Celebrating Women’s Day on 8th March
Usually when we think of celebrating women’s day, we take a posture of telling corporates how to treat women right and what they need to do for women advancement – which are really great and necessary stances to take, however this year – we want to provide everyone with additional perspectives and wisdom. Particularly in the view of empowering all of us women with being uncomfortable, in the context of failure and those emotions that come with failure such as grief, disappointment, regret and sadness.
Whenever I talk about “women” I always see them with this invisible thread behind them, like the never-ending list of tasks and roles they play in the lives of their families, friends and teams at work. When it comes to men, I have a different but equally emotional view of how I see them.
The first aspect is Self-love.
We don’t live in a culture or society that praises authenticity enough, and authenticity, in the context of authentic emotions, experiences and authentic self-compassion and self-love is something that we cannot fully understand. Failure should never be viewed as something that is a threat, because if we do we avoid the choices and actions that allow us to take risks – whether calculated or not. So let’s deal with self-compassion in the context of failure.
When we have authentic love for ourselves, seeing ourselves as worthy of love and connection in a way that is humble and factual, we allow ourselves to show up with vulnerability and authenticity; whether that be when we are playing with our children, making dinner, showing up in the boardroom or even alone to read a book or journal. We focus more on the process of life or of a particular event rather than the outcome. The lack of achievement of a particular event becomes less important about the lesson is magnified. Authenticity also brings forth a really powerful space to getting to know yourself as you are, not as you think you should be.
When we feel threatened by failure we avoid making mistakes or actions that are in the category of taking risks. Consider mistakes as lessons or just part of life that we accept and deal with – with self-compassion. The failure itself is often not the challenge but the emotions and speculative imagination for what others think of us, bringing feelings of shame, disappointment and unworthiness.
The Third aspect is sitting with uncomfortable emotions
When we are able to journal or jot down our emotions as they are, we staying in the vulnerability and authenticity of what we are feeling and not only that, we are also bringing the emotion from the right side (emotional) of the brain to the left (logical) and creating an “integrative brain”.
The fourth aspect is to avoid going down a path that would prevent good habits from being prominent and adopting bad habits. We often adopt bad habits out of the uncomfortable emotions and needing to escape them, such as alcohol, drugs, excessive other behaviours that keeps us from “dealing with the pain”
The fifth aspect is creating a space where hope dwells. Looking forward to something bigger that will emerge from inside ourselves as we put one foot in front of the other is powerful. Hope creates positive mental wellbeing and peace.
The sixth aspect is re-appraising the failure while remaining authentic about the space you are in. History is filled with stories of women (and men) that have become highly successful in spite and because of their failures, mistakes or “challenges” experienced along the way.
The last aspect is taking reasonable responsibility for the mistake. This would entail to work on doing better next time, based on what you have understood from what was in your control to change. Being abused as a child or anything else that was “done to you” is not your fault, but it is require that you change your posture towards the event armed with truth. Similary, if you bumped someone else’s car by mistake, you might acknowledge that you shouldn’t be on your phone next time while behind the wheel.
Further to this, some therapists believe in creating “an exceptions journal” (alongside the usual journal you write in daily) – creating a journal that you would write in when you “Did fail” and what emotions you experienced and how you overcame the emotions and the “failure” with praising the process instead of the outcome.
To sum it all up, through a process of remaining compassionately inquisitive and hopeful, with a heart posture of love and faith helps us to make friends with failure in ways that creates profound internal and external results in our daily and professional lives
Written by Candice Lambert, Registered Counsellor and Neuroscience Coach
References:
Gilbert P, The compassionate mind. London: Constable; 2009.
Leary M.R., Tate E.B, Adams C.E Allen A.B Hancock J. Self-compassion and reactions to unpleasant self-relevant events: The implications of treating oneself kindly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2007;92:887-904
National Library of Medicine “The Role of Self-compassion in Development: A Healthier Way to relate to Oneself”
