My Perfect Mistakes

Director's Cut - Let's Take 1, 2, 3... With Our Selves and Our Communities

“You’re gonna make

every mistake,

sometimes you’re gonna fall

flat on your face,

so just do it with grace,

and know that I’ll be there,

and love you while you make

every mistake.”

"Every Mistake" – song by Jonah Matranga

For me, to be human is to make 'mistakes'. And then, to be in community, with the earth and other humans, is to accept, learn from, and ultimately delight in, these 'mistakes'.

I put the word 'mistakes' in quotes, because they generally get a bad rap, as something wrong, negative, or offensive. Yet, I have come to think of them more like conflict — something inevitable, likely to just happen at one point or another. I imagine them like the director’s clapboard in film-making. I do my first take, and it doesn't work out, so I need to take 2, and maybe take 3, or more, until I come into alignment or attune more to what the context or relationship is inviting. To pun it out, a 'mistake' is when I missed my first take and then (hopefully) give it another shot.

Unfortunately, the judgement around mistakes makes them feel more like the end, rather than just a mis-step with a next beginning. I feel like the plague of perfectionism is on the rise – in our selves, with our friends and families, with our social movements and organizations, and in the wider world. Factory-schooling, political extremism, impossible beauty standards, punitive discipline, sound bites and social media, all contribute to this unfortunate perfectionism affliction.

At the same time, I see a rapid decline of tolerance for mistakes, both individually and collectively. For me, this rise and fall are directly opposite to what is healthy for community and what is essential for healing. I propose that the quality of my relationship to my mistakes, and to the mistakes of others, is directly proportional to the degree to which I can grow community and work through conflicts. If I can grow my capacity for ‘mistakes', internally and externally, I will nurture healthier, happier, more robust and more resilient communities — and ways of life for myself, too. And conversely, if I feed the beast of perfectionism, then community-building and conflict transformation become extremely challenging.

This past week, I was in the US Northeast, facilitating at a law conference and seeing a variety of friends. Conversations about healing, community, conflict and trauma came up everywhere, as we explored our relationships and feelings around work, systems, families, friends, romantic partners, and more. Listening and connecting with so many different people, in so many different contexts, revealed to me that our relationship to and attitude about mistakes is key.

As my friend Jonah shares in this sweet song he wrote for his daughter (above), I see the opportunity with mistakes is twofold: first, to recognize that I will most definitely make every mistake (and fall on my face), and second, that I can meet myself and others with grace, presence and love, during and after those mistakes are made.

My inquiry starts with asking myself: How much space do I have for my own mistakes? Am I am able to give myself grace and learn from my missed take? Am I able to brush off my hands and knees and, most importantly, my ego, and realize I can try again? Do I meet myself with softness, with self-forgiveness and compassion? Can I move forward with humility and a willingness to offer apologies and make amends? In the moment, it may be difficult, but later, when I look back, can I laugh at myself, bring some humor and acknowledge that I am perfectly imperfect? Can I see that my 'mistakes' have given me my best life stories? (Or, at least, the ones that are the most fun to re-tell.)

All of this can equally be applied to other peoples' mistakes. Can I meet them with softness and grace? Can I listen to their learnings around their missed take? Am I able to receive their apologies and willingness to make amends? Can I laugh with them later and enjoy the hilariously perfect dance of our imperfections?

I also find there is a direct correlation between the space I am willing to give myself for my mistakes and the space I am willing to give others for theirs. They both grow together in synchronicity, like companion plants in a garden nourishing each other. On the flip side, I can't tell you how many breakdowns I have seen that start with either/both an intolerance of other peoples' mistakes, and/or an intolerance for my own, and then expand from there.

For example, I remember last year, my beloved Austin was navigating a conflict with Joe*, in which Joe seemed unable to accept that Austin and their friend Lyndsay* felt uncomfortable with Joe's behavior at a shared gathering. Though Austin and Lyndsay's intention was to offer feedback, in order to feed-forward — both to deepen understanding and explore how things could go better for next time — it seemed like Joe simply couldn't accept his 'mistake'. Joe didn't seem able to hear them, nor could he respond with something like, “Oh, I am hearing that some of the ways I participated in this gathering didn't work for you. I understand why I did what I did, and I also understand why it didn't work for you. I know that we can't change the past, because it's over. So, in talking it over now, we are aiming to go forward, to try, try again, and hopefully to find more alignment for next time.” Instead, Joe took his 'imperfection' as an indictment on himself and froze himself there, and also assumed Austin and Lyndsay were freezing him there as well. No matter how many times they said that this feedback was a chance to learn each other more, in order to work together better in the future, it didn't land for Joe. The conversation dragged on for months and ultimately required external mediation and support to finally break through to self-forgiveness and acceptance – something that could have easily happened from the beginning if Joe had more spaciousness for his own mistakes.

I have seen this phenomenon in social movements, organizations, and Jam spaces as well. It is combination of intolerance for imperfection and freezing someone (and/or freezing myself) in a moment. When the intolerance and freezing get twisted with race, gender, class, and other identities, then we get into a real doozy.

Another friend of mine, Mike*, had to ultimately resign from his organization, along with his entire staff, after a year of ineffective dialogue with staff from another organization. At the heart of the conflict seemed to be the intolerance for a mistake by someone who was white and male and who had unconsciously hurt some others who were female and of color. Somehow the misunderstanding — the partial ways of seeing and unintentional 'missed takes' — got buried under politicized identities and prevented the personal and organizational learning that could have been fruitful for all of the people involved. I can see how diverse social identities can add a lot of extra pressure to the strait-jacket of perfectionism, where people are expected to ‘know’ or ‘get it right’ based on their identities, and/or where the tolerance for them ‘getting it wrong’ is next to zero.

I think this quest to always do or say the right thing is another kind of healing fantasy. It is unattainable and constantly takes me/us out of the present moment, in trying to not make a mistake and thereby ‘never cause harm’. I certainly understand how we want to walk lightly and gently in the world, and very few of us would deliberately try to hurt someone. And, at the same time, it is a fantasy to deny the space for mistakes, because everyone, including myself, will always have a comfort, stretch, and panic zone. And when I expect myself or others to not have that panic zone, to not 'miss' sometimes, or to only show up as our ‘best and perfect selves’, I deny a large part of their humanity – and my own.

I remember once at a Middle East Youth Leadership Jam in Jordan, we were just opening the circle and starting with some light conversation. Ahmed* said something that landed as surprising to me, and rather than let it go as an off-hand comment, I opened up a conversation with him in the middle of the circle. It went on and on, and the facilitators holding the session were side-tracked and derailed from their plan. Although eventually it led to a breakthrough, afterward, with feedback from my co-facilitators and my own reflections, I realized I had made a mistake. It was unnecessary for me to get into that conversation at the moment, and it took up a lot of time from the whole group. And it was definitely not a good use of the power I held as a facilitator. I offered my apologies to the team and my support in weaving in the material for the next session, which were both accepted. I didn’t dwell on my mistake or let it take me down. I just did my best to acknowledge, to learn, and to aim to do it differently next time. My acknowledgement of my mistake not only made more space for others' imperfection, it also became a learning opportunity for all of us. Plus, it was a good laugh for me later, when I look back on my learning journey as a facilitator.

In community, I have learned that I will 'fail' and so will others. That failures and mistakes, like conflicts, are inevitable. What helps me move through is putting myself in their shoes and seeing how their experience makes sense to them, while at the same time realizing, that doesn't take anything anyway from me having my experience, which makes sense to me. Truths are not zero sum; rather, there are many truths co-existing because there are infinite realities of our experiences, feelings, interpretations, stories, inside each one of us.

Instead of getting caught in the judgement of my inner critic, I can simply slow down and tune into to hear those multiple truths and stories. I don't need to make my mistake more than it is. I like how Brené Brown uses the prompt, “The story I'm telling myself about this is...” to distinguish between a story and a fact, and thereby give myself more space to notice and learn. I also like that as a Jain, I have been taught that I will hurt others, consciously or unconsciously, knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, with my thoughts, words and deeds, and that I can ask for forgiveness and seek to make amends (and receive that from others as well). I take this to mean that it’s part of my birthright as a human being to make mistakes.

At the same time, I often have wondered why this admitting of mistakes is hard for me and us to do as humans. I think because it triggers something around existence and survival. Am I allowed to love myself and be loved by others if I make mistakes? Will I belong if I admit I make up inaccurate stories or missed the first take? Do I get to exist if my action or behavior or words have hurt another person? When the answer is no, the space for making mistakes constricts, hardening the soil and making it impossible to breathe and grow. Each of us, and the communities we are aiming to build, suffer as a result. Nothing grows well in hard soil.

In the kinds of healing communities I have been part of co-creating, we try to free ourselves from the binds of perfectionism and be more accepting of our mistakes. In one Jam, we were even encouraged to say “Ta-da!” and take a bow, when we made a mistake. When I can acknowledge that I've failed or missed, and then be kind to myself, get up and try again, the space opens up even more. There's a softness in the soil, a healthy ego that affirms my dignity rather than my superiority, and an inner critic that's been kept in check, instead of being allowed to roar. The key is the willingness to listen, to acknowledge and learn, to forgive and move forward.

So I say, take 2, 3, 4, or more. You are still loved. You still belong. You are learning and you are growing. And the clap board claps on.

* All names changed for confidentiality.