All the world is a very narrow bridge / the important thing is not to make oneself afraid.
Some small examples of recent loss in my life:
- The dog chewed through his nice periwinkle-colored leash.
- I lost my custom-made clown nose that looks like planet earth.
- I got a call from my boss about a problem at work.
- I sent an email to a group and forgot to BCC the addresses, thereby “leaking” people’s emails
In each case, there’s some grief — in the first two cases, purely for the material items I enjoyed. In the last two cases, for my internal identity as a “perfect” person beyond reproach or mistakes.
In the third case, I felt fear, catastrophizing. “What if I get fired? What if I never work again?” I came across this antidote to catastrophizing: think of best, middle, and worst case scenarios. Best case: nothing changes. Middle: there’s some training modules I have to do. Worst: I cause a major issue at work that hurts lots of people. I get fired and never work again in my field.
In every case, there’s a possible upside:
- Thanks to our dog chewing through his periwinkle dog leash, we got an even better one.
- While I don’t yet have a replacement clown nose, perhaps losing the earth nose will lead to placing an order for multiple earth noses, so that the Clown of Interbeing will have friends!
- I could learn something from training modules. I could develop a new identity if I don’t work in my field anymore.
- I could learn to pause before I send group emails in the future, and return to them later for proofreading
The important thing is to not make myself afraid. To not “fear-ify” myself. Yes, I’ve lost my identity as a “perfect” person, but this identity was bound to be lost. Real humans working in the real world make mistakes.
The important thing is to not make myself afraid.
I went to a meditation group last night where the theme was “taking up space.” I realized that a big root of my fear and shame in response to both taking up space, and to mistakes is a desire to be liked by everybody.
If fear and shame come up, I can say to the scared part of myself: “You are suffering. You are afraid. You think that people might hate you, exclude you. I see this. But people love you and the people who matter won’t cut their ties with you over small things. May you be happy and peaceful. May you water the wholesome seeds in your mind.”
My friend Alex gave me these mantras for dealing with feelings of fear and shame:
- “We all make this or similar mistake, it’s ok.”
- “The outcome is not as important as I’m making it out to be, it’s ok.”
- “I will be able to overcome the outcome, it’s ok.”
I’ll be trying out these ways of talking to myself in the coming months and years, when I’m sure I’ll make plenty of bloops, blops, and blunders.
danscreativeoulet 