Perfectly Imperfect in Everyway

Cat Raincock - 14 Mar 18

Perfect mums are everywhere these days, aren’t they?

You know the ones. They wear the perfect outfits, push the perfect buggies, respond to the needs of their babies at the perfect moment, and always flash a perfect smile.

No? You’re not familiar with the type? That’s because the perfect Mum doesn’t exist and if they seem like they are, they’re lying!

We all know this fact, and we like to remind ourselves that perfect parenting isn’t really a thing when we are under stress and feeling less than perfect, but the truth is that the perfect mum does actually exist… somewhere in the back of our minds. We all create her at some point along our imperfect parenting journeys (mine is tall with a perfectly swishy blonde ponytail and perfectly pressed dark skinny jeans). We do this because we are constantly bombarded with images of perfection and information that will somehow perfect our parenting practices. Mums are constantly under pressure to be everything to everyone, to navigate this parenting gig with ease, and to bake the best biscuits for the gluten-free, peanut-free, sugar-free, natural-dye-only bake sale. And obviously swishy ponytail mum would have no problem tackling all of that.

As a partially reformed perfectionist who learned early on that putting swishy ponytail mum in her place is essential for survival, I can tell you that life is certainly better on the other side of perfection. Even if I learned that lesson the hard way.

I had little time for phone calls, email, or time with friends. To answer the phone was to ignore the kids. To play with the kids was to ignore the people who wanted to connect with me. 

I started to unravel. I cried, a lot. I worried that I was a disappointment to everyone. I made promises to try harder, to achieve more, to be the person I once was… even if that person seemed to exist a lifetime ago.

The stress overwhelmed me.  And then I made a decision that changed everything. I stopped trying to please everyone and be everything, and I said no more. 

I stopped tidying the house every time a toy was taken out of its rightful place and stopped taking on every single challenge.  I embraced messiness, chaos, and, finally, imperfection. And I learned a few very important lessons in the process.

Self-preservation isn’t selfish.   

In letting go of perfection, in finally telling swishy ponytail mum to take a hike, I learned that self-preservation is crucial.

People will always have expectations, and I won’t always meet those expectations. I will, in fact, disappoint people at times (even the people I love). But taking care of me, putting my needs first, makes me a better mother, wife, daughter, and friend.

Preserving my soul means that I have more of my soul to give, and that can only be a good thing.  Hypnotherapy, meditation and yoga were and still are my saviour.  

I finally detoxed my emotions and up graded my out of date beliefs.  I now embrace my imperfection and I’m finally happy.  

I’m perfectly imperfect!

Cat Raincock

Women’s self-esteem expert Cat Raincock is passionate about empowering and guiding women to live a fulfilled life. She was an ordinary girl who learnt some key things and now lives an extraordinary life. Cat is a mother of 2 children, 40 years old, who in her late 30’s thought she had everything she wanted, lovely husband, 2 kids but somehow it just didn’t cut it. Even though her life until then had ‘ticked all the boxes’ and looked good on paper, inside her head, it was another story. This is a situation that many women can find themselves in. What appears to be a great life to the outer world, can be filled with low self-esteem and feelings of not mattering and not being enough. Cat realised that when her two kids entered her life, they turned it upside down and brought all her ‘inner stuff’ to the surface. They were the greatest gift in showing her where she needed to work on herself. Heading for a midlife breakdown, she realised it was time to face her stuff and embarked on her own personal journey. Through a massive emotional detox, guided meditations and hypnosis Cat has transformed her life and now lives a happy life where she ultimately feels enough, a far cry from where she was, and her mission is to empower as many women as she can to experience the same. Now a trained coach and hypnotherapist, Cat educates people to eat consciously, clean, wholesome food, to detox emotions and their life - i.e. beauty and household products, social media, media consumption, their wardrobe and home! She works with clients on transforming health issues and infertility – which often result from a disconnection between the mind and the body.

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