http://simplecourage.blogspot.com/
George
Bernard Shaw said: "A life spent making mistakes is not only
more honorable, but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing."
That's an interesting thought, isn't it? Is it true? Can
mistakes actually be honorable? I've been pondering on this
lately, and I think the conclusion that I've come to is: it
depends. Sometimes, a life spent making mistakes translates into a
life of doing nothing and creates a great deal of pain for people
connected to the individual. In other instances, mistakes
become powerful gifts that hold powerful lessons that shape us and
impact us in meaningful ways.
Researchers
have found that by the time a person reaches the age of 60, enough
"bad experiences" have occurred in a person's life to
provide what we call "wisdom". Simply put, wisdom is
the ability to know what is and what is not worth being upset
about.
For
example, being a child of the 80s, I definitely have one or two
hairstyles that I would classify as a MISTAKE! My daughters,
when looking at some of my childhood photos, have asked more than
once "Mom, did you think your hair looked good in that picture?"
I usually will laugh and answer that "yes....at the time I
actually did think my hair looked good in the picture, but that I
realize now it
did not!
However, with a couple more decades of "wisdom" in
my pocket, I know that those embarrassing photos are not worth being
upset about.
I
wish that bad 80s hairstyles were the sum of mistakes made in my
life. However, that is not the case. Those "bad
experiences" would not yield enough wisdom to really serve me
well. As I review my life inventory, I can find many more
critical mistakes I have made that have led to more meaningful and
useful wisdom. These include judging another person too harshly
or continually trusting somebody who is not trustworthy. They include
being determined to make something happen, when the best course was
actually not the one I was so determined to pursue. They
include risks I was too scared to take and putting energy into
pursuits or relationships that really didn't matter. They
include times I acted with recklessness and times when I was not
compassionate....either with myself or somebody else. They
include times that I was hurting and thereby ended up hurting
somebody else. In recovery, we refer to this inventory of
painful moments we walk back and review as the dark night of the
soul. It is a necessary step in stripping away denial and
facing the dark and secret side of the self. It's an
opportunity to meet the shadows on the wall and to uncover the
unbearable truths they conceal. It requires sorting through all
of your feelings and experiences. It requires taking full
responsibility for yourself. Without this step we are unable
to harvest the important lessons our history holds. This is the
process in which our mistakes transform into gifts. To leave this
step undone, is to spend a lifetime doing nothing. This process
teaches us a way of focusing on what we can take away from every
experience and prepares us for profound, meaningful change. In
recovery, we call these opportunities "wake-up calls."
Several
years ago, on a warm August evening, I was sitting on my front porch
by myself, listening to the sounds of my neighborhood....the lawn
mowers, neighbor kids playing, the sound of skateboards on sidewalks.
It had been a typical hot August day and I was feeling drained
and exhausted. It had also been the day of my father's funeral.
As I sat and contemplated on the events of the day, the past
week, the previous years of my life and of my father's life, I was
experiencing profound sorrow. My father had lived a life of
mistakes that at the end, translated into a life spent doing nothing.
It was painful to be in a relationship with my father. It
hurt. As I contemplated on the wounds this created in my life, I
asked myself a painful and poignant question: Based on the
wounds I experienced as a child, and the behaviors that sprang from
those wounds....I wonder what it's like to be in a relationship with
me? More important, I wondered what it was like for my children
to be my children. That led to some honest conversations with
each of my kids, which had mixed reviews. I learned that I hold back.
That they feel loved, yet they also had experienced my being guarded,
protecting myself so that I don't get hurt....which is a technique I
learned as a young child. I learned that they love me and they
know I love them, but they also feel when I hold back. This
wasn't something I intended to do with my children. Intellectually
I know I am an adult, but intellect wasn't enough to move me out of
childhood wounds, beliefs or behaviors. I am grateful they had
the courage to be open and lovingly honest. (We all have room for
improvement, right?) After my conversations with my girls, I
went to my husband and had a similar conversation with him. The
truth about myself emerged in a deep way and brought with it profound
resolve. Nothing brings focus like pain.
It
was then that the light began to dawn over this vast reservoir of
love deep within me that was layered over by wounds of the past. I
had a whole new appreciation for how precious pain is. I began
to see that only by experiencing the pain could I begin to create a
life of my own choosing. Mistakes of the past served as the
content for wisdom going forward. That was a wake-up call that
brought me to a deeper understanding of who I am and how I am and
gave me options for being different. The gifts that came from the
difficult conversations are precious to me. I am grateful I was
able to begin the process of changing the mistakes I was making and
thereby deepening the relationships I have. Since that day, the
wake-up calls continue and the process of creating a life of my
choosing is never ending. I don't know that answering the wake-up
calls has gotten easier. What I do know is that to do so yields
rich rewards.
"The
universe doesn't like secrets.
It
conspires to reveal the truth, to lead us to it."
--Lisa
Unger.
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