I have been thinking a lot about mistakes lately in client sessions and in my life, perhaps because I have been reading John Bradshaw’s books again about shame.
I had this idea: We cannot NOT make mistakes because we cannot be all-seeing and all-knowing, and because our perceptions and actions are limited, and because we cannot predict the future.
Therefore, we will always make ‘mistakes’, thinking the solution or the next step is somewhere it is not.
Because we have intrinsic needs to grow, learn and develop, humans love a challenge. A challenge implies not knowing. If you knew already exactly what to do or what would happen, there would be no challenge.
Without so-called ‘mistakes’, we do not learn, grow and develop. I do not see how we could grow, learn and develop in a world where no one made mistakes. A world where no one made mistakes would be a bland and static world. Everyone would always know just what to do and exactly what was going to happen next. How boring!
Being limited and fallible is actually what makes us human and not gods. Being limited and fallible makes us vulnerable and necessitates humility. Vulnerability and humility require that we get (and stay) connected to other human beings. To insist that we never make a mistake is to enter the realm of perfectionism and to reject our very humanity.
Perfectionism is rejection-ism, as Brene Brown says.
So you can see that being limited and fallible is wonderful. It means we are fully human. Therefore,
embrace
fully
your
imperfect
self!
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