I learn so much from mistakes, I am going to make more of them.

Mistakes stink. But not if you look at what you get from them. This is probably the single most important activity we can do to help us heal. Forgive ourselves. Often when we make mistakes or blame ourselves (even for something we didn’t do) the self judgment takes off like a rocket, causing all kind of spiritual, emotional and physical dis-ease. It is time to stop this rocket.

In the last five days I launched a meditation series and devised a plan so that those registered could receive a password each day to retrieve the meditation for free. As this is the first time, I figured the technology might not go smoothly and so set time aside to make adjustments as they come up.

The first day, the volume on the recording was too low. The second day, we realized the comments did not work for non bloggers. And each day, I listened to feedback and tweaked the password process to make it more user friendly. I probably made it more complicated this way, because it is still throwing off some people. But you live and learn. That is just it. When we are flexible and expect life’s up and downs we are less disappointed in ourselves when they come. Instead of immediately delving into the chaos of feeling like a failure, we can view the problem from a distance. As an observer, we can approach the problem from a new perspective. Instead of thinking of mistakes as epic fails, we just take action to adjust as move on.

It is the judgment that intensifies any hard feelings and sometimes keeps us stuck. This judgment comes from expecting things to happen a certain way (being inflexible). And when they do not go that way, we often feel like we deserve the guilt. Also, when things don’t happen in a certain way, fear arises because we feel out of control. But our response to it is always in our control. Guilt and fear can propel action to change things and make things right, but after that they are useless. Read about fear. Read about guilt. When we are flexible and adjust swiftly and without much fuss, we can actually experience success, even through mistakes.

Victim of mistakes

And if there is one thing I want to share with this meditation process is to suspend judgment. Read about judgment. I am walking the walk this week. And, I have refused to feel like a victim of technology even when that self doubt came knocking on my door this week. Read about self doubt. I did not give it the time of day. When we feel like a victim of our mistakes or problems, we do feel out of control, like we have no personal agency (that we are in agent of change in our life).

Instead of feeling like a victim of technology, I drew upon my agency and chalked it up as a learning experience. Since I love to learn, I should love mistakes, right? Right! A new perspective of mistakes: Let’s make more of them!

I read a blog recently about creativity being better when it is limited. Read in Kristen Lamb’s blog under ‘erect boundaries’. And it fascinated me as I felt it held true in my life. But also, creativity needs to be flexible.

And so I am adjusting. I am going to keep the same password for the rest of the series. Once you register (by following the blog by email) you’ll get the password and it will remain the same for the rest of the meditation series. So you can just bookmark the meditation page and if you are on the same computer as yesterday, it might actually keep you signed in.

Has it been hard to forgive yourself? Why?