#94 - We All Fall Down

Changing yourself is hard, but I had a bit of an epiphany a few days ago. It was inspired in part by the video below (shout out to Ping Pong Studios). 

On many occasions I've attempted to change something or create a new habit. Often I'd persist with it for a while maybe a a few days, a few weeks or even a few months before stopping. Whenever I realised I'd fallen down or "failed" I'd feel bad about it and judge myself negatively. This negative judgment would result in me feeling discouraged from trying again. The internal conversation would be something like:

"Ah typical...what's the point in even trying? You're not going to stick to it anyway."

I've just realised though, that getting up and starting again is everything. That being the case, considering unsuccessful attempts as "failures" isn't particularly productive is it? It results in pain. How many failures can you endure before you give up because it's too painful? Or maybe you just don't attempt in the first place to avoid that pain? I have n idea how many times a baby falls down before it learns to walk but imagine if parents viewed each of these falls as a failure - or worse still if babies defined each unsuccessful attempt at walking as a failure and felt crap about it? There would probably be billions of us moving around like this gentleman:

Link to image

I think our egos are very tricky. I think they fear change because they perceive it as death so they don't want us to change, therefore they are quick to make these negative judgements that can deflate us and stop us from growing.  

Since this clicked for me whenever I screw something up now I just keep bringing myself back to starting again. Getting up, dusting myself off and starting again. Meditation is the perfect example, you could be watching your breathing and then you find your mind drifts off somewhere, you bring it back to focusing on your breath....then it drifts again. If you get frustrated with your mind that only makes things worse because it is actually your mind that is getting frustrated with itself. It's the skill of gently bringing it back on course that I think is the challenge, without negative judgment, a gentle persistence. 

For some reason the tai chi image of a steel bar wrapped in cotton wool comes to mind. 

I have a number of challenges at the moment, there are several areas where I'm falling down and but I'm going to keep getting up until I can walk to where I want to be - that or I will die trying. 

"We all fall down in life guys, the question is, who gets back up?"
Gregg Plitt

Link to video

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