We all make mistakes. We all do things wrong. We calculate things in a way that later
we realize should've been different. The question is, what are you to do when you realize you have made a mistake?
I didn’t make the best plans this summer. Nothing went the way I thought it would
and/or wanted. I miscalculated some things. I made a few mistakes, nothing huge, no
one is hurt. But these are things that keep me up at night. These things make me
anxious and, to be honest, sometimes the stupid silly mistakes make me feel like a
serious failure. I ask myself “How could I have not thought about that? Why did I do
this? How did I not know?”
It’s funny how one wrong choice about something not that important will erase years of accomplishment. It will erase the prizes and the acknowledgements. It doesn’t matter how good or talented I know I am; when I make a wrong choice or a mistake, even something trivial, I immediately feel like the biggest loser alive.
I work with people who have made very big mistakes.
I work with people who make mistakes that are irreversible.
I work with people who had to pay very high prices for the mistakes they made.
I am inspired again and again by the massive sizes of their hearts, the humility and the
ways they deal with their shame regarding the mistakes that they made.
I am a sucker for accountability. What I love the most about my students is the way they
own their shit. It leaves me in complete and utter awe again and again!
Many of my peers will not own the silliest of their mistakes. They will sugar coat,
gaslight or pretend they didn’t happen. Then, there are my brilliant students who, in
complete transparency, share their stories, share their business, hold their truths and
share them.
“I am my worst enemy, Ms.” he told me.
“I have so much trauma and then I did all this stuff. I get in my head and it’s not pretty.”
“Well,” I say, “it doesn’t need to always be pretty.”
“Oh, Ms.” he tells me, “This is motherfucking ugly as ass.”
“So, let it be ugly” I say.
“Ms., I go hating myself.”
“Well, sometimes we don’t like ourselves. Sometimes I really don’t like myself either
and I hate the mistakes I make” I tell him.
“Ms.” He looks at me, “Seriously? You are not supposed to like your mistakes. If you did,
then they wouldn’t be mistakes. Do you know anyone who likes their mistakes?” he
laughs.
“Ms., you told us that our mistakes do not define us,” someone said.
“True,” I say,
“So, why you go hating your mistakes?” she added.
I smile.
I speak often about the need to be accepting of other people’s mistakes. How we must
not judge them and look at the whole story, not just one page of that story.
Circumstances matter. I don’t talk enough about accepting our own mistakes and letting go of the “coulda shoulda woulda.” Instead, think and focus on how now you will do things differently.
“The problem is those damn mistakes eat you. They burn and sting and you really can’t
do anything about dem feelings, except maybe down a bottle of tequila.”
“Girl,” someone says out loud “that don’t do shit!”
“Well,” I say, “you need to let it burn, sting, and feel like shit and then it will sting less and burn a little less and you will feel better every day that goes by.”
“I will never get over what I did.” He said “My mistake is part of me, it sits here on my
shoulder and is just there. I did it, it was wrong; it doesn’t matter that I was high and
gang banging. I did a bad thing, it was wrong and that wrong is now my friend, a friend
that taught me the most important lessons in life, and I try to find gratitude in that.”
I let that sink in for a moment.
“I think that is the work. Find the lesson, learn from the mistake” I say.
“Ms., you need to be grateful for the mistakes and don’t hate yourself because of them,
love yourself because you survived them.”
I look at this man. He has tattoos across his face. He was locked up for three decades.
He is wise and kind and I absolutely adore him more than I can say in words.
I know society will not be forgiving.
I doubt many people will have the privilege of time with him and/or have the chance to
hear his profound manifesto.
People will judge him by his mistake. What a darn shame.
He is so and I mean so much more than anything he did in the past.
He is gentle. He is intelligent and so incredibly, incredibly generous.
What a terrible, huge mistake to not give him the space and chance he not only deserves but has every right to.
