So many clients go into a tailspin based on how they perceive their mistakes (don’t we all!). But we spiritual directors can help them see how they habitually make a mis-take in how they view their mistakes.
Client “Holly” was scheduled to give a PowerPoint presentation at an event. She was a veteran of PowerPoint and had run into many struggles in her many presentations. She carefully devised a Plan A and Plan B so nothing would go amiss.
As it played out on the day of, her fears were confirmed: try as she might, she could not get Plan A or Plan B to work! She could not find her PowerPoint file on her flash drive (Plan A), and then could not open it from her email site (Plan B). The presentation resisted all her efforts at raising it from the dead.
So, 10 minutes late, she changed plans and led the presentation from the PowerPoint handout. It went fine, but in the midst of all her search and rescue efforts she was quietly but frantically spinning, embarrassed, and mad.
In the wake of this PowerPoint fiasco, she came to our next session stewing:
“I need to fly less by the seat of my pants and show up way beforehand! I should have given up on the PowerPoint much earlier and just used the handouts!”
This is just a brief (and censored) sampling of the nasty and self-incriminating thoughts she volleyed at herself. And, the more she talked, the more I noticed her becoming exhausted.
I intervened and said:
“Here’s what I’m seeing - the more you ruminate on your mistakes, the more your life-force is being sucked out of you.”
This changed the conversation - deep down, she could see the pattern as well as I could.
Mis-taking mistakes is a great spirit-killer. Dwelling on them serves up ample amounts of shame and blame. It injects us with strong doses of fretfulness and self-abuse. Stewing has nothing to give, it only takes.
We have the privilege of getting to impress upon clients that there is no such thing as a mistake; there are only lessons. And when clients realize this truth for themselves, it changes everything.
It turned out that, as she was falling asleep on the night of her PowerPoint debacle, Holly had the epiphany that explained what had gone wrong: The older computer was not able to read the newer version of her PowerPoint slides.
A moment of grace had broken into her impasse: she got the answer that had so evaded her. Next time, she would know the two-minute step to take to fix the problem. In short, the mistake became a lesson.
When we are under the spell of our mistakes, our body, emotions, and thoughts contract. It’s as if the worst teacher from our grade-school days was trying to force a lesson on us we didn’t want to learn.
A mistake can be like our favorite springtime seed. It can bear remarkable fruit!
When we shift our perception of the event from mistake to lesson, we relax from head to toe. Our mind expands and our fretting diminishes - there is even brain research to back this up! We open up to possibility. We become a learner rather than a failure.
So, when clients bring up their mistakes, help them shift into a learner’s mind, and their hearts will transform these experiences into valuable lessons.