Three letters can make a big difference – that’s why while it is human to f*** up, it is vital to fail up.
I f##k up a little more often than I would like, but it is not really such a F@!k up unless I fail to learn my lesson.
And I’m human so I do fail to learn my lesson, but all we can do is try right?
My f@#k yesterday was a pretty bad one.
I was madly looking (it is never a good idea to madly look) for a singlet t-shirt with a lotus flower on the front to wear to teach my yin yoga class yesterday afternoon.
I searched in my wire baskets where I put yoga/exercise gear and towels. I searched in the pile of clean washing on the lounge (so much for the below clean impression of our laundry).
I’m sharing this again because – miracle
I even double-checked the washing line, even though I knew I hadn’t hung it out that morning and it wasn’t in the wet clothes waiting to be hung out.
Mostly I barked at Miss Yin, whose pocket-money job it is to fold washing (but who nearly always has to be cajoled into doing it – hence washing strewn across the lounge).
You see I’d actually bought the same lotus flower singlet top as Miss Yin, from the Myer kid’s section, so we could do yoga together and take some photos and it would be kinda cute (haven’t taken any photos yet to share with you).
I swore (to the universe “Why the f#%k when I (ok hubby and I) have managed to actually get everything in the house washed – miracle of miracles – can’t I find the one thing I want to wear”). And I would have sworn that Miss Yin must have folded my singlet top with her clothes and it was somewhere (or nowhere) to be found in her (messy) room.
“Look, have another look, it must be there,” I exclaimed with frustration, and well let’s face it, blame.
“If I have to come in there and look for it and I find it then I am not buying you any more dance gear ever again,” I added with dramatic flourish and obvious meanness. (In the weakest of defences, she does have a lot of dance gear and is certainly not good at keeping her stuff tidy).
So I huffed and puffed, and started to get dressed, substituting another top (which is hardly a big deal) all the while supposedly preparing to teach a yin yoga class focused on opening the heart chakra and meditating on love!
The irony.
And then I remembered that I’d left a bag in my car when I’d meant to go take a class and had instead gone for a drink after work – said singlet top was in said bag. Opps.
And I was sorry, very sorry, but what could I do but say sorry.
I can fail up.
Fail Up – own up, pick up, look up
With every parenting fail, and I’ve had plenty – with every failure small and large we can choose to fail up rather than down.
So you stuffed up – you can beat yourself up, go with the guilts, get down and depressed, big-time blame yourself and sabotage your sense of self-worth.
This will only bring the already negative energy further down, spiralling into self-loathing.
Or you can bring your energy back up – own your mistakes, focus on what you will do differently next time, give yourself some self-love rather than judgment and renew your determination.
I’ve written about failure a few times before (it’s an easy topic when you have experience) – I wrote a couple of years ago about the five things you can learn from failure (check it out).
One of those things was self-acceptance – when you fail up and move on you actually succeed at accepting yourself, which is really the place to start for all success.
So with that in mind I taught my yin yoga class – and as the class held the long, restorative postures, fighting their own frustrations and sense of discomfort (or rather surrendering to them), I ‘failed up’ by reminding them about self-acceptance and self-love as the only pathway to love and compassion for all – as the only pathway to living a meaningful life.
(I didn’t write this post on Do You Yoga, but here are some yin postures if you want to work on self-love)
Love is always the answer.
And I gave myself a slap on the face (not literally) and reminded myself too. Linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT. Do you agree we only fail when we fail to learn (or fail to try)?
Kathy X
29 Comments on “Why it is good to F*@# up”
I love that Kathy – we only fail when we fail to learn from the experience. Spot on! I am taking this little mantra with me today x
Glad the mantra resonated Ashlea – here’s to succeeding at learning from mistakes.
I think the most important part of mistakes is admitting them, followed by learning from them. Don’t be too hard on yourself- we’ve all been there!
I’m trying to just take responsibility, own up and then move on, no point dwelling on things Amy.
Absolutely !! Great post about how we should be dealing with our fails xox
Thanks Linda – nice to see you back.
Thanks Linda – nice to see you back.
I completely agree. Failure definitely makes us stronger.
Stronger, more self-aware and more determined hopefully Eva.
I think of it less as ‘failing’; more as ‘being human’. 🙂 #TeamIBOT
It is great to have the solidarity and support of all being human together Rebecca. X
Well that sounds like an infinitely more sensible way to deal with these situations than negative guilt. Great advice 🙂
You are right Dani – guilt never (or very rarely) does us any good.
I definitely think failing helps us to learn and it’s so important to admit to making mistakes – we are human after all.
Agree Vicki – I’m learning to not feel guilty just because I’m human.
I think failing is important and not inherently negative. I mean, instances where you hurt yourself and/or others, then yes, failure should be avoided, but overall I think it’s just a learning process. Nothing more, nothing less.
I agree Vanessa – and it is positive way of looking at it. I bet you are able to take more risks with that attitude because you see failure as a natural thing.
Yes – absolutely! Look, we’re all going to stuff up at some point, and it really does speak to someone’s character how well they deal with it.
Failure is definitely character building if you don’t wallow in it.
LOL I love the irony of your hissy fit on the way to teach a yoga class! It reminds me of the times hubster & I would have an argument on the way to church, and then walk in & have to pretend all was right with our world – HA!
I did feel like a hypocrite heading into class but I guess we all get good at putting our best faces to the world (and our poor family members cop our worst sometimes).
Is that why I have learnt so much lately… Always f@*king up
Ha, ha Natalie – Own up, Pick up, Move up. Onwards and Upwards.
Great post. I had a bit of self-loathing going on last night. I had a crap day at work and was in tears at the end of it because of mistakes I’d made. Meanwhile, hubby couldn’t find his work phone. We ransacked the house. He suggested I may have thrown it out. I wouldn’t do that, Davey. I’m not that stupid. On we looked until he decided to go through the bin. There it was. Dear God. Anyway, I agree it is important to fail and to take learnings from that. I worry too much about what other people think though and it takes me a little longer to learn from my failure 🙂
Sorry you had a bad day Renee but glad the phone was found. We do silly things when we are stressed. Hope today is better for you.
Thank you xxxx
You are welcome. X
i know that feeling only too well, Kathy. And yes, learning from it definitely turns it into a positive x
I can very much relate to this I get really frustrated easily and often over the smallest of things. I need to accept my stuff-ups and move on.
I love the self help pose you’ve included but at the moment my belly is far too big to pull up to my chest. I’ve put on so much weight I’m not even doing yoga anymore…