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So I'm going to guess you got a toolbox at home. Do you pull it out every single day? No. And when you do, you don't use every tool, right? You pick the right one for the job. What if we approached personal growth the same way? You're listening to relish the podcast for people ready to stop chasing self-improvement and start savoring their lives. If you're tired of the hamster wheel of healing and hungry for more joy, presence, and meaning, you're in the right place. Hey realtors! Alyssia here. And today's Quick Bite episode is all about a mantra that has saved me from a lot of unnecessary stress. And that is tools, not rules. If you're new, please hit follow or subscribe so that you
can keep building your own toolbox of insights and practices without the pressure of perfection. Now, I have always been inclined toward structure and toward routine, and some of that was for sure. Conditioned patterns of perfectionism. Fear of getting it wrong. I actually have an entire entre episode coming out this week for you on perfectionism, and in that episode, I will also acknowledge how perfectionism can relate to neuro divergence. But in helping hundreds of other people with perfectionism and in myself, I see that regardless of neuro type, these patterns can be pretty pervasive, especially for people in this work, people who love doing personal growth and healing work. And I
see that this happens a lot when people find their path, you know, after their awakening to the work. And it makes sense. I mean, when I finally found the tools that actually brought me relief from suffering, my meditation and journaling and gratitude and movement, all that, I clung to them. I clung to the tools because I didn't want to lose it. I didn't want to lose the relief that I was finding. And at first it was freeing. I finally had a path. I finally had direction. But eventually I had turned my tools into rules. I thought if I didn't do all the practices every day, I was going to lose the progress I'd made. And so my morning
routine kind of became like a checklist. You know, I got to meditate and journal, do yoga, gratitude, all the things. And suddenly, instead of it leading to joy or connection, I was feeling stressed about upholding the routine. Does this sound familiar? I know it's the case with a lot of the people that I work with. When we make tools into rules. We shift from the freedom that we're seeking back into the conditioning that we're trying to transcend. The whole point of the practices is to help us live more freely, not to box us into another set of shoulds.
Tools are here to help you become present, to come back into presence. Not to take you out of presence by being compulsive. So an analogy I found helpful is the toolbox you've got in your house. You think about your own toolbox filled with wrenches and hammers and nails or whatever. And do you take that toolbox out every single day? No, of course you don't. When do you take it out? When you need it. And when you do, you probably don't use every tool at once. You use the appropriate one for the appropriate time. And I have found it's not so different with
personal growth. So the point of getting the tools isn't to just use them all the time and use them perfectly. You know, the point of this work is not to have a four hour self-care routine. The point is to live your life, to be present, to be here for your life, to savor it, and to know that you can pull out the right tool when you need it. In my own life, I have flowed through seasons where I am deeply connected and using my tools regularly. And then there are some harder seasons, maybe times when I probably need my tools most, and those are often
the times I'm resisting using them. That's human. And I have flowed through using different tools at different times. Sometimes different tools might support me based on what's happening in my life or what I'm going through. Sometimes I might be turning to meditation more. Sometimes it's visualization or journaling or certain brain rewiring practices. Sometimes it's yoga. Sometimes just getting outside becomes my tool, my way of staying connected to myself. I need different things at different times, which means I need to be present enough to myself to
check in with what I need and be able to make that choice around what would actually be helpful, rather than relying on the tools to regulate me. I found the key is to not judge myself. It's to notice, you know, sometimes a tool will work for me for weeks or months, and then it just kind of stops working. And that's not failure. That's just life evolving. It's a natural part of the journey. Our brain is going to habituate, and then we need to shake it up and find something that serves us now. So that's what I call living in the fluid mode, responding
to what's needed instead of reactively clinging to whatever worked before. So this is a quick bite, right? The takeaway today your tools are here to serve you and to bring you back into presence. They are not here to control you, use what works when you need it, and spend the rest of your time living your life relishing it. So reflect and ask yourself, have I turned any of my tools into rigid rules? Am I using them to connect, or am I using them out of fear of what will happen if I don't? Waiting for the other shoe to drop. For me, sometimes it was
like I was using the tools, but not even being present, you know? And that's the whole point. So if that's you ask, what would it look like to use them like tools in a toolbox. What I need, when I need it, and then to spend the rest of your days just living, savoring, and relishing your life. Your practices are here to support your life, not run it. All right, so if this landed for you, share it with someone who might be feeling weighed down by their self-care to do list and definitely subscribe Because if this landed, I think the perfectionism episode later this week will really
resonate. Come find me on social. Tag me, DM me @alyssiasheikh and tell me which tools are your go tos these days, and I'll be sharing my current tool routine on Instagram this week as well. All right, I appreciate you commenting. Please go and rate this podcast five stars. Leave us a short review. It really helps the show grow. So thank you so much for being.
