Failure and Compassion

Brene Brown’s work is influential in my life. It’s natural for me to look for applications of it with Steven Pressfield’s Turning Pro work. And it seems to me that The Daring Way that Brene talks about ties in directly with Turning Pro.

Brene talks about resilience as a practice by letting go of self-comparison, and a lot of other things that I’d have to look up right now. But one of the big things in her program is self-compassion. And the way she describes it, not having self-compassion simply creates more of what stops us in our growth. Self-compassion is essential.

Today was another distracted day. Instead of programming today, I took the day off and worked on my many computers that have been needing some admin love. In fact, this machine is a recent build and install. From a strictly programmer performance perspective, today was a failure. I didn’t meet my 8 pomodoros today.

So what are the options? I could listen to the self-shaming voices in my head as I have so many times, and I know what that outcome would be. Or I can have compassion on myself. I can realize that there are some larger changes happening inside me that might not happen according to schedule. I’m also at a very difficult place in my app. It’s just hard at the moment, and I’m struggling to get some help. These are not excuses. They’re considerations. I’ve already made my choices today in how I’ve used my time.

The remaining option is to let go of comparison, to let go of control and self-judgement. To accept myself as I am. To remind myself that I am enough. I am worthy of love and acceptance despite my failures.

Tomorrow is a new day. I surrender today to history and bless it for the lessons I’ve learned from it.