Hi Vimal,

Thank you for your thoughts. Something you said actually fired off a process of contemplation concerning an issue I’m dealing with right now.

You said that children don’t have “resistance to mistakes”.

What I’m dealing with right now is the concept of ‘failure’. But not just the one mistake. Rather the failure of repeatedly failing at the same thing. Making the same mistake over and over and not learning your lesson. I keep having this vision/feeling of how I go back to the aftermath after a lifetime and immediately realise I missed that One key lesson AGAIN.

The challenge with repeated failure is that you not only have to resolve the issue itself. First you have to get through the eddy current of hopelessness you have created surrounding it. The feeling of ‘I’m never going to get this one’.

Maybe the key is in the child’s approach that you described above. What if I can look at each ‘mistake’ as a unique one, as opposed to the same over and over. And then take it a step further and change the word ‘mistake’ to ‘exploration’. Then my repeated ‘failure’ suddenly becomes a series of unique explorations, and the judgment and ‘resistance’ to it can begin to soften...

Now if only I can apply this approach to my own kids as well. Like right at this moment. While I am trying to write this, my two kids are singing (screaming) really loud and I can hardly hear myself think, but I don’t want to limit their expression even though it’s driving me crazy. Sometimes I can handle the strength of their ‘expressions’. Sometimes I can’t and I explode. And each time there is that choice of going into judgment and guilt over my misaligned reactions or seeing it as another unique exploration.

Thanks Vimal for the insight.

Love,

Anastasia