Making Mistakes
What’s your relationship with making mistakes? Does that seem like a silly question?
For many of us, making a mistake at work or with important people in our lives causes us great distress. It can poke at an old schema or negative belief about ourselves. The truth is, when we are able to put that aside, we can see mistakes are how we learn and grow. When we were babies, how many times did we fall before we learned to walk? Yet, it can be difficult to see that when we are triggered.
What I find to be helpful in moments where I am in a disempowered state is to engage in self-compassion. If my friends were experiencing this, how would I react?
Is being kind to yourself natural for you? Why not? Could you try? Would you try? You deserve to be treated well, understood, and accepted by the most important person in your life, you. You are it, the person who will always be in your life. Investing in you, your relationship with you, is incredibly valuable, you are valuable.
Relationship ruptures
There’s been an argument or miscommunication. Your partner or friend wants to talk it out, you are not ready. You need space. How many of us have been there? Most likely you’ve been on the receiving end of someone needing space from you and you may want to talk things out, however, they are not ready. It’s so painful, no matter which part you play. We’re left with having to regulate our emotions all on our own. There’s a tornado inside, I’ll lose control, I’ll fall apart, my heart hurts. Yes, all of that. There’s room in your heart to hold all of it and although it feels like you’ll lose control, you won’t. That little voice comes and messes with us, catastrophizing all our wounds. The more we repress our feelings the more out of control we feel. Is this one of those messages about feeling our feelings? Yes! Feel them, just for a second if that’s all you can do. Then a few more and then more. Ideally, after space has been had, you both can come back together and authentically and vulnerably share what’s on your hearts. Ruptures in relationships are normal, it’s how we come back together and repair that matters most. It’s also about building trust within ourselves and with the people we love.
My favorite thing about being a therapist
I love what I do, truly. Being a therapist didn’t feel like a choice to me, who I am as a therapist, is who I am as a person. I made a choice to use my gifts to help others. And if I had to choose one thing that I love the most, it would be getting to see people, really see them.
It’s the best. As a deep thinker and feeler, I know how important it is to have people in our lives who accept you just as you are. We are not out here earning love or validation from our therapist, at least I hope not. Being able to see the light and dark parts of people, or conscious and unconscious, and actively saying, great, that’s you, good to meet you. How amazing is that? How many of you have had that experience with loved ones? Most of us were taught to hide parts of ourselves because we were implicitly or explicitly told those parts are unacceptable. No, I don’t find that useful at all. What I find useful is asking, how’s this working for you? It’s not? Why? Curiosity and acceptance of self is how we can move through resistance and start taking small steps towards patterns or behaviors that are useful. This one little thing, seeing you just as you are and accepting you, it’s not so little and I’m so honored to be a part of your journey.
