We have all done it. We are walking along, thinking that everything is fine, and we trip – seemingly out of nowhere. Sometimes it’s just a little stumble and we catch ourselves and just keep moving. Other times, we fall flat on our face.
Theodore Roosevelt had this to say about stumbling in his speech from 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Brene Brown refers to these stumbles as “face down in the arena moments.” Last year, I was stepping along on my path, thinking I was pretty okay – I had just gotten some pretty great recognition at my job, my oldest son was graduating from high school, I was organizing my parents 50th anniversary party, and although things weren’t perfect, I felt like like I was on a pretty good path. So, when my husband told me he didn’t think he wanted to be married to me anymore, I stumbled. I stumbled hard.
Every day was a face down in the arena moment. Every day felt like stumbling instead of stepping. I had been so overconfident about being in control of my own path and I had to realize quickly that I was not actually in control of anything.
Stumbling on our path requires that we give ourselves the love and attention that we need. We have to stop and clean up the bumps and bruises – we have to allow ourselves time to heal. Being caring and compassionate with ourselves can be difficult, and feeling out of control is definitely not something that we are comfortable with in long periods of time, so it’s normal to want to get past the stumble and forget it ever happened. But, give yourself the gift of forgiveness and be open to failing forward. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
