The Point of Impact.

I made a mistake today.

Well, actually, the mistake itself occurred last week. But the fallout from it, and the damage it seems to have done, came to the fore today.

It wasn’t anything too noxious, and it certainly wasn’t deliberate: I unwittingly and unintentionally failed to respond to a particular communication. You know how ‘these things’ happen… A flurry of messages come in, on an especially busy and frantic day, and one of these falls to the bottom of the virtual pile. Doorbells ring, couriers arrive, children fall, staff malfunction, and the nett effect is that something is overlooked, and someone is thus untended to. And it’s completely understandable that this person is left feeling something in the vicinity of hurt, angry, frustrated or unimpressed.

Because such a mistake is unimpressive.

I’ve spent much of my afternoon feeling quite guilty. That gnawing, twisting unease. Maybe you’re familiar with it… Maybe you sometimes feel that way too.
I issued my apology - sincerely. I really am sorry. But the gnawing twist remains.

This oversight - and the unease and upset that I am feeling (even if the other party hasn’t given it a second thought) has got me to thinking.

Reframing… A Touch of Grace.

I attended a lecture recently, where an interesting idea was presented. The notion that any ostensibly “negative” emotion, or emotional response, can be extrapolated and ‘mined for meaning’. And that the meaning may actually shed a bit of gracious light on the predicament at hand. And that that ‘gracious light’ can assist us in deepening our self-awareness, and mastering our shortcomings.

The lecturer explained how grief, for example, indicates that there had been great connection and great love. And thus grief should be honoured, as an outcome and derivative of that love. And how jealousy, similarly, indicates that something or someone is valued, and the risk of loss is intolerable, and so threats to loss are hyper-perceived.

And, to my mistake, guilt is, in some senses, awareness of a higher ideal. And the result of a betrayal of that ideal self by our fallible and flawed humanity. But that the upward pull, and the hunger for it, shows what we value.

It may seem obvious, but I found this quite profound.

I hurt myself when I failed to respond mostly because I absolutely value courtesy, respect and connection. When I say that my entire business, and most of my life, is built upon relationships, I mean this completely. We are taught, in professional training programs, to be boundaried and ‘neutral’, as practitioners; clinical and business-like. But I’d be lying if I told you I’d ever mastered that… I care for the people who entrust their stories to me (and I know my colleagues do too). Yes, it’s a professional care. And yes, I’m skilled enough to honour the therapeutic frame and not overstep marks of propriety. But I have really authentic relationships with most of the people in my care. They are just service-oriented relationships, and relationships in which one person is the beneficiary and the other the benefactor. But, not unlike parenting, there are rewards for both parties. Just in different ways.

It’s not my intention to ramble for days on this point… But I did think it was worth writing up, for several reasons:

1. Mistakes feel like ‘failure’, until they are ‘mined for meaning’.

And then the meaning becomes our teacher.

My mistake underscores for me the premium I place on connection and respect. And the most banal evidence of disconnection and disrespect is an answered message. So I let myself down, but in grasping this meaning I find the urgency to recommit to my ideal, and DELIBERATELY prioritise it going forward. I slipped up because I got sloppy. Not just with my cellphone, but with my values in the moment.

What mistakes are you perhaps carrying, this week, or this month..?
What are your emotional responses to these mistakes..?
And then what do these emotions indicate about what you value, and where you are on your life path..?
As you ponder on this, allow these values to be re-established as primary.

2. It’s human nature (for many, but not all humans!) to generalize.

We’re often raised with injunctions like ‘a chain is only as strong as its weakest link’. Or that we are only as ‘good’ as our most recent performance, whether personally or professionally. Such adages are not at all forgiving. Nor are they very accurate; we simply have to take a marathon view of our lives and our professional, social and practical engagements. All of our stories are dotted with ‘wins, losses, draw and rematches’.

We also need to embrace the fact that we’re simply not bionic… We are human, and we are rendered vulnerable by all sorts of human ailments - tiredness, hormones, pain and illness, moods, stress, biorhythms, even unconscious impulses, out of our immediate awareness. And as much as we mostly all aspire to be perpetually in the zone, it’s unrealistic. In all honesty, I write about this because I battle with it, but I share it as I know it’s a truth…

How hard are you, on yourself..?

How accepting are you, of the fact that there will be days and phases where you’re ‘all left feet’. In those times grace and self-care are really valuable, in anticipation of the changing of the tides, when thing do flow easier, and gains abound.

3. And then, of course, we need to own our ineptitudes, and make reparations for them.

But maturely, and reasonably. Not sycophantically or disproportionately, as is sometimes the impulse, if not just to quell our own over-developed consciences. We need to acquire for ourselves a realistic assessment of the harm done, and intervene in a way that is reasonable, pragmatic and rational.

So I made a mistake today.

Well, actually, the mistake itself occurred last week. But the fallout from it, and the damage it seems to have done, came to the fore today.

And I’ve spent much of today feeling pretty poorly about it.

But I’ve mined the angsty, gnawing guilt for meaning, and ascertained that I’m so upset because it’s so unlike me to drop such a ball… But the ball was indeed dropped, and I cannot but own that… But, in owning it, I also have to separate out the realistic offence, from my tendency for the dramatic, in instances where I feel that I have let myself down.

And so I made a mistake. But I’ve processed it. I’ve owned it. And I’ve learnt. And I invite you to put your own mistakes and shortcomings through a similar ‘mill’, and benefit from what you learn about your values, and who you aspire to me.

I’d love to hear of how you deal with potholes along the way in your own journeys. You’re welcome to share on any of THE SHRINK ON YOUR COUCH platforms at your disposal.

Stay tuned!
Much love,
Debbie