Point Of Failure

August 12, 2014

I have been spending the better part of my summer working and training and reflecting.  As I continue on each day, I’ve been discovering changes on my journey.  My focus shifting in so many areas of my life.  I sat weekly this summer to try and write a thoughtful post, but it was feeling forced and inauthentic and that is the absolute opposite of what I desire to put out in the world. 

As previously posted, I had signed up for a triathlon.  I trained, I swam, biked, and ran regularly and consistently.  I enjoyed learning how to transition from each and pushing myself beyond my comfort zone.  I ultimately have decided after much reflection, that this is just not the right time for me for this race.  I am ready physically to complete the endeavor, but mentally, I am not feeling the focus I need to continue past the place it has taken me to at this point in time.  I struggled with this as my head tells me this is colossal failure to not start a race I intended to start and trained for. But my goals have changed.  I want to achieve more at CrossFit and I’m looking to run faster at my next half marathon and I simply cannot focus on all of it at once while being a good mom and a good therapist.  I cannot do all of it well all the time, so I have to choose what is most important to me, to my growth.

In the past  few weeks at some of my CrossFit classes, one of the coaches said to me, “It’s okay to fail,” In reply to my saying I probably couldn’t complete the reps of a the dumb bell push press with the heavier weights. “So, fail first. It’s okay to fail.”

“What?! This goes against everything I know,” I thought.  It was uncomfortable at first but then something began to change.  And, you know what happened? I did complete the reps with the heavier weights! My legs were shaking and I had to fight against the voice in my head telling me to give up. But that day, I wanted to be stronger more than I wanted to give up. My time score wasn’t great that day, but I felt like a true winner! I succeeded where I thought I would fail.

I think for so long I do only what I’m sure of so afraid to fail but what I have been discovering is that it is failure that is making me stronger and more successful.  I began to do more than I believed I could, hitting personal bests weekly.  Is that what it takes, permission to fail?  And you know what?  Failure feels good as I push myself farther each day.  

I can look back at my life to this point and see so many failures in just about every place a human can fail and what ifs, others may not call them failures, but it’s my journey and certainly I can see with my 20/20 hindsight when I should have turned “left instead of right… or right and ¾ or maybe not quite.” Oh, how I love the wisdom of Dr. Seuss, getting it just right.  But, wow, all those failures and I’m still here, still standing, still growing. Would I be the same person without my failures?  I’m not sure I would be. It’s the point of failure that pushes me to stand up and try again.  Sometimes, it’s just that day, that moment which I’m not strong enough yet and my failure exposes my weakness and teaches me how to become strong enough and push past my point of failure.

What I observe when I witness our society, is we hold on desperately to temporary things.  As I sit here today, nearly 4 years after losing everything a person can lose, I see an incredible blessing where I used to see an unquenchable void.  I am safe, I have everything I need, but like my childhood fictional heroine, Dorothy, I always did.  Even after everything was removed from my life, I still had everything I needed.  Home is within me, not something I need to journey to find.

But I am going to take a little credit for allowing the failure to teach me and not crush me.  Failure shattered me into a million pieces, but I looked at my weakness and worked to strengthen myself, physically, spiritually, and mentally grow and learn.  And there truly is a mind, body, spirit connection that shifts all, and I believe it is necessary to nurture all three with care and dedication.  In doing this, I cannot really ever fail because I will always try again.

Many years ago, shortly after my most devastating loss, a very special wise young boy took his younger brother’s face in his hands, and said to him, “You only fail if you don’t try.” 

I see patients with incredible challenges, the single biggest difference is in the ones who are willing to try and fail and those that just would rather sit and wait for something to happen instead of trying to stand up.  It really is that simple.  Even though it can be terrifying, stand up, take one step, then take another, eventually momentum will help you and the steps become easier.  And trust, have faith, that we already have everything we need for this moment.  Just as we tend to hold on to materialistic temporary things, we can easily hold on to our pain.  It’s a great excuse to fail, but it too, is temporary.  It will end. 

Let go of all that is temporary. Go to your point of failure.  Fail.  Be grateful for your failures, learn, grow, and strengthen.  You don’t need a magical wizard or a yellow brick road or ruby slippers, trust you have everything you need today.

  

And if you are like me and need permission, in the words of my coach, “So, fail first.  It’s okay to fail.”