Fail Often, with Great Joy

This is important. No one has perfect judgment. No one can, should, must, ought, or needs to be responsible all the time. No one can avoid mistakes. No one can live up to their own expectations or the expectations of others. In fact, assuming too much responsibility is more linked to trauma than it is too sainthood. I wish I had learned this earlier in life and I will spend the rest of my life giving other people permission to do what I could not allow myself to do for most of my life - fail often with great joy.

Fail at being 100% available.

Fail at avoiding pitfalls and mistakes.

Fail at trying so darn hard.

And notice, in the midst of all this failing to achieve, that everyone else is also failing.

Normalize failing and practice non-shaming responses. If we can pair those two principles together, then we can create an environment that is less traumatizing. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Armed with what we know - failing is not bad but it is inevitable - share failings aggressively. This serves several important purposes. It de-stigmatizes our shame and it encourages others. When Pete fails, I do not think he is a failure; I sigh with relief that maybe I do not have to be perfect either. It provides me a chance to remind him that we all fall short, so what? It helps to share with safe people, and that may require some additional failing along the way. I'm amazed at how differently humans respond to my own confessions of shortcoming. Sometimes I share and then feel that I made another mistake in sharing; I want to lie and hide from my limitations. But others get curious, ask questions, help me turn my failure into an experience, and remind me that I am not a mistake - I made a mistake.

2. Be the person other people can fail around. This doesn't mean that we never give feedback, we can and do (with permission). We just figure out how to be a safe person in the midst of recovering fromfailure.

3. Notice that the only way to avoid failure is to stop learning, growing, and leaning out over our skies a bit. It leaves one with a very, very small life.

How is fear of failure holding you back?

Setting Aside Judgement

One of the first passages of scripture that held me captive for a long, long time was Matthew 7:1-2. It goes like this:

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

(NIV Translation)

In those days, my early 20's, I lived in a world filled with judgment. I could not imagine that it would be possible, even if I wanted to, to NOT judge and be judged in turn. Judgment was everywhere. I felt judged by Matthew 7, the very scripture that encourages NO JUDGING.

My own beloved grandmother, who I adored and was adored by, once told me in the middle of my own bout with anorexia, "Stay sweet and do not get stout." Wowzer, that was a bit off message. I was busy starving myself and she reminded me, in her own subtle way, that there was no such thing as a woman who was too thin.

Judgment judgment everywhere.

In the decades since, I continue to circle back to Matthew 7. I am so much older and much of the judgment of my youth has diminished. I have lost my will to judge, having seen how destructive it is especially in the hands of the ones we love the most. I have also lost my willingness to feel obligated to endure the judgment of others. Of course, there are days of relapse. I try not to judge myself when I fall back into the habits of childhood.

Here is what I am learning about Matthew 7. It is a pathway to freedom, not a judgment in and of itself. As a young woman, I heard it as a command too impossible to obey. Today I hear it as a voice of reason, inviting me, and all of us, into a different kind of life. A life, on the days I can live it, that is quite joyful.

Once we set aside judgment, or it is taken from us as a gift from our divine Healer, we can listen and marvel at all the manifold ways humanity expresses itself. Like Norah, who absorbs the new sights and sounds of Folly Beach without an ounce of judgment, we have the privilege of experiencing people in all their multitude. Matthew 7 is not asking us to get our act together so much as it is showing us what an abundant life looks like - in case, like me, others have never personally experienced a judgment free zone.

Do not judge - we are free not to! We can quit our comparing and competing. Yay for us!