Okay – so you screwed up again!  Then there is the resultant self-flaggelation afterward, a collection of responses from mental masturbation, that hamster wheel of thoughts as we mentally rehearse over and over what could have or should have been because, DAMMIT, it wasn’t our fault (projection), to lethargy to sleeplessness (more rehearsing even as we try to get a break from the barrage of thoughts), to isolating to sniping at our partners (displacement is Freud’s term – you know when the boss yells at us and we go home and kick the dog).  Whew!  I’m exhausted just reading this!  And believe me, it is barely the tip of the iceberg of responses of how we berate ourselves when we feel as though we’ve done something wrong.  No one is perfect – perfect is boring, an illusion.

Native Americans understood the importance of flaws.  In Navajo rugs there is always a flaw built into the design on purpose – This flaw is intentional – the Navajo believe that this flaw allows the spirit, or soul, of the blanket to have the freedom to roam, and for the blanket to never truly end.  In reality, there is no such thing as perfect as we are all changing from each millisecond to the next – our bodies are renewing and aging, expanding and contracting with each moment.  It would be much more true to think that we are perfect in all of our our imperfections.  I can really see the beauty in that.  So the next time you screw up, I mean really pull a big one (that isn’t caught on You Tube or anything), try to create some space for self-forgiveness.  It is sooo much easier and takes a lot less energy to do so.  Ahhhhh.