Everyone fucks up. No one is immune to that feeling of wanting the ground to open up and swallow you up entirely when you say or do something stupid. Or impulsive. Or prideful. We all make mistakes, and we all are required to own up to those mistakes. People definitely don’t think that they do, but they do. Learning how to recover from making a mistake is a major part of growing up, and one that I think many parents fail to teach properly. Mostly because adults aren’t great at taking responsibility for their actions, and definitely not skilled at accepting their own mistakes with grace.
And it does suck- it sucks to make mistakes, to put yourself out there and get rejected, to realize that you created a system of belief that actually incomplete or incorrect. It’s sucks to look dumb in front of everyone whose opinion matters to you. It extra sucks to look embarrassing in front of strangers who don’t know that this is just a dumb mistake and not who you are normally. But there isn’t a single person on this earth who hasn’t had the exact same kind of experience, one way or another. The circumstances are wildly different, but everyone knows that feeling of standing up in front of people with egg on your face and sinking feeling in your gut.
SO what do most people do when they feel uncomfortable or guilty or ashamed? Lash out! Anger is much more comfortable to put on, and makes those awful feelings go away, at least temporarily. It gives you energy and occupies your mind and allows you to shift the blame of your mistake from you to them. Then you can live with yourself again- despite the fact that you are living within the lie of anger. At the end of the day, when you are tossing and turning in your bed and anger seems just out of reach, those feelings of guilt or embarrassment will return a hundred fold, and you will be just as ill-equipped to deal with it now as you were then— but now you’ve burned bridges along the way in your anger. The anger that allowed you to “survive” burned the strings that connected you to family and friends. It’s hard to overcome that kind of damage in a relationship, and you might not have as many supports as you did before everything happened. After all, who would want to stick around to be blamed for your mistakes?
That has been a major challenge that I set for myself. I tend to get competitive, and I tend to get very cold and analytical (Terminator Brain!) when challenged. I loathe making mistakes as I’ve prided myself on building a reputation of someone who knows things and knows how to solve problems. As a social worker, you are trained a bit, but a lot of that instinct has to be painstakingly developed. I tend to remain on the quiet side of things and observe the situation for awhile before jumping in with any ideas because I am so determined to not screw something up. And the feelings that come up when i do make a mistake? AWFUL. Absolutely awful. BUT. I get to choose how to react to that realization. While my mind throws an immediate tantrum to that concept, my mouth doesn’t get permission to speak those things out loud. My initial reactions to a situation cannot be helped- but my behavior is completely under my control, and I have no one to blame but myself if I let my ego and pride take control.
So now I try to laugh- laugh at myself and laugh at the situation. Instead of pouting or shutting down or getting defensive, I roll my eyes at myself, make a quick joke about missing the point, and ask to get educated on the situation so I don’t make the same mistake twice. It’s fucking HARD to laugh sometimes- sometimes I am really embarrassed and I even have to leave the room for a bit to get myself under control. But I won’t inflict cruelty upon someone else for my own mistakes anymore- I’m better than that now, and I am not ashamed that I am in a constant state of growth and learning.
Growth is uncomfortable as hell. But it’s the only thing that makes life, and you, better in the end.