Life can be fraught with doubt, ie. life is full of doubt. Always. We doubt ourselves, we doubt others, we doubt the decisions we’ve made, we doubt the decisions we haven’t made. It’s become an integral part of our thinking and processing. Almost as though we couldn’t progress through an experience without it.
Doubt is a learned behavior. When we’re told to “learn from our mistakes”, we choose to learn the wrong thing. Because we’ve been hurt, because we’ve had loss, because our trust has been taken advantage of, because we’ve been vulnerable; we’ve chosen that to learn from our mistakes, is to not make them. And, choosing to not make mistakes is not education, it’s avoidance.
Education is evolution. First, we experience the hurt in our lives, then we endeavor to avoid it at all costs. We don’t want a repeat of the pain. So, we shut down and we shut out. We actually believe that the more we insulate ourselves, the less the likelihood we will put ourselves in a position to make a “mistake” and, ultimately, the better off we’ll be. That may serve us constructively if the following weren’t true; mistakes = education = evolution. And, why are we all here? To evolve. To get closer to Love.
There was a period in my life when I believed I could insulate myself. When I thought I could build walls tall enough that nothing could get over them. And, the scary thing was that I wasn’t even aware I was doing this. The walls don’t work. The mistakes still happen. The hurt comes through. And, instead of having the openness and vulnerability and humility to absorb it, it’s met with resistance, solitude and pessimism. The real mistake is believing we can avoid that which is meant to help us grow. The resolve of evolution will out-build your walls any day.
I’m no longer scared of mistakes. Not because I don’t make them, not because I trust people to never hurt me and not because I have the utmost strength and self-confidence. It’s because of a belief in Love. It’s choosing that there really is no other choice. We can look to whatever external resource we like, but when it all comes down to it, Love will be your strength, your freedom, your peace.
It’s not complicated. You just let it all go to Love. You choose to believe in it. You realize that things won’t necessarily unfold the way you planned. You understand that you’ll make mistakes til the end of forever. You steady yourself for the hurts that are yet to come. But, you don’t let it stop you from being exactly who you are and Loving that person. When what you do, what you say and what you believe comes from your Heart, it can never be stepped on. Sometimes it feels that’s exactly what happens and it shakes our faith. But, it’s not. That’s a misunderstood feeling. It’s the confusion that accompanies the misunderstanding of how anything truly from the Heart can be turned away. It’s confusion, because deep down we all know that Love loses to nothing and to no one. We feel that knowing, that pull, yet it seems to us to be the mistake we’ve made.
I’ve realized how much a “mistake” can give. It gives the opportunity to open our Hearts that much more, to expand our vulnerability, to become stronger by embracing our weakness. You find out about the person you really are when you give your Love unconditionally. And, you find out about the people you give that Love, unconditionally, to. That’s education. That’s evolution. There is nothing else. That’s where you’re supposed to go.
Be Love.
