The Mistakes I made.

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The Mistakes I made
and the mistakes that made me
Gessica Sheridan

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I don’t know why I grew up thinking it was embarrassing to be wrong.  I imagine it had something to do with my insatiable need for attention a fear that I wasn't being seen, an insecurity that maybe I wasn’t good enough.

As a little girl, the worst thing I could do was make a mistake. The mistakes I made at school humiliated me, the mistakes I made in my friendships haunted me and the mistakes I made at home scolded me. Every time I made a mistake my universe shook and crumbled and I felt such shame and fear of the consequences that I would punish myself. Every mistake I made confirmed my insecurities.

I can still feel my heart anchor in my stomach, and the blood rush to my cheeks; like my hands might melt the skin from my face if I dare wipe away the tears I can feel building. If I close my eyes I’m a six year old girl again, sitting at my desk - my heart pounding and my ears ringing with the sniggers of other six year olds. I squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I can begging to turn back the clock because I put my hand up to answer a question - and got it wrong.

Throughout my whole childhood I dreaded the chance I might make a mistake, but if someone had told me at six years old how many mistakes I would make in my life time, I wouldn’t be the person I am now.

Of course, some of my mistakes have been bigger than others. Some had virtually no impact beyond my embarrassment, and some had life altering consequences what I now live with everyday. When you build something and it breaks, the obvious thing to do is build it again, but build it stronger. Smarter.

Well, that’s what I know about confidence; confidence that I can rise from my mistakes. I keep building it. It keeps breaking and when my confidence is crumbled on the floor I now know there is no point in trying to rebuild it without looking at why I let it crumble in the first place. 

It's fight or flight but in reality, you only have one choice. It’s a cliche if ever I heard one but it is true, there is something to learn from every mistake, and while there is not a more uncomfortable, more confronting way to learn - there is not a more complete lesson, either.

The more I learn, and rebuild myself, the stronger I become and the more risks I take because I have proven to myself that I can recover. If only I knew when I was six years old, that the mistakes I was making, were the also the mistakes that were making me.

So I continue to make more mistakes, and take more risks and hence… make more mistakes.

I believe this is the truth for everyone making mistakes like I am. You become more powerful, resilient, intelligent, as long as you know it is okay to be wrong. We are tasked with realising the potential in our mistakes and misjudgements as well being humble and kind in the way we react to the mistakes that other people are making around us.

Every now and then, I make a mistake that takes me back to when I was six years old. I tell myself I’m stupid, useless, worthless. I feel the weight of my stomach pull my whole body through the floor and I desperately try to wish it away. Then, I imagine where I would be if I could wish away all my mistakes and I forgive myself for not getting it right because  in order for me to grow, most of my mistakes were inevitable and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So I keep making mistakes, and cross my fingers that they'll keep making me.