A post I read was so creative. She was doing one good deed for every birthday year. I loved that, but since I am working on my insides I changed it up. I am planning to fail 52 times this year.
My month of meditation was phenomenal. Learning that there was nothing to be achieved in an individual meditation session was liberating. It is about the “practice” the daily-ness, like brushing teeth, you can’t stop cavities by brushing once really well, it is a little bit every day. Even a crappy brushing helps in the long run.
I signed up for a yoga class that meets at 5:30 am – 45 minutes away from my home. This means I LEAVE for the class at 4:30 am. I am home at 7:15 to have breakfast with and get my kids to school and then off to work. I need to be showered and hair & make-up ready BEFORE 4:30 am. PS: It’s a beginner class that meets twice a week for 6 weeks. Not forever 🙂
So…What would happen this year if I failed at meditation and yoga?
Well….The WHAT would be “Nothing would change.”
BUT…What would happen if I didn’t fail? or rather WHO would I be if I didn’t fail?
WHO is a woman who loves herself enough to do meditation and yoga rather regularly. She sounds like someone I would like to be friends with!
I explained to my kids that I was going to try and fail 52 times until my birthday next September. *** crickets *** Uh Mom? That sounds like a dumb idea….. My response,
What happens if you try and fail?
What happens if you never try at all?
Who would you rather be?
As I’m trying to heal a broken marriage from 10 years ago, I put that at the top of my list
FAILED
- Marriage
It honestly helps to see it on my list. To recognize that failure doesn’t mean the end of happiness or love or excitement. It is the ending of THAT ONE THING THAT ONE TIME. Will I put marriage back on my list next year? Doubt it! But I did put some pretty cool things on my Failure list.
And several things the kids helped with – No I will not be buying my 13-year-old a gun (or a car), but this may be the year he takes gun safety class and our small town has a school gun club that he could join and learn trap shooting.
This is the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF MY BLOG. It is for me. I go back and read about myself and it is almost surreal. I have been sober for 6 months in a row but one year ago I was still struggling. And I failed at being sober for 6 full months of the beginning of this blog.
How would I answer Failure for last year about blogging? I tried, I did not fail and I am a different person because of it.
How would I answer Failure for last year about drinking? Six months success or six months failure? What if my 6 months sober had been the first part of the year and I had been drinking the last half? Would I still see myself the same way? I currently see drinking as a failure, but really, wasn’t my whole year a success because I TRIED. Can I truly discount myself, do I love myself best UNLESS and ONLY when I succeed perfectly? And who decides what is perfect? Sounds like a “ME” issue. Next year when I review my list, can I love myself through my failures – even if I fail at sobriety? Maybe next year it won’t even make the list. But this year, I know that I would struggle loving myself through failing at being sober.
My list is unfinished. It will also need to get longer. More than likely, I will succeed at some of these. (Dear God – please send new car & TV and not the bankruptcy.) Most of my list I have failed at for a long time. These things weigh on my subconscious. This list lives in my journal, on to-do lists and in the back of my mind as I go past the basement steps and know what is down there. If next year my basement is not cleaned I get to check it off as a FAILURE! That makes me smile. And that is why I am planning to fail.
52 FAILURES
- Marriage
- Write a book
- Publish an article
- Start a business
- Keep a clean house
- Garden
- Walk the dog
- Quit job
- Buy Josh car
- Buy Andrew car
- Paint house
- Repair electric
- New cell phone
- Yoga class
- Meditate
- Floss
- Vacation at Universal Studios
- Horseback riding
- Basement
- Attic & bats
- Go to church
- New TV
- Sheers on windows
- Wash/repair windows
- Get rid of old A/C
- Front porch
- Start You Tube channel
- Write a cookbook
- Sort family pictures
- Take computer class
- Start Josh a business
- Start Andrew a business
- Camp
- Date
- Buy Andrew gun
- Play clarinet
- Go bankrupt
- Teach kids cribbage
- Write letters
- New car
- Indoor garden
- Be a stay-at-home mom
- New clothes
- Love my body
- Go to doctor for check-up
- Sit outside in the evening
- Ride bikes
- Sober
- .
- .
- .
- .
I really love the idea of failing – it is a required element of my classroom. I teach my students to take risks and fail on the first day of class, and then throughout the school weeks. So important! … If these items are on your list now, does that mean you will perhaps revisit them, or are they done and done failures, never to return again? -HM.
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I’m not sure yet. I think if I put sky diving on the list it would be one and done. But I don’t want to fail every year at taking a vacation. My kids had a struggle getting around the word – failure. How awesome to teach that right away!!!
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I love your idea
Make sure the attempts are just for you. Others can and need to own their own failures.
Exciting thoughts!!!!!
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I don’t know if I can stand to watch my children fail! Aargh! lol
But I think this is also part of the failure journey – teaching my kids calmness about failure.
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I know
Me neither
It takes all my willpower not to take over things they are doing.
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this is great!
i love the turning around…these are the things i am willing to fail at, because i am attempting to do them! (or at least that’d how i read it) I could use some of this…taking those risks even tho i think it’s inevitable that i fail.
i agree tho, about not taking others failures as your own. For example, the marriage. Find what was your part in that and then let it go….it takes two to fail a marriage. I liked quit the job..LOL…and move to a larger city? hahaha….
love that you are doing the yoga class..at the end of 6 weeks you will likely have a really good jumping off place to make your own practice, or at least understand better the instructions on the videos.
This is all so positive and lovely! Excited for you
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She has adjusted me dramatically twice. Down dog & happy baby. No wonder I struggled with them. Now I love them! She even said I was very flexible. I have twice the body mass of those in the class but I don’t even feel self-conscious CUZ the teacher said I’M FLEXIBLE lol These yoga people are tiny!! Most of the class are tri-athletes. Seriously!! But I feel welcome and it is a perfect class for me.
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it makes a huge difference when you get the pose right. And remember that yoga is more than asana..it is all we have been learning, and there is no room for comparison . Your practice, your happy baby!
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I really like your thinking here… And your list has a lot of the same stuff as mine 🙂
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I like the idea of a list of things to fail at, it’s a very positive list in some ways – you’re giving yourself permission to fail in some areas but in any failure there will only be success, but again for those items that do come to fruition and success there is absolute unquestionable success and the joy of overcoming whatever obstacle there was that would have otherwise you back 😊
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