How do you treat yourself when you make mistakes?
How do you treat yourself when you make mistakes?
Last week I created an opportunity, and right at the end I made some mistakes and it didn’t work out.
Obviously, I didn’t do that on purpose, but the way my mind was talking to me you would have thought I did:
“What the @#$@#, Alana! WHY did you do that?”
“Why do you always mess up?”
“Why can’t you just get it together?”
“Why didn’t you just do it right?”
“Why aren’t you better?”
“Why haven’t you learned by now?”
But as that was happening, something amazing happened.
I HEARD those thoughts like voices, OUTSIDE of me.
I recognized my scared mind as my scared mind,
That it wasn’t “me”,
It was just my mind, like a small fearful dog, that despite its fear, ran in front of me to protect me,
Trying its best to keep me safe from future mistakes by barking those thoughts,
It wasn’t trying to hurt me,
It was trying to help me,
It wasn’t realizing that it was barking AT me,
It was just scared and protective and doing the only thing it knew how to do,
FOR me.
And because I realized this, I was able to create so much love and space inside myself to allow this fearful dog to be there,
To love it and hold it and even thank it.
And because I was able to do that, I was able to turn the situation around:
Instead of beating up this scared dog that was trying to help,
I could be the one protecting it.
To me, this looked like looking in the mirror and telling myself,
“I know you just want to protect me. I’m sorry I abandoned you in the past when you were just doing what you knew how to help me. You think I’m going to abandon you again. I’m not. I’m here. I love you. Thank you for getting me here. You’re afraid and that’s ok, I’ve got us now, we are safe, and we are going to keep going with our plans and goals. And you are allowed to come with me exactly as you are.”
I know I can now show up in my life and set scary goals and try new things, because I know that no matter what happens, I have learned to have my back.
Because I know that every “failure” is another opportunity to learn to love myself more.
So I just wanted to tell you:
No matter what you’ve done, or haven’t done, no matter what you’ve achieved or haven’t, no matter where you are,
You are capable of so much more love that you think,
And you are so worthy of it.
Just because you're not always doing it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. It’s always there.
Have an amazing week.
Love, Alana
PS: You know I’m all about calendaring and goal setting. On the surface it’s about accomplishing all the fun things. But what it’s really about is learning to love yourself more: because you learn to let yourself want what you want, learn to go for it even when it’s scary, learn to accept and celebrate your successes, and learn to be there for yourself when you fail so that you keep going and keep showing up for yourself. And all those fun things? They are just the inevitable by-product. I am so passionate about this because everyone deserves to have the best thing in the whole world: themselves.
If you're curious about working with me one on one to develop this relationship with yourself AND get things done, sign up for a free consult.