I Was Wrong.
That is hard to admit because it takes a lot of humility, something that I thought I was good at but really at 50 years old I am just learning to be. I don’t know if it is just me, although my hunch is that it is not, but I have spent the past 40+ years trying to avoid my fears and chase after my desires. In all honesty, it hasn’t worked and I am exhausted!
I just thought this was the way we were supposed to live life. I didn’t even know there was another way. It seems as though maybe that was an instinctual pattern, but I recently began learning, through a process called Family Systems, that it is not. Instead, it is a learned behavior pattern.
I want this to be practical. For me that is the only way I can relate to things and see how what I am doing may not be working well. This gives me the opportunity to learn and implement another understanding that could be better for me.
I Want To Be Right
I have always wanted to be right. What does that even mean? Well to my brain, as a little girl it meant emotional protection. I thought that it would protect me from the humiliation, embarrassment or pain that I would feel when I was not right or when there just was another way to do or think about something. So I developed a pattern of thinking that I believed made me right.
I would think about something, allow my brain to come up with viable solutions to what was happening and then I would do whatever it was. Often it did not result in the outcome that I wanted or it alienated others and forced them into the “wrong” positions. So, this pattern did protect me to some extent, like a brick wall protects. But it also divides and keeps others out and isolated me from people and new ways of thinking.
Embrace Being Wrong
I can now see, as I review my past and my own patterns and relationships, the wake it has left behind. It kept me from seeing new ideas, new ways of thinking, and stretching myself. It held me back from growing in humility and seeing and understanding people for who they were. Now I am learning to embrace that I was wrong. I needed those lessons to teach me along the way.
I now am finding protection not in being right but rather in being wrong! Yes, protection. Protection from my own mind, that ego desperately wants to keep me stuck in old patterns. Protection from thinking that I am right, which leads to my own-cut off from new information that will help me grow. Protection from becoming a brand new version of myself moment by moment. Protection from the bondage that being “right” puts me in. Protection from growing in new relationships. Protection from the beauty of others being right, having confidence, and teaching me.
So today, I am embracing the idea of contemplation, that maybe being wrong is not so bad. Maybe even more, there is not right or wrong but just different ways of thinking, doing and feeling in the world. This idea brings me comfort in knowing myself better, becoming more transparent with others and seeing the world through new eyes!
