This morning, I opened a book I felt guided to, The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo, and this quote found me:
“Though words can carry love, they often point to it. It is the picking up of something that has dropped, and the giving of space for someone to discover for themselves what it means to be human, and the forgiving of mistakes when they realise that they are.”
It landed so deeply.
Because mistakes.
What is a mistake, really?
It’s something we make. Something we do.
Sometimes it’s missing the mark.
Sometimes it’s taking something that wasn’t ours.
Sometimes it’s just not seeing clearly in the moment.
This is how my brain works, spinning and unravelling and turning things over and over, and lately I’ve been sitting with how hard it is to make a mistake in this world.
We live in a society where we’re so deeply conditioned not to make them.
Like it’s a crime to mess up.
Especially as a big, grown-ass adult who “should know better,” right?
But here’s the truth:
We’re human.
We fuck up.
We hurt people, unintentionally.
We say the wrong thing.
We miss the moment.
We act from pain, or fear, or unconscious patterns.
And it’s painful. God, it’s painful.
As a recovering perfectionist, I’ll tell you, this has been one of the hardest things for me. To allow myself be human.
To show myself the same grace I show others.
To hold space for my own imperfection.
Because when we mess up, it’s not just about making amends with the other person. It’s also about making amends with ourselves.
And that’s the real work.
We have to live in this body.
With this mind.
With these thoughts.
And often, the hardest part isn’t even what happened, it’s sitting in the discomfort of knowing we messed up.
It’s the ickiness. The shame. The regret.
Even when our intentions were good. Even when it was all a big misunderstanding.
Maybe I’m just more sensitive than most.
But it hurts. Deeply.
And yet I also know this:
Mistakes bring our best learnings.
So how do we hold ourselves in that tender space?
How do we meet ourselves with compassion, instead of punishment?
How do we forgive ourselves, gently and honestly, while still taking responsibility?
This is the real path of growth.
Of being human.
Of returning to love, again and again.
From one human to another
Theoni