So a few days ago I sent out a post with 4 simple communication swaps/ substitutions to help improve your relationships. Someone responded to let me know that I had a typo in my title. OMG. The old me would have shriveled in shame. I can see the look on my 8th grade grammar teacher's face about proofreading my stuff. I KNOW.
But here's the thing. I was SO beyond excited to send that email. It suddenly dawned on me that I use these scripts ALL the time during individual and group sessions, and I think everyone could benefit from them. I worked on it feverishly and wanted to get it out like it was burning a hole through my screen. There were no red squiggles that I've come to rely on to tell me about typos, so I hit send overzealously (is that a word?).
This has happened before though. I misspelled "examining" in one of my header images, but didn't realize it until it was too late. Ironically, I was a spelling aficionado in elementary school, but I really don't like editing my stuff as you can see. Clearly, I need to spend more time on it. Being more patient and taking my time is something I am continuously working on. Sigh.
Living a wholehearted life means that we have to embrace our imperfections and accept that we're enough as we are. This is quite hard in a society that thrives on scarcity or "not enough-itis," and you feel like your life might end if you don't get x product to fix y problem. Watch five minutes of QVC and you will see this front and center.
When I got that person's feedback, I said to myself, "well, this is an opportunity to embrace my imperfection, right here, right now. People can either my understand mistakes, or they will judge me for them. I really can't control what people think anyway... Maybe they will see and understand that I'm human too, I make mistakes, and see the larger perspective that I wanted to send some helpful content."
I now have more compassion when I see typos in other people's work, or-heaven forbid- in print. I may have asked myself before, "how could an editor miss that?" Well, now I have some empathy and compassion for them.
I feel like I can recognize my own progress, in that I didn't let a few typos stop me dead in my tracks, stop writing my blog, or posting. I may have in the past, but one of my goals has been to practice what I preach (hypocrites kind of bug me), and live a more wholehearted life. This means that we can acknowledge mistakes and still have self-compassion. Please join me in repeating the mantra and taking the pledge: "I'm imperfect and enough."
How will you integrate wholehearted living into your life? What are you working to accept about yourself? We are all works in progress, and we're enough no matter where we are on the journey.
Have you gotten your scripts yet? If not, grab yours below.