When you've failed to show up like the person you aspire to be

Yesterday I failed to show up like the person that I aspire to be at all times. Which is someone who is consciously aware of her thoughts, words and actions and the interplay between them.

I made some errors in judgement - heavily influenced by a tornado of emotions that had been present for days silently in the background - that led me to respond to someone in a way that I’m not proud of.

Here’s why I felt inspired to share with you today.

Making a mistake forced me to become super honest with myself and become aware of aspects that I wasn’t seeing before.

As painful as it was, to admit that I was wrong, it taught me many valuable lessons, all at once.

It was intense to say the least..

‘At once’ may be a bit of an exaggeration actually, because how it happened is more like this:

I responded to someone in a way that was very emotionally charged, and didn’t exactly exhibit my highest self, but rather my smaller, human self. In my mind I was being ‘right’ to the story that I was telling myself with me in the very centre.

I got some painful feedback from that person…which then set me on fire to try and understand what exactly I did wrong..

..which led me to a downward spiral into the darkness of my inner depths, and about two hours of feeling aaaaall the horrible emotions that came up with that.

The guilt, the shame, the pain of having acted in a way that I actually regretted.

What was particularly interesting in this dark journey inwards was that there were so many different emotions, stories and thoughts about different times of my life, different people, and traumatic moments that surfaced up.

I was shocked honestly. I thought I had done so much healing work already, where did it all this come from?!

Thoughts and stories like…

“I’m a bad person”

“I’m shameful for wanting more from life”

“I don’t deserve to be loved”

“I’m a failure”

So many of these I thought I had already worked on, that I was already above them.

But nope…still there.

Next to my own life stories and traumas I couldn’t help but feel the collective spiritual/cultural trauma that I carry, like so many of us do in this lifetime.

The universal trauma of

“I don’t deserve to want more”

“I should be happy with what I have’

that if “I have more, someday I will be punished”

The fear of “being punished for wanting more from life”

Whoaaa! I honestly didn’t see those coming. I didn’t know they were there.

Here’s what I learned with all this surfacing.

Sometimes we got to fuck up to access those deep parts of ourselves, that are still lingering, still hurting. Still holding us back without us realising.

For two hours I cried, mourned old parts of me, and purged all these negative beliefs out of my system. It was excruciating.

It was ugly, messy, and so necessary.

Surrendering into some non-linear movement practice as taught by one of my embodiment teachers helped immensely, and eventually I felt more clarity in my head, more space in my body.

I was then able to start setting things right.

I went back to that person, and explained myself. I took full responsibility for my errors and reaction. No matter the response, I knew that I’d done the right thing and this felt good.

And I’m sharing this with you today because maybe you can relate.

Maybe you’ve had those moments too, where you failed at one point, as a person, as a colleague, a business owner, a partner, a friend.

And instead of shying away from the real work under the conviction of “I’m right”, you had the courage to go deeper, to face yourself and your own darkness.

I certainly did yesterday. And I’m writing this to you to fully own it.

Why. Because I’m human. I make mistakes. I fuck up.

Even when I think that “I’m there”, “I’ve done all the work”..

Nope..I’m still human. I still fuck up, I can still regret things that I’ve said or done. And it can hurt.

But here’s the juice. My mistakes don’t define me.

What defines me is how I show up when I make mistakes. It’s how I find the courage to take responsibility for myself.

It’s how I learn the biggest lessons from having to face parts of myself that I didn’t know were there.

It’s how I take responsibility for my humanness, welcome the emotions I didn’t know I had, cut the cords, let go of my suffering, open my heart.

How I dare to find the courage to say - I’m sorry.

And just like that, I become the person I aspire to be.

I hope this touched the ones that needed to read this today. Whatever may be going on, know that you are loved my friends.

Elena x

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