I once played tennis with a man who berated himself after every missed or faulty hit. “You idiot!” “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” “How could you miss that?” “Dummy!” What was supposed to be a game of fun was an exercise in self-condemnation. He wasn’t even aware of it; it was a conditioned response, perhaps taught to him by his parents. He would never talk that way to someone else.
We screw up and say “I can’t believe I did that! How stupid of me. I’m so embarrassed. My, what a wretch I am.” And I don’t think we’re embarrassed because of the mistake itself. I mean, if no one knew, would we feel as bad? It’s because of how people will judge and condemn us, reject us. We will be unlovable. But you would have to be perfect to not make any mistakes.
Mistakes are Neither Good nor Bad
I remember a story about an employee who lost his company a million dollars. When the boss called him into the office the employee said, “I suppose you’re going to fire me.” The boss exclaimed, “Fire you? I just paid a million dollars to train you!”
What would happen if we were to stop judging our mistakes as good or bad? If we removed all emotional weight from them, all condemnation? We would be in a much better position to view the mistake from all angles. We could consider better choices we could have made. We could actually learn from the mistake and not repeat it.
Society holds us accountable for our mistakes. It wants us to suffer. And so we accept that, judge ourselves poorly, and carry around needless, deadly guilt. Or we try to dismiss the mistake (without learning from it) by refusing to take ownership of it. “Yes, I made the mistake, but it was because so-and-so….” It takes a lot of energy to lie to ourselves which creates resistance in our body and soul.
In The Four Agreements the author rightly says that animals in nature pay for their mistakes once but humans pay over and over. First we remind ourselves repeatedly of our stupidity, and then our friends and loved ones throw our mistakes back in our faces.
If you have inadvertently harmed someone and it is in your power to correct what happened, to apologize, to mend, to compensate, then take responsibility and do so. Just refuse to carry guilt over your mistakes.
People Won’t Want to Let You Off the Hook
But be prepared. People aren’t going to like it. They’re going to want you to demonstrate appropriate guilt and remorse. They’ll want you to hang your head in shame and grovel for forgiveness. If you don’t, the person offended might think you weren’t really sorry, which means you aren’t really their friend or dutiful son or faithful employee. You harmed them and don’t care. To get right down to it, you have betrayed them. And they want you to hurt for a while like they hurt.
Emancipate yourself. Don’t let the demands or expectations of others cause you to condemn yourself for being human. Guilt will suppress your immune system and can make you sick. Do animals ever feel guilt? How unnatural!
One of the greatest benefits of forgiving yourself for your mistakes is that you’ll be much more forgiving of others. As they say, “What goes around, comes around.” So learn once and forgive yourself. And don’t make others pay a price for their mistakes.
Post inspired by The Power of Your Supermind.
