On forgiveness…

By Cara Chang Mutert

Sometimes mistakes serve as a catalyst… And blogs are modern day’s form of catharsis.

These days, with one press of a button, a mistake can be instantaneous, broad-sweeping and out there for all the world to see. So as I work to come to terms with my latest hasty and relatively meaningless Happy 2014 email blunder, I figured why not “kill two birds with one stone,” as my parents used to say, and process and hopefully let go of my self-deprecating frustration and write my typically procrastinated blog too!

For me, like most of us, I tend to be the toughest on myself. Brewing, stewing, and internally beating myself up over even my smallest errors is cultural, familial and a conditioned response that lives in the marrow of my bones. When I was young, I didn’t realize it. As I’ve grown older, I’m more aware of it, but it doesn’t make my emotional auto-response necessarily disappear forever.

Because of the power of the Ego, any mistake that others will witness often feels the worst…  I can tell you that as soon as I realized my subject line flub, a wave of panic moved through my body, heat radiated from my head down to my toes, beads of sweat formed on my brow, and a sick feeling seeped into my gut as my heart sank. These days, in my yoga-sensitive body, my physical reactions have been quite telling of how powerful the mind can be. Thoughts in your brain can overtake everything, creating a hyper-focused fixation on something as ridiculous as anything.

Beating your head against a wall and tossing and turning all night won’t help. Trust me. Recognizing, processing, re-framing and re-training your brain hopefully might. So as I move through my mistakes, which we all must do regardless of how trivial, let’s collectively promise to give ourselves a little slack. Perfectionism is a losing battle, since as we all know, no one can be. It’s the antithesis of being human.

Learning to forgive yourself is the biggest challenge. Thankfully, yoga can and has helped me combat my tendency to hold onto my mistakes forever, and age is trying to teach me to learn to laugh at myself more and embrace my imperfections with pride.

So in hopes of moving forward, I will remind myself that “falling is good.” And now, let’s once again just “enjoy this moment.” 😉

With love and humility,

Cara

p.s. Please disregard any typos here, there and forever and ever…