Feeling like a Failure

I woke up this morning with the word failure ringing in my head.  I have not heard its tune in a long time and the familiarity tricked me into humming along.

Like many, I have honed skills of self criticism.  The belief that there is an ideal way acts as the strictest keeper.  And when the sentiment, "I screwed up," has a monologue of proof it can be tempting to bury yourself under it.

At some point when you understand that repeating the story in your head only confirms its existence, you learn how to change the channel.  This is what mantra does.  "Man" is often translated to mean "mind" and "tra" can be understood as "protection".  So a mantra offers protection from our own minds.  When attempting to break an addiction to a thought pattern, easy repeatable phrases can be a life line. 

And yet just like when dad took the training wheels off the bicycle, there seems to come a point when you are asked to do more than just change the channel.  The play seems to be, once again, to increase the capacity to allow for the feelings and thoughts to arise without having to accept or reject them.  The neutral resistance to the usual pathway seems to create a friction or heat that generates the required spaciousness.  And curiosity seems to be a critical component.

This morning I am faced with the reality that bookkeeping does not run on optimism.   Numbers offer a picture of reality that needs to be understood and paid attention to, and I haven't been.  And no one else has either.  But I have choices.  I can wallow.  I can freak out.  I can pretend nothing bad is happening.  Or I can learn.

The learning requires the willingness to not know.  To not know allows for the unexpected.  I have been in this spot before, but the "stakes" always seem to get higher.  What you are asked to let go of always seems more precious.  Abhinivesha, attachment to the status quo, has me in its jaws.

And so here I am perched on the cliff.  Watching my mind negotiate.  Feeling like you did something wrong to end up at the edge is a way to shrink, get small and back away from the cliff.  Justifying your actions and propping yourself up blinds you to aspects of your being that are trying to be seen and released.  Both keep you under the illusion that you are the only one in charge.  I pray for the humility and courage to allow myself to "fail" into what is next.