Of course you've messed up.
And here we are again.
That dark familiar place.
Reminds you of all the fiascos past.
Reminds you of every misstep.
Every embarrassing moment.
Every mortifying moment.
And all the times you think,
Why on earth did I do that?
Why on earth did I say that?
Why on earth did I put myself in that situation?
You might feel fundamentally flawed.
You might feel like an absolute fool.
You might question the validity of your whole existence.
You might want to climb into a cupboard and shut the door.
You might want to get into bed,
Pull the covers over you and not come out.
You might feel a knot in your throat or in the pit of your stomach.
You might feel smaller and smaller and smaller.
That horrible creeping sense of anxiety.
Absolutely mortified.
Oh,
It's a horrible feeling.
But you've been here before.
What if this time,
As mad as it sounds,
Just as an experiment in living,
An experiment in life,
And frankly,
We've got little left to lose.
What if we tried a slightly different route?
What if we chose to acknowledge the despair and acknowledge the feeling of being absolutely mortified and feeling like a fool?
But push back a little bit.
Argue with it a little bit.
And I know,
I know that in mindfulness we teach non-resistance.
However,
In the instances when we mess up,
And we all do at very regular junctures,
What about if we just push back,
If we just interrupt the thought train and say,
Listen,
How was I to know?
How were you to know?
Have you been in that situation before?
How are any of us supposed to lead an unblemished life?
How?
We know so little about the world and we know next to nothing about each other.
We're learning as we go.
We're learning on the fly.
And yes,
We accumulate wisdom over time.
That is true.
But we still know so little about the conditions of life.
School doesn't work.
Textbooks don't teach us about love,
Relationships,
Work,
And navigating life on a daily basis.
And yet we think it's our responsibility to lead an unblemished life.
We cruelly assume that we have the knowledge,
We have the tools,
Or we should have the knowledge,
We should have the tools,
We should have the skills to live without any significant missteps.
We feel angry and we're surprised and we really dislike ourselves for our failures.
But we have so few of the tools necessary.
Our brains are faulty walnuts at best.
And we never know what each day will bring.
The point is not whether or not we'll mess up.
The point is how badly will we mess up and in what area.
Because failure,
Missteps,
Messing up is the norm for all of us on a regular basis.
Each and every one of us.
We only see people's highlights.
We don't see the fact that everybody makes significant blunders.
Instead we torture ourselves thinking that others wouldn't have made our mistakes.
And they wouldn't.
They don't come from the same place as we do.
We have our own distinctive histories.
All the things that make us particularly predisposed to blindness and blunders and weaknesses in certain areas.
But they have their own history.
They have their own predisposition to blunders in their own areas.
They have their own weaknesses.
They just don't necessarily share them with us.
But what is true is that none of us is beyond regular encounters with total and utter stupidity.
We should accept this with grace.
We have to accept this with grace.
We need to soften our brittle attachment to dignity.
We need to be a little bit kinder to ourselves.
A bit more compassionate.
And just recognise what we're dealing with.
We need to be open to accepting our own ridiculousness and the ridiculousness of everybody around us.
We don't know the lives of others in sufficient detail.
But if we did,
We would see exactly the same misery,
Awkwardness,
Anxiety,
Cringing,
Wanting to curl up into a ball.
We aren't uniquely awful.
You aren't uniquely awful.
You just know yourself very,
Very well.
You're also an expert at beating yourself up.
But this is a sport you've triumphed at for far too long.
Put down the stick.
Find a comfortable position.
Any position.
And if there's anything you need to do to make yourself more comfortable,
Please do so.
Close your eyes if you'd like to.
You're giving yourself a break.
If your mind wanders,
It doesn't matter where it wanders,
To your to-do list,
To thoughts of what you're going to have for dinner,
Or to the event that's made you feel so mortified and brought you here today,
Very gently bring it back.
You're having a break.
This is your time for you.
Among the stresses,
Strains,
Ridiculousness of life,
Among the regular rejections,
Mortifying occurrences,
You need to take breaks,
Regularly.
Regularly.
Let your shoulders hang heavy.
And feel supported by the surface you're resting on.
You're safe here.
You are supported.
Resting.
Settling.
Repeating,
Either silently in your head or out loud,
If that's comfortable.
May I put down the stick I use to beat myself.
May I accept my mess-ups and the mess-ups of those around me as part and parcel of being human.
May I learn to be a little bit kinder to myself each and every day.
Very gently,
When you're ready,
When you're ready,
Coming back to the space around you.
Remembering that it's not a question of if you'll mess up,
If I'll mess up,
If we'll mess up.
It's when,
In what circumstance,
And quite how badly.
We simply don't have all the tools,
We don't have all the experience,
We don't have all the context to deal with the challenges and scenarios of everyday life.
So there's nothing uniquely awful about you,
There's nothing uniquely deficient about you.
We all have our challenges,
Our weaknesses and our blind spots.
So please,
Please,
Please commit to being a little bit kinder to yourself as time goes on.
And thank you so much for practicing with me today.
