Just Another Day's Journey

Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash

Hey family! I just want to show up and be consistent today. This journey requires my full commitment.

 

What happened in the journey that was a life lesson?

I learned that I am human with flaws and failures that cannot break me. I don’t think that I could have understood Brene` Brown’s Gifts of Perfection more clearly than a few weeks ago when I wrote the draft for this blog. I failed multiple times and I do mean MULTIPLE times. I failed so many times within a short time frame that I almost quit. That’s my go-to. 

I rationalize to myself that this is not a good fit for me. The truth is it was was a human moment that got stuck on repeat for a short time. The old me before therapy would have concocted a story that was believable enough to me to be the reason that this particular situation was not working. I would have convinced myself that I needed to quit but for a change, I stuck with it. I worked through the discomfort. I worked through the embarrassment. I worked through the shame and I survived.

I broke my habit of being a serial quitter by choosing to acknowledge that I was having a bad moment. A MOMENT! I acknowledge that I was having a hard time. I owned it and asked myself or challenged myself to grow. I acknowledged that the absence of being challenged or feeling frustrated about being imperfect was being stuck and I was unwilling to UNDO the work that I had put in. So I WORKED THROUGH it.

 I even laughed a little at what felt like a comedy routine of mistakes. You know the one where someone is trying to go somewhere and they left their keys or lost their glasses that were on top of their head. It was one of those moments. The routine where the character gets angry looking for those keys that they just had in their hand that’s jingling loudly. That was me. I completely missed something so obvious and so apparent that was “sitting on top of my head.” I was seriously having a meltdown while trying to maintain my professionalism. I mean there were tears in my eyes as I was trying to hold it together with my client realizing my comic relief moment. It wasn’t funny in the moment that it was happening but thinking about it, now. Hilarious with a tinge of anxiety.

I wished that you could have heard my internal dialogue, “maybe this isn’t a good fit. I’m so messed up. They must think that I am stupid.” Then shifting into, “it’s just one of those days.” I audibly said to my client that I needed to go back to sleep and start all over half laughing and half-serious. The client laughed and I laughed and then something strange happened. I realized my humanity.

I am not perfect and neither are you. We all mess up and we get to choose how we will respond to our imperfection. We get to choose our next move. Will you shut down like I used to or will you allow yourself to stay connected? Will you quit doing whatever it is that you were doing or will you challenge yourself to keep trying? Will you talk down to yourself or will extend yourself the same grace that you extend to others when they have messed up?  Will you choose to keep moving forward? Will you choose to see the lesson? Will you accept that you are an imperfect person living in an imperfect world with imperfect people experiencing imperfect situations? Give yourself some compassion.

I’m still kind of tickled about my mistakes. I think that next time I see a comedic routine in a sitcom or comedic movie, I will laugh with a full belly laugh knowing that I can finally fully relate. We are human and will make sincere mistakes. It’s ok.

Give yourself a break. This journey is real. Have fun being imperfect. Peace.