Mistakes are a part of life. We all make mistakes. Some mistakes are small and insignificant and some of them are huge and impactful.
However, when I make a mistake- small or big, I have feelings towards myself – I might feel angry with myself for making the mistake, I might blame myself, I might also feel worried about the effect of the mistake on the situation, on other people.
There are other repercussions to it too. I might lose confidence; I might lose credibility and trust. I might also lose motivation and courage to do the task again.
As you can see mistakes can affect us in multiple ways.
The question that might arise is: How can I love myself when I make mistakes? Or do I even deserve to love myself?
Do watch the video or continue reading to understand the process we can follow
to move from self-blame to self-love and how we can practice self-love when we make mistakes.
Let me give you an example. Recently I had a situation when I found myself saying something that I shouldn’t have. The words had been said. I could not take it back. I was immediately regretful, and I had no clue why I had acted the way I did.
The story got more complicated by the way the other person reacted. There was anger and an unsaid blame in the voice.
Having a sensitive nature, I went into a self-reproaching conversation with myself: ‘How stupid could you be?’ ‘Couldn’t you have been more careful’. I might have asked the question ‘why?’ multiple times: ‘Why did I do this?’ ‘Why am I behaving so badly? And over the next hour, I found my energy dipping and my mood getting worse.
When we make mistakes, while we might have hurt the other person, we are hurting too. Most of the time our focus is on the mistake and the damage we have done. However it is important for us to notice and acknowledge that when we are hurting, we need self-love and self-compassion to heal. Only when we give ourselves self-love, we are in a better position to rectify the mistake and make amends.
Stage 1: Giving myself Self-Love
Let me go through the steps I followed to come out of the self-blame by giving myself self-love.
Step 1: Acknowledge the mistake
I first did acknowledge to myself that I made a mistake. Acknowledging to oneself helps prevent sweeping feelings and the situation under the carpet. Being honest with oneself is a must in self-healing and is an integral part of self-love.
Step 2: Acknowledge my intention
I then acknowledged that I did NOT have any intention to hurt the person or say the things I did. It was a mistake, not an intentional crime.
Step 3: Identify the pattern
Initially I couldn’t understand why I had acted so badly. If there was no intention to hurt, then why did I say those words? For a while I had no clue. But slowly it dawned on me that it was a pattern, a pattern of communication that I have brought with me from my childhood. A pattern that has helped me sometimes but has also created these weird speech responses in me at times.
Step 4: Breathe and give myself love
Once I was able to do all the above, it was far easier to give myself love. I breathed slowly and consciously for a few minutes. That helped a lot to actively practice kindness to myself and I was able to tell myself: ‘You had good intentions, there was never any intention to hurt. However, you have some old patterns that got in the way. In time, you will slowly heal your patterns and bring more awareness into your communication.’
Stage 2: Taking corrective action
Once I was able to complete stage 1 of giving myself love, I was in a much better position to look at remedial actions. Releasing our negative emotions helps us get to a place of greater comfort where we have the band-width to take action.
Step 1: Acknowledge a need to repair and restore
Once I realized that it was a pattern, not a conscious wicked impulse, I knew I had to repair it. So, I sent a message to the other person clarifying what had been on my mind and clearly stating my pure intentions. I felt much better as I sent the message.
Step 2: Handle the anger from the other person
Even after sending the message, the other person was clearly still angry at my behavior. Her anger affected me again and I had to repeat the process of breathing in self-love. I took care not to go back to a place of self-blame.
Step 3: Let time do the work
I realized that people need time to let go of their anger and resentment. I did a process called figure 8 (I teach that to my clients and in my meditation classes- a Phyllis Krystal technique). That helped me distance myself from their anger.
Step 4: Gave myself self-forgiveness
After all this work, I reached a point of allowing myself a chance at forgiveness. I repeated the statement, ‘I forgive myself for doing this mistake’. I also followed the Ho’oponopono technique (from the Hawaiian tradition). I hope to teach this at some time, and you can look it up on YouTube too.
Step 5: Look at the pattern and work at healing it
Finally, I reach a point where I am willing to look at this pattern and work at healing this. I must say that the healing process will take time and energy but rectifying the pattern will mean I will be more conscious with my words and not repeat the same mistake again.
This was the multi step process of moving from self- blame to self-love and is especially useful when we beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. I hope this was useful for you. Do leave a comment here and let me know how you like this article.