Thanks for your thoughts — I’m glad you took the time to comment! Your last statement really made an impression on me, as I’m so hard on myself. I berate myself for even the smallest mistakes, and would never keep myself around if I were a friend.

Over the next week, I’ll dwell on your words to treat myself with compassion, forgiveness, humility, and a sense of humour….

Be well,
Laurie
.-= Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen´s last blog post..Different Types of Pet Memorials – Help Grieving Cat or Dog Loss =-.

I think that author meant that dwelling on mistakes and berating ourselves for them is conceited because … it speaks of an underlying assumption that we should not make mistakes, that mistakes are beneath us, that we are too special to be making mistakes. We are holding ourselves above that, to a perfect ideal, in full expectation that we can achieve it!

Really … who are we to think that mistakes should not happen to us?

Owning our humanity and the inherent imperfection encompassed in that condition is hard for any of us who’ve been kicked when we’re down, especially as children. Perfectionism is a great defence when it works – invulnerability to criticism and rejection is the goal; being faultless appears to give us incontrivertible, legitimate empowerment.

But we must gently remind ourselves that life is in the living, and that in order to become great we must necessarily start out not in that condition, i.e. not-great. Else where could life take us?

Treat yourself with compassion, forgiveness, humility and a sense of humour when you make a mistake. Connect to others and experience the common humanity of stuffing up.

And a parting thought – if our best friend berated us for our mistake as much as we berate ourself, would we keep her around?

“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” — Sydney Harris

The problem with not taking action (and regreting that more than taking action and making mistakes) is that we don’t know what could’ve happened. You called it the “unknown possibility”, Gini.

The unknown is harder to deal with because ANYTHING could have happened! Yes, I can see how that could be harder to deal with than making mistakes and moving on. You’re dealing with infinite possibilities…some of which you haven’t even considered.

But, there is still a lesson there: “it’s better to regret the things you did do than the things you didn’t do.”

Hubby Bruce and I used to debate regret (not taking action) versus remorse (making mistakes and moving on). We agreed that we’d rather deal with remorse than regret!

So, thank you for this life lesson Take action, my friends! It’s better to take action and regret it, instead of not doing anything and being remorseful.

Ahhh…the infamous “if only”….

If only I spent less time regretting what I did and didn’t do, and more time tackling new things….

As always,
Laurie
.-= Laurie PK´s last blog post..Love or Infatuation? 5 Ways to Tell If It Could Be True Love =-.

This topic is huge for so many people – letting go of the ‘shame’ around making mistakes is big and so freeing.

For me, I don’t regret mistakes I’ve made so much as the things I didn’t do. With mistakes I’ve made I’m good at looking at the important growth lesson – I view most situations in life as opportunities for enhanced self-awareness, growth, healing, experience and so on. But for some reason I have a hard time letting go of what I could have (or should have) done. The message that rings in my mind is the unknown possibility of what wonderful things could have happened if I only I did such and such in the past (like promoted my book more when it first came out).

Any suggestions on how to let go of what could have been?

Gini
.-= Gini Grey´s last blog post..Faith =-.