Last week, reading the entertainment section of the newspaper, I noticed a grass roots band that looked interesting was playing this weekend at the Green Center. Since the pandemic, my husband Doug and I haven’t been to a live music venue and we were overdue, so I asked him to get tickets. It felt like a risky thing to do. Doug can be over-frugal, and I didn’t want to end up in the cheap seats, using my binoculars to see the musicians. But I framed it as an exposure, welcoming the uncertainty of what he’d decide.
As it happened, he surprised me by getting premium seats. He’d stretched himself and let go of a few more bucks than felt comfortable to him. Alas, in life, you don’t always get what you pay for. The view from the seats Doug picked out on the seating chart was partially blocked by the seats in front of us. Both our monkey minds howled in unison. A mistake! We made a mistake!
It took a minute to remember that this was actually a golden opportunity. Here are three ways mistakes are good for us.
When we make a mistake, it is an opportunity to practiceself-compassion, a chance to choose forgiveness rather than blame. The more compassion we have for our own failings, the more we’ll have for others.
With every mistake we have an opportunity to practice accepting loss. While losing can be painful and disappointing, since it’s part of being human, we need to be willing to feel what it brings. That’s the only way we recover from loss.
Mistakes are how we learn and grow. When we try something new, or not good at, we’re not going to get it right the first time. We can measure how much we’re growing by the mistakes we make.
Once Doug and I forgave ourselves for our mistake (1) and accepted that we didn’t get the view we hoped for (2), we thoroughly enjoyed the concert. And when another concert comes along, we want to see, we will have learned a little more about picking good seats, as well as how to enjoy ourselves should they turn out to be not what we hoped for (3).
The next time you make a mistake, whether tripping on the stairs, forgetting someone’s name, or something more serious, practice self-compassion and pat yourself on the back. Remind yourself that since we’re all inherently fallible, losses are acceptable. Of course, you could have stayed in bed, and avoided the mistake, but what would you have learned from that? Plan to make some more mistakes tomorrow. You just can’t make enough of them!
A few days ago, Pat—my ninety-year-old mother-in-law who lives in an assisted living facility—sent us a text from her new iPad. Pat’s texts are often accompanied by a cartoon emoji of herself—sweet ones with hearts for eyes or funny ones with the top of her head exploding. But there was no emoji for this message. She’d just found out that the driver who’d taken her to her doctor’s appointment that morning, whom she had sat next to on the drive, who’d leaned over her to help her with her seat belt when she exited the car, had just tested positive for COVID. All they’d been wearing were thin surgical masks.
Now Pat has been fully vaccinated and boosted, but like anyone her age, she has underlying health conditions. We immediately Face-Timed her. I asked, “How are you feeling about this, Pat?”
“I’m feeling fine,” she said. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
She told us she was required to be in quarantine and was a little concerned about getting bored, but that was it. She also mentioned how grateful she was to have been able to see one of her sons and grandchildren the weekend before because, “I never know if that might be the last time I see them.”
How did Pat manage to be so calm, grateful, and present? She was under threat. Why was she not anxious, stressed, and worried?
Anxiety and Uncertainty
Anxiety, stress, and worry are all caused by not knowing for certain if we are safe. When we are uncertain about our safety, it is a cue for us to pay attention and do something. Scientists and public health experts have told us what we can do: wear masks, keep social distance, get vaccinated. But while these actions can reduce the chance of our getting sick, they won’t eliminate it.
Uncertainty is and always has been a part of life, no matter what we do. The greater our acceptance of it, the more relaxed, happy, and grounded we will be. Once we have taken all reasonable steps to address possible threats to our safety, we can take another counterintuitive type of action. I call it active acceptance. Helping people actively accept the uncertainty in their lives is the core mission of my work with my clients.
Three Steps to Active Acceptance
1. Expansive Mindset: We need to update our unconscious “monkey mindset” that says, I can relax only if I eliminate all uncertainty. Replace it with a healthier one, such as, I can influence outcomes, but I can’t control them.
2. Welcoming Breath: Our default reaction to the sensations of anxiety is to fight them off, tensing our bodies and/or distracting ourselves. Instead, welcome these sensations by consciously relaxing your muscles and breathing the feelings in, allowing them space to play themselves out.
3. Changing Behavior: Resist our urges to try to eliminate threat that is beyond our direct control. Examples of this are seeking excessive reassurance from doctors, the internet, or friends and family.
The Gift of Uncertainty
Every new thing we’re uncertain about is an opportunity to practice thinking more accurately, increasing our capacity to tolerate negative emotions, and controlling our impulsive behavior. Active acceptance is how we cultivate peace, presence, and happiness in our lives. When we learn to actively accept it, uncertainty becomes a gift.
If you ask Pat how she’s mastered her uncertainty, she’ll tell you with her religious faith. She’ll describe her process differently than I do mine, but one important word we use is the same: acceptance. To be at peace, we all, regardless of faith, must accept the inherent uncertainty of life. And acceptance is not just an idea; it’s an action. Start actively accepting uncertainty today!
Since the pandemic, my gym requires us to reserve a lane in the outdoor pool for ½ hour blocks. This morning I went to get in my reserved lane at 7 AM, and there was a woman in my lane. I waited patiently for her to swim to the edge and told her that I had reserved this lane. She said she was sure that she had reserved this lane.
Now, I knew I was correct; this was the lane and timeslot I always reserve. When she offered to double-check her reservation, I let her do it. This meant she had to get out of the pool dripping wet in the chilly morning air. Meanwhile, I hopped in the pool and started doing my laps. I was surprised when, a few minutes later, she showed up at the edge of the lane and showed me her reservation for this lane at this time!
“Wow, there must have been a glitch in the reservation system,” I said. Fortunately, I was able to share a wider lane with another swimmer. Then, after about five laps, I suddenly remembered that I had changed my normal routine and reserved the lane for 7:30, not 7:00! My monkey mind sounded the alarm, chattering, You were wrong! You made a mistake! You were rude! You are bad! You should be punished! Shock waves of shame pulsed through my body. How could I have been so sure of myself and been so wrong?!
Fortunately, I was able to recognize my perfectionistic monkey mindset at work, thinking that my mistake made me a bad person. What I needed was unconditional acceptance. So, I practiced the three steps I outline in my books.
Expansive Mindset: I changed my mindset, from “mistakes make me bad” to “mistakes make me human!”
Welcoming Breath: I welcomed rather than resisted the feelings I was having. For the rest of my swim, I breathed in my shame and breathed out forgiveness.
Changed Behavior: Instead of hiding or avoiding the young woman, I went up to her in the locker room and told her I had made a mistake and that I was very sorry that I had allowed her to get out of the pool to check her reservation, instead of checking mine. She smiled and said, “We all make mistakes.”
It is a widespread misconception that unconditional self-acceptance means we won’t improve ourselves. The opposite is true. When we acknowledge that mistakes make us human, not bad, we can take responsibility for our actions instead of cringing in shame. When we forgive ourselves rather than punish ourselves, we are cultivating kindness and self-compassion, qualities we are then more likely to extend to others.
Forgiveness Meditation:
******
I will be releasing a series of videos with newsletters focused on working out perfectionism. If you would like to receive these topical mailings focused on perfectionism, you can subscribe to this new list by clicking here!
This is what my client Andi told me this week. Like so many others, she is very grateful that she will be able to get together with family and friends for the holidays this year. Last year had its own set of stressors, but it had fewer frictions that naturally occur during holiday get-togethers. Whether it’s friends or family, there are always people who rub us the wrong way.
What triggered Andi was when her mother suggested how Andi could do things just a little bit better. These suggestions were particularly distressing when it came to her parenting. Just this week, when her mother was over for dinner and her son was having a meltdown, her mother said, “When you did that, I would put you right in your room!.” At that moment, Andi felt like putting her mom in her room, not her son. Instead, she snapped at her mom, telling her she did not want to hear it. Her mom looked hurt. Andi felt even worse, thinking she was not a good enough mom or daughter.
Andi’s goal for therapy was to be more patient, loving, and compassionate with her mother at Christmas. These are beautiful goals, but they are not realistic. The gap between how we think we should feel and act and how we do, causes more stress, shame, and blame. We cannot just will ourselves not feel triggered by friends and relatives. But we can learn to respond to our triggers differently.
Expect and Accept you will get triggered. It helps to realize that it is normal to get activated. When we expect this to happen, we position ourselves to respond to our triggers differently.
Learn to relax rather than react to your triggers. When we get triggered, our bodies contract, and we tense up. By practicing labeling our feelings and training ourselves to relax our bodies, we become much less reactive.
Rehearse ahead of time. A powerful tool we use in cognitive behavioral therapy is called imaginal exposure. By picturing upsetting situations, we can generate similar feelings and sensations when they are happening in real-time. By practicing relaxation during an imaginal exposure, you are much more likely to remember to use them at your next get-together.
Listen to this imaginal practice at least one time before your next planned gathering. Be patient, loving, and compassionate towards yourself! Becoming less reactive takes time.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognizing you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. When completing forms for comments or our mailing list, your information is kept confidential and is never shared or sold.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
Recent Comments