Making mistakes is human

Ever said that dumb thought out loud and regretted it? Don’t worry, making mistakes is human, and it’s important to allow yourself the freedom to make mistakes.

This is my first day,” Mae noted.

And then Mae, who intended to say “I shit you not,” instead decided to innovate, but something got garbled during her verbal innovation, and she uttered the words “I fuck you not,” knowing almost instantly that she would remember these words and hate herself for them, for decades to come.

“You fuck me not?” he asked, deadpan. “That sounds very conclusive. You’ve made a decision with very little information. You fuck me not. Wow.”

Mae tried to explain what she meant to say, how she thought, or some department of her brain thought, that she would turn the phrase around a bit … But it didn’t matter. He was laughing now, and he knew she had a sense of humor, and she knew he did, too, and somehow he made her feels safe, made her trust that he would never bring it up again, that this terrible thing she said would remain between them, that they both understood mistakes are made by all and that they should, if everyone is acknowledging our common humanity, our common frailty and propensity for sounding and looking ridiculous a thousand times a day, that these mistakes should be allowed to be forgotten.’

Dave Eggers. The Circle.

‘We try to do our best, but even then we will sometimes get it wrong. (Besides that, is there really a person on this planet who always does their best in everything?) Making mistakes is part of being human and an essential part of any learning process. The only way to avoid it is to do nothing, which is probably the biggest mistake of all. Commitment means we take effective action, allow ourselves the freedom to make mistakes, accept ourselves compassionately when we screw up, and carry on moving in a valued direction.’

Russ Harris. The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT.

Give yourself the gift of forgiveness

You can learn to live well, says Maya Angelou (born this day 1928) by enjoying life’s little gifts. And forgiveness is the one gift you can give and get every day.

Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.‘

Maya Angelou. Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

‘Your mind may have a lot to say about forgiveness. It may say that you aren’t strong enough to forgive, that you shouldn’t forgive, or that everything will be better once you forgive. In our experience, strong emotions come up when people think about forgiveness. You may feel anxious, sad, tense, relieved, or content. The key to dealing with these reactions is practicing loving-kindness toward your experiences. They are not your enemy—nor is forgiveness. See if you can imagine giving yourself the gift of forgiveness. You may have to give yourself this gift many, many times. Sharing a cup of coffee with a friend is a gift to yourself; drinking, using, or bingeing and purging is not. Saying no and refusing to be taken advantage of is a gift to yourself. Smiling at the cashier and sharing a joke with a coworker is a gift to yourself; spending hours ruminating on the unfairness of it all isn’t. Reading this book and allowing yourself to soak it in is a gift to yourself. Life will ask you every day, sometimes many times during that day, whether you choose to let yourself off the hook or not. Isn’t that wonderful? Who knew you could be empowered to give yourself a precious gift every day?’

Victoria Follette and Jacqueline Pistorello. Finding Life Beyond Trauma: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Heal from Post-Traumatic Stress and Trauma-Related Problems

How to deal with self-criticism

Self-criticism is part of what the mind does. Don’t ignore your inner censor. Listen, smile, and make peace with those thoughts.

It helps to think of that inner censor as a beloved but annoying friend who has moved in for the duration. That friend is never going away. So you make peace with your inner censor. You say some version of, thanks very much for sharing, and then move on, past that censoring voice, and into your work.”

Dani Shapiro in an interview with Salon.com, talking about her book Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life.

‘Learning mindfulness (like life in general) will always present difficulties and obstacles. Perhaps you’re pretty nasty to yourself through excessive self-criticism when things don’t work out how you want them to. The way to deal with this harsh inner voice is to listen to it, give it space to unfurl and bring to it a sense of curiosity in a gentle, warm way.

I used to be very self-critical of everything I did. When I first practised yoga, for example, I thought about how bad I was at doing the poses. The voice telling me I’m bad at yoga comes back occasionally, but now I simply notice it and usually smile when I hear it. The negative thought usually dissipates quickly after that and I and I can carry on with my yoga (which I am now better at through steady practice!).’

Shamash Alidina and Joelle Jane Marshall. Mindfulness Workbook For Dummies

Stay calm, don’t anticipate problems

Jules Verne (died this day 1905) knew that it doesn’t help to anticipate problems or dangers. It is much better to remain in the moment, stay calm, and only deal with the problem if it actually arises.

Meanwhile, Ned Land gave free vent to his indignation.

‘Confound it!’ cried he, ‘here are people who come up to the Scotch for hospitality. They only just miss being cannibals. I should not be surprised at it, but I declare that they shall not eat me without my protesting.’

‘Calm yourself, friend Ned, calm yourself,’ replied Conseil, quietly. ‘Do not cry out before you are hurt. We are not quite done for yet.’

‘Not quite,’ sharply replied the Canadian, ‘but pretty near, at all events. Things look black. Happily, my bowie-knife I have still, and I can always see well enough to use it. The first of these pirates who lays a hand on me – ‘

‘Do not excite yourself, Ned,’ I said to the harpooner, ‘and do not compromise us by useless violence. Who knows that they will not listen to us? Let us rather try to find out where we are.’

Jules Verne. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.

‘If you find yourself anticipating distress, calculating your escape … your anxious thoughts will intensify. When this happens, try to stay in the now, and your panicky thoughts will settle down. Do what you can to return your focus to your immediate surroundings and your breath. You may notice people having a conversation nearby, or the texture of the carpet, or the colors in a poster.’

Bob Stahl and Wendy Millstine. Calming the Rush of Panic: A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Guide to Freeing Yourself from Panic Attacks and Living a Vital.

How to observe your own thoughts

Sometimes, when life gets a little too ‘soap opera’, it can be useful to step back and observe your thoughts and emotions.

At this point, how my life starts to feel is like I’m acting in a soap opera being watched by people on a soap opera being watched by people on a soap opera being watched by real people, somewhere.

Chuck Palahniuk. Choke

‘Once you’re relaxed, imagine yourself sitting in a movie theater. This is your own private theater. It’s safe and no one else is in it. You’re sitting several rows back from the screen, and it’s comfortably dark. Up on the screen you begin to see the thoughts, emotions, memories, and sensations that pass through your awareness.

Just sit and watch. Don’t follow any particular thought or emotion into the screen, just as you wouldn’t try to jump into the screen during a movie. Just watch without judgment, reaction, or distraction

As you observe your big deal mind, simply take note of what it presents; simply watch and name. Notice which thoughts have a pull on your attention and emotions. And also note any physical sensations you experience. Stay with this for a few minutes before moving on to the next part of the practice.

Now imagine that there’s another ‘you’ in this theater, sitting all the way in the back of the theater, in the very last row directly behind the first you. This second you is just sitting there watching the you up front, who is still just watching the screen.

Stay with this for a few minutes and notice what happens, paying particular attention to your emotional, physical, and mental reactions.

Now imagine that there is a third you, standing back the door of the theater. This third you is simply watching the second you, seated in the back row of the theater, who is still watching the you in the front, who is still watching all that is passing across the screen.’

Thomas Roberts. The Mindfulness Workbook: A Beginner’s Guide to Overcoming Fear and Embracing Compassion (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)

Memory isn’t a video

Memory doesn’t record life like a video camera. Instead, it adds associated details and becomes, like Arthur C. Clarke said, ‘a story-telling machine’.

“What is human memory?” Manning asked. He gazed at the air as he spoke, as if lecturing an invisible audience – as perhaps he was. “It certainly is not a passive recording mechanism, like a digital disc or a tape. It is more like a story-telling machine. Sensory information is broken down into shards of perception, which are broken down again to be stored as memory fragments. And at night, as the body rests, these fragments are brought out from storage, reassembled and replayed. Each run-through etches them deeper into the brain’s neural structure. And each time a memory is rehearsed or recalled it is elaborated. We may add a little, lose a little, tinker with the logic, fill in sections that have faded, perhaps even conflate disparate events.

“In extreme cases, we refer to this as confabulation. The brain creates and recreates the past, producing, in the end, a version of events that may bear little resemblance to what actually occurred. To first order, I believe it’s true to say that everything I remember is false.”

Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. The Light of Other Days

‘Memory doesn’t store everything we perceive, but instead takes what we have seen or heard and associates it with what we already know. These associations help us to discern what is important and to recall details about what we’ve seen. They provide “retrieval cues” that make our memories more fluent. In most cases, such cues are helpful. But these associations can also lead us astray, precisely because they lead to an inflated sense of the precision of memory. We cannot easily distinguish between what we recall verbatim and what we construct based on associations and knowledge.’

Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons. The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us

ACT on life’s hard choices

We have to make choices in life, and we learn from acceptance and commitment therapy that the freedom to choose is liberating. The failure to choose, says poet Diane Wakoski, is greed.

But pick and choose.
Robot or Man. Machine- or hand-made,
You cannot have both.
Greed, I keep reminding you,
is the failure to choose. The unwillingness to pick one thing over
another. Wealth or simplicity; you cannot have both.

Diane Wakoski. Greed: Pt. 8, 9, 11

‘Life is hard. Life is also many other things. Ultimately your life is what you choose to make it. When the word-machine dominates, life works one way. When the verbal evaluative side of you is but one source of input, life works differently. The choices themselves aren’t always easy, but finding the freedom to choose is a liberating experience. It’s your life. It is not the word-machine’s—even though (of course) it tells you otherwise.’

Steven C. Hayes and Spencer Smith. Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Let go of your grudge

Compassion neutralises toxic feelings, which is why this child doesn’t hold a grudge against his mother.

‘Mommy, I have a new best friend,’ Ben said, apropos of nothing, his voice light-filled and carefree. He didn’t care he’d just been yelled at, fifteen seconds earlier. He didn’t hold a grudge against his mother.

‘That’s great! What’s his name?’

‘I don’t know.’

Of course not: little children know it doesn’t matter what you call a rose.

Chris Pavone. The Expats: A Novel

‘Does holding a grudge promote your health and wellbeing? For many people it does not, and you may begin to understand that at the very least it is more skillful to work on neutralizing these strong feelings that can be so toxic to your being. You can begin by sending compassion to yourself and then wisely reflecting upon reconciliation and considering that reconciliation is really for your benefit and not the other person’s. You may even begin to see more clearly that the causes of people’s hurting one another are fear and unawareness and that perhaps neither you nor the difficult person is “bad,” merely unaware and scared.’

Bob Stahl and Wendy Millstine. Calming the Rush of Panic: A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Guide to Freeing Yourself from Panic Attacks and Living a Vital

Passengers on a bus

French author, Céline, experiences his own version of the famous ‘passengers on the bus’ metaphor used in acceptance and commitment therapy.

When I think of the people I hear talking politics, I can see them in a bus…a real bus! with real gratings, jam-pcked with criminals like you!…not criminals à la Charlie Chaplin! honest to God criminals with handguns and straitjackets! guarded by a dozen Tommy guns…what a show!…the passersby weave and waver, cling to the shopfronts…for fear this might happen to them…their consciences quake! scared shitless!…memories…it’s a rare passerby that hasn’t got a little abortion tucked away…a little theft…nothing to be ashamed of! the only thing to be ashamed of is poverty! the one and only! Take me, for instance, no car, a doctor on foot! what do I look like?…’

Céline. (1957). Castle to Castle (French Literature). (R. Manheim, Trans.) Dalkey Archive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0VPUudQ7kc

‘The bus metaphor casts the relationship between a person and thoughts or feelings the way one might cast a social relationship between a person and bullies. This reframe is useful as a motivative augmental in seeking freedom from literal language. Some of our past efforts to gain social independence can be used to stimulate a similar independence from the hegemony of our own verbal systems: our own minds. However limited our social independence is, independence from our minds is usually much less. This makes sense in another way inasmuch as the source of verbal relations, after all, is dominantly social and external in any case (What are the numbers?). The bus metaphor also nicely structures how the illusion of language works and what the cost is in terms of loss of life direction.’

Steven C. Hayes, Kirk D. Strosahl, & Kelly G. Wilson. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change