failure

quotes from fail fail again fail better by pema chodron

"sometimes you experience failed expectations as heartbreak and disappointment, and sometimes you feel rage. failure or things not working out as you hoped doesn't feel good; that's for sure. but at that time, maybe instead of doing the habitual thing of labeling yourself as a 'failure' or a 'loser' or thinking there is something wrong with you, you could get curious about what is going on. . . getting curious about outer circumstances and how they are impacting you, noticing what words come out and what your internal discussion is, this is the key.

if there is a lot of 'i am bad; i am terrible,' somehow just notice that and maybe soften up a bit. instead say, 'what am i feeling here? maybe what is happening here is not that i am a failure -- i am just hurting. i am just hurting.'"

"it is out of this space that real genuine communication with other people starts to happen, because it's a very unguarded, wide-open space where when you look out your eyes -- unless you are getting into the blaming yourself or blaming others -- you can go beyond the blame and just feel the bleedingness of it, the raw-meat quality of it.

you can't describe it, but i bet everybody knows what i am talking about. and so in that space, communication with others and all of life happens, and my experience is that it's from that space that our best part of ourselves comes out. it's in that space -- when we aren't masking ourselves or trying to make circumstances go away -- that our best qualities begin to shine.

the alternative is that out of that space of failure comes addictions of all kinds -- addictions because we are not wanting to feel it, because we want to escape, because we want to numb ourselves."

"one instruction that i give when you're in that difficult place is to notice what it is you're saying to yourself -- and if it's very self-critical, if it's very harsh, don't believe what's being said. or you can just rephrase the self-critical talk so it's more gentle and positive. in other words, you're in that place of experiencing failure and it is very difficult, and you could say, 'this is really hurting, but i haven't done anything wrong.'"

"there is something cultural that reinforces the idea that we're fundamentally bad rather than basically open, fresh, full of possibilities, whole, complete -- that we're basically good. so when you've actually done something intentional that hurt someone, usually what i recommend... is something like the fourth step of AA. in the fourth step, you bring forth a kind of fearless inventory of all the things that you regret having done. the idea is not to induce guilt and shame, nor is it to turn your awareness away from whatever has actually happened. it has to do with being open and honest and true about the mistakes you've made.

once you've brought them forth, you allow yourself to feel the regret, and this becomes the method for letting the regrets go, letting them pass away. . . let the regret pierce you to the heart, and then you can lay it aside so that you don't have to carry it with you for the rest of your life as a package."

"allowing yourself to get dragged down by failure builds up this huge sense of 'me.' 'me' as a monolithic solid, instead of a fluid, dynamic, changing process. it becomes chiseled in stone that 'i am bad; i am a failure,' and then you sort of get addicted to the feeling of wallowing in self-pity, wallowing in guilt and shame. and who does that help? nobody! it doesn't help you, and it's poisonous for everybody around you. so it's a futile strategy to let failure drag you down, which we employ rather easily."

"chogyam trugpa rinpoche talked a lot about fear as being a positive thing. so again, this is having an attitude that allows you to become curious about exploring something rather than just committing for life to running away from the unknown because it's so devastating or challenging.

trungpa says that fear, unlike anger or jealousy or craving, is a very open and fluid state. it doesn't necessarily have to be narrowed down into something solid. . . he says loneliness is kind of the same, actually."

"my definition of bravery in that case -- or courage -- would be the willingness to stay open to what you're feeling in the moment, the willingness to feel what you're feeling. we talk in the shambhala tradition a lot about the warrior and the definition of the warrior. the warrior is one who cultivates courage and is willing to feel what he or she feels. to be completely human and be okay with being completely human, and the willingness to feel it."

"when i get hooked in any way or my feelings have been hurt or i feel my tendency to get obsessive, which is one of my qualities, or i want to really tell someone off, any of those things where there's that strong pull to go in an old, habitual, small-minded kind of direction, then the courage is to not heed the call of the sirens in that particular moment, but to just stay present and feel what i'm feeling.

every time i do it, i think, 'oh my gosh, how can i be asking people to do this? because this is actually very difficult.' it's humbling every single time, and it fills me with awe when i realize that other people are actually doing this, because it does take a lot of courage and bravery."