the heart all the time. But because of this new way of approaching things and not focusing on the problem, but just focusing on what's actually important, which is the authenticity, the identity, the breath through the body. Yeah. Just get these delightful surprises, and then you get to celebrate along the way.

Christopher [00:18:35]:

I want to emphasize that everything we're talking about here, like when Heather and I came up with B.I.T.C.H., obviously, makes sense on paper. However, the more we speak with individuals, with people, these things unfold. So, wow. It blows my mind. They just so in step with each other. Like, what you're talking about is that change, and what you are alluding to is healing.

Christina Marlett [00:19:12]:

Yes.

Christopher [00:19:13]:

The fact that you're not taking that personally, which you once would take personally and suffer from, you're no longer taking that in a space that hurts you. That's healing.

Christina Marlett [00:19:27]:

Yes.

Christopher [00:19:27]:

I love it.

Christina Marlett [00:19:31]:

They do just flow, like, great use of the letters of B.I.T.C.H., to create this flow that we're experiencing. I love it, too.

Christopher [00:19:42]:

And that's the thing, the message we want to get out there is an arc to this. There's a process to this. There's a logic to this, but there's a real-life connection to this. And that is our message, is that through these steps, this word that has been so violating to women, through that word, that very word, you can find your liberation. That's what this is all about.

Christina Marlett [00:20:12]:

I have to share a funny little story, if that's okay. One time I was at Costco, and our membership is under Paul's name, and I had to check my Costco check to cash. And the guy said, well, where's your husband who the account is under? I said, he's not here. I'm getting the groceries. He said, I'm sorry, I can't charge it for you. And I was so annoyed.

Christina Marlett [00:20:37]:

And unlike previous versions of me, I said, I just kind of muttered under my breath, well, isn't that fantastic? I need my husband here to make a transaction, and I was bitching about it, which is not really the way I usually show up. And he looked around, he said, you know what, never mind. Let's just do it. I'm like, what? I have been taught that being kind and polite is the way to get things done. And I was just bitchy. And this is effective, huh? Total reframing of all that. I know.

Christopher [00:21:13]:

The magic moment.

Heather [00:21:14]:

Yes. We love these moments.

Christina Marlett [00:21:17]:

It was kind of more like, you know, just being empowered and speaking my truth. Not in a way that was an attack, but not hiding it either, which is what I would have done previously.

Heather [00:21:28]:

I think what you just said there is exactly the road that Christopher and I are going on this journey with. Re-examining or reimagining the word because it's come to mean somebody who's mean or cruel or challenging without reason, or hard to deal with, or difficult to deal with. But the element of what you said in there, where you said, I wasn't saying it in a way that was cruel or trying to be mean. I was asserting my truth. I was asserting what I needed to say about this experience. And, you know, I think that for a lot of women, especially being able to tap into that assertiveness and say what you want to say when you need to say it, that's what we're building.

Heather [00:22:13]:

That's what we're working on.

Christopher [00:22:16]:

I would add this caveat: there are a lot of ways to look at what it is we're doing, you know, rebranding, reclaiming, blah, blah, blah, those used words. I see it personally as more of an evolution of a word. It is taking on a new form from what it was, and it can be empowering in this new form; that’s what we want to deliver and share with women.

Christina Marlett [00:22:45]:

Love that. Yeah. And that speaks to the change and the healing that you were that you've brought up and identified as these letters. And when I think when I was thinking about change and healing before our time together, the big way that I'm focusing on change, like, we're made of change. We're meant to change. And I drew a card for this year, and the card was Letting Go. And I've really been focusing on, whenever I notice that I'm suffering, it's because there's an attachment of the mind. And so I ask myself, okay, what am I attached to? And when I identify it, I let it go. And that is healing.

Christina Marlett [00:23:24]:

So it's the same thing that you're saying with this word, we can even look at, like, what are my attachments to the word BITCH? And what am I willing to let go of to experience healing? So that's a powerful framework that is so effective. And you don't really even have to, you know, do anything except to, like, let it go. You just have to notice and bring it to your awareness because previously it was in your subconscious, where you can't do anything about it. But, like, the other day, I was feeling a little woe is me, because the help from the family wasn't coming through. And I'm like, okay, what am I attached to here? Because I was grumbling while I was making dinner and tears were falling, and I'm like, okay, what am I attached to?

Christina Marlett [00:24:19]:

Okay, well, I'm attached to the fact that my kids aren't behaving like I did when I was that age, when I was like, I, the way that I functioned was, how can I help? How can I, you know, get love, basically? And for my kids, yay. They're not like that, so that's good. And when I realized that there was that attachment, I said, okay, so I'm just attached to my kids behaving how I think they should behave. I'm gonna let that go because it's not serving any of us. And immediately, like, just I envision opening up in the heart, releasing the tension that was there, and it becomes a non-issue.

Christina Marlett [00:25:03]:

So that, that is healing. And I think that's valuable for our approach to your topic as well. Just with you tapping in on that.

Heather [00:25:10]:

Before we let you go here, we love to ask our guests a question, and whether this is like an initial response or maybe, you know, a more nuanced approach, but what does the word Bitch mean to you?

Christina Marlett [00:25:27]:

Well, it used to mean something scary that I didn't want to be, and now, with the reframing of it, I see it as the divine feminine coming through in a myriad of ways. And that is what makes it rich. It doesn't have to be one stereotypical way. Like, we're humans. We signed up for a big, rich life experience. That's why we have all the emotions and all the experiences. And I feel like the less we judge our experiences and emotions, the more we benefit from getting to experience what life really is.

Christopher [00:26:08]:

Can I put that on a plaque?

Heather [00:26:11]:

Can we get T-shirts? I'm here for that.

Christopher [00:26:17]:

You are a joy. Absolute joy. We learned so much in our conversations with you. Thank you for taking the time to do this with us. This is very important for us and for our audience, and to have you be part of that cherry on top. Thank you so much.

Christina Marlett [00:26:34]:

Thank you. My pleasure. I love talking about what I love talking about. So thank you for listening and asking great questions.

Christopher [00:26:41]:

And you have been listening to…

Heather [00:26:43]:

The Virgin,

Christopher

the beauty

Heather

and the Bitch in her year.

Christopher [00:26:48]:

Yes. Come on back. Find us. Like us. Share us. Bring your friends. Let's talk some more. To become a partner in the VBB community. We invite you to find us@virginbeautybitch.com. Like us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and share us with people who are defiantly different like you.

Until next time, thanks for listening.