Accepting mistakes without becoming defensive is one thing I have struggled with my whole life. I hate to have the lens of attention shining down on me, revealing things that I may or may not know about. I'm very introspective so I often have discovered many things that I want to fix, areas where I could improve. When someone points these areas out it feels like an intrusion on my personal battle for perfection.
Because that is what it is, a battle to rid myself of all incompetency, to make myself the paragon of cleverness and intelligence that I've always wanted to be. Mistakes are like daggers that pierce that perception and when pointed out they pierce deeper and I become defensive.
Defensiveness is a shield that I hold up when I feel the sting of shame. I am ashamed when it is obvious that I have failed, I am ashamed when I make mistakes because mistakes feel like failure.
When I was young mistakes were signs of incompetence, of stupidity. There used to be harsh criticism for failure in my early home. There were times I spent frantically cleaning my room in the hope that the angry voice of rejection wouldn't turn towards me, it was a child's reaction to the unknown.
As an adult I can see that it was a story that I told myself to explain what was going on in my home. I can see the broader picture now because I have more life experience. The residual and innate responses remain, however as the author of my own story I now have the power to edit and re-frame what happened to me in the past. I can give the character of ME a new direction to take, I no longer have to follow the old script.
Mistakes are still painful at times, I am learning how to deal with the pain instead of holding up a defensive shield. I can accept the mistake and view it as the learning tool that it should be, giving me the opportunity to improve and giving me a chance to build a better relationship with others.
Defensiveness is distancing, it is putting a space between yourself and others to avoid hearing the painful thing that they are saying. So learning how to accept things without internalizing them is what I am learning to do, at work and at home.
Some may not have the same battle to fight, maybe this battle is less important an issue to others than it is to me, but I do feel grateful that I have had the time to come to this point in my life. That is all for now.
SG
Because that is what it is, a battle to rid myself of all incompetency, to make myself the paragon of cleverness and intelligence that I've always wanted to be. Mistakes are like daggers that pierce that perception and when pointed out they pierce deeper and I become defensive.
Defensiveness is a shield that I hold up when I feel the sting of shame. I am ashamed when it is obvious that I have failed, I am ashamed when I make mistakes because mistakes feel like failure.
When I was young mistakes were signs of incompetence, of stupidity. There used to be harsh criticism for failure in my early home. There were times I spent frantically cleaning my room in the hope that the angry voice of rejection wouldn't turn towards me, it was a child's reaction to the unknown.
As an adult I can see that it was a story that I told myself to explain what was going on in my home. I can see the broader picture now because I have more life experience. The residual and innate responses remain, however as the author of my own story I now have the power to edit and re-frame what happened to me in the past. I can give the character of ME a new direction to take, I no longer have to follow the old script.
Mistakes are still painful at times, I am learning how to deal with the pain instead of holding up a defensive shield. I can accept the mistake and view it as the learning tool that it should be, giving me the opportunity to improve and giving me a chance to build a better relationship with others.
Defensiveness is distancing, it is putting a space between yourself and others to avoid hearing the painful thing that they are saying. So learning how to accept things without internalizing them is what I am learning to do, at work and at home.
Some may not have the same battle to fight, maybe this battle is less important an issue to others than it is to me, but I do feel grateful that I have had the time to come to this point in my life. That is all for now.
SG
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