Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott on what I would call a perfect summer's day.
It's warm,
The sun is shining but there's also a little bit of a cool breeze so it's just this wonderful mix of warmth,
Sunshine and coolness which for me when I'm walking is the absolute perfect combination.
And as I walk up this lane which takes me on to Dartmoor I am just marvelling at the illumination of the sun as it comes through the leaves and everything just feels as though it's green,
Like there is green everywhere.
This is the height of summer,
Everything is green and lush and looking at its best.
So beautiful to see and today my reflection is all about making mistakes.
I was walking with a friend recently and she's just turned 60 and I just said to her what have you learnt in your 60 years or if you had a lesson that you'd like to share what would it be and she thought for quite a while and she came back with a few things and one of the things she said was I think she said what I've learnt is that I am going to make mistakes and I love this conversation that we then went on to have because what we began to see is that part of the design of us as human beings seems to be that we will make mistakes.
Whatever our intentions,
However good our intentions,
Whatever our aspirations,
We will make mistakes.
Now it's one thing to deliberately go out to maybe hurt someone or to do something that is unfair or unkind or not compassionate but it's another thing when you don't have that as your intention at all and maybe you trip up or maybe you try to do something that's misinterpreted and you find out that you have actually just made a mistake and it seems to me that there are three ways you can deal with these mistakes.
Some people I guess don't even realise they've made a mistake or one of the things they might do is blame somebody else so they've made a mistake but they don't own it,
They don't take responsibility for their actions at all,
They blame other people.
And at the other end of the spectrum is that somebody takes full and utter responsibility for their mistake and not only takes full and utter responsibility for their mistake but that person also falls into a bit of despondency and despair as they keep experiencing the mistake they've made in their minds and keep beating themselves up or telling themselves off for being inconsiderate or for making a mistake or for not knowing better.
So that's the two ends of the spectrum,
One is you maybe blame other people and at the other end you take on full responsibility yourself but you can't let it go,
It just feels as though it's forever churning in your mind the mistake that you've made and you just keep remembering it.
And my friend and I considered a third option and that third option is that you just recognise that you've made a mistake,
Often what might come with that is a little bit of angst or unsubtle thinking that you've maybe hurt somebody's feelings or you've done something untoward but with that sense of those feelings there is no need to then go into a full spiral of despair at what you've done,
Instead you recognise what you've done,
You recognise you've made a mistake and if it's relevant you go and make reparation,
You make an apology,
You go and see if you can amend what you've done and this middle path seems to be the healthy way of dealing with mistakes.
It's completely unreasonable to consider that you will never ever make mistakes in your life,
That's not what it is to be human,
We do make mistakes but when we recognise the mistake that we've made and if it is suitable we go and apologise or make reparation for the harm that we have caused then it feels to me or it seems to me that that is our way,
Is the healthy way,
Is the nourishing way of managing the mistakes that we might make in our lives.
So just be honest with yourself as you reflect on how you tend to deal with mistakes that you make,
Do you blame others,
That's the first way,
You sort of blame others or the situation and you don't take any responsibility or do you at the other end of the spectrum take full responsibility and beat yourself up and feel quite despairing and unsettled at the mistake that you've made or do you take that middle route where you recognise the mistake you've made,
You understand you're human and you might make mistakes and you go out and apologise or find a way of making things better if you have hurt somebody in that mistake that you've made.
Which of the paths do you take?
