Failure, Forgiveness And Finding Your Purpose
What is failure, if not lessons in time to help us recognise our purpose? There’s not a single person on this planet that hasn’t experienced the feeling that they’ve let either themselves or someone else down. Failure comes in all shapes and sizes, but the common feeling of overwhelm and depression remains the same, no matter how big or small it may be.
The best way to help yourself when you feel like you have failed is to shift your perception from viewing the failure as final.
What we should be doing is seeing it as our stepping stone to change the direction we were headed. The best part about failure, and failing often, is that we no longer see failure as a crisis. Instead, we take failure as information, as a lesson in what doesn’t work, and a path that leads us towards that which does.
Most of us have preconceived ideas from our childhood of what failure looks like. Whether it was something your parents did when you were little or maybe even something you did that disappointed your parents. We carry these emotions with us and we still allow them to impact how we act and feel today.
Whatever the reason behind it, it’s time you allowed those emotions to be released and be grateful for the lessons they taught you.
So much of our life happens to guide us towards our purpose, but many of us are too focused on where we’ve been or what’s happened to see the opportunity it has presented us with.
So next time you feel disappointed and let down, instead of falling down the rabbit hole of despair, ask yourself a few questions to see what you can learn from what has happened. Being curious is the best way to unveil an emotion that is hiding under the surface.
IT’S OKAY TO FAIL
Failure is where we discover huge growth and opportunity.
Failing is where champions, and leaders are born.
The truth is, if you really want something, dealing with failure is just a hurdle along the way, and the one thing you’ll regret once you’ve lived your life is if you didn’t even try.
I have had a couple of big moments in my life where at the time I felt I had failed, and yes during those moments I felt I had ruined my life forever. But as we grow and get to know ourselves we begin to understand the backstory to those moments.
Now, the word failure isn’t even a word I recognise, because I wouldn’t be the woman I am today and my children wouldn’t be the incredible humans they are today, if I hadn’t stumbled and picked myself back up. And I don’t say that lightly, my biggest setback or turning point, but for this exercise ‘failure’ took me nearly 5 years to overcome. I buried my feelings and numbed out the pain as best I could and got up and kept going. But it wasn’t until I was prepared to deal with the pain I was carrying, that I finally saw that I always would have been a shell of the person I am now if that hadn’t happened.
DON’T LET THE FEAR OF FAILURE STOP YOU. BECAUSE DEALING WITH FAILURE IS EASIER THAN DEALING WITH REGRET.
TIPS FOR HELPING TO UNVEIL THE PURPOSE BENEATH THE PAIN
When frustration sets in; when you begin to feel bad, or mad, or sad it’s time to remember, where your attention goes, your energy flows. So stop replaying painful memories over and over and start listening to how they make you feel. Acknowledge the pain; cry, scream, ask it questions and let it go.
Life flows easier when you start and end your day with thoughts of happiness and gratitude. Tonight take a step towards a better tomorrow by thinking of 3 things that you are grateful for in your life. And in the morning, think of 3 simple things that could be possible throughout the day. Even as simple as you can make someone smile.
Be open to receiving, expect to receive, focus on receiving and seek where you’ve received in the past, but you missed the signs. If you look for it, you’ll find it, and when you do, celebrate that before you lose your drive because you need to stop and appreciate how far you’ve come.
There comes a time when you just have to stop doing, take a deep breath and move into being. Take the time to imagine feeling joy and fun and prepare to be amazed at how this simple act will take you further than any planning or action steps ever could. Your actions from this state of mind will turn out to be inspired.
Shift the belief system that says I am limited, I don’t have the talent, I don’t have the background or the luck that I need in order to experience what I want in my life. Break free from the idea that things don’t work out for you and wake up every morning with the thought that new opportunities are possible for you today.
Don’t think yourself into depression and defeat. Stop being your own worst enemy and decide to see yourself as the most fortunate person in all areas of your life. It’s this new attitude towards yourself that provides renewed faith that you can climb every mountain.
PEELING BACK THE LAYERS OF FAILURE
The overwhelming feeling of depression that follows the feeling of failure can be debilitating. It’s not a disease of the mind, it’s a disease of the heart. It is sourced in unexpressed, unreleased, and unhealed pain that is held deep within the physical and emotional body.
You can talk about it in therapy to soften its edges, you can medicate it in the hopes that it becomes more manageable, but the real work has to happen somatically, deep within the body itself.
The frozen feeling has to be thawed out, worked through, and released. Our shadow is not our enemy. Repression is.
Unfortunately, we still live in a world that is afraid of unveiling our emotions. So we bury them, and manage them with dissociative spiritualities, medications, and analysis (excessive analysis perpetuates emotional paralysis). All of this merely perpetuates the problem.
The only way to heal is to get to its roots. To get right inside those frozen feelings, and to thaw them out somatically.
We felt the initial pain in our hearts. We must go right back inside of our hearts to feel and resolve it. No more damming up our emotions. No more defences and denials.
Instead, a society-wide acceptance of the fact that we are all carrying pain. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. It's part of our collective experience. And a culturally embraced invitation to do the real work to heal its deep roots with body-centered psychotherapies.
The more we can love those who are struggling with depression, failure, loss of identity, loss of self-worth, the more strength they will have to reclaim their past and heal their hearts. They didn’t have support back then. Let’s give it to them, now.
Let’s create a safe societal container to bring those feelings back to the surface. THE FEEL IS FOR REAL. Let's feel our way back to life...
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