Yang Girly Girl

I received a comment on my last posting imploring me to write more about the subject of Falling Upward.  I must have struck a few chords, resonant, clanging ones, I hope.

In the June, 2009 issue of Psychology Today, writer Bruce Grierson talks about “the great American taboo” called Failure.  He says, “Few people can escape the feeling they’re giving up ground, and that the financial crisis has produced the sort of circumstances playwright Arthur Miller warned every generation-the sort that mints Willy Lomans.”

Grierson goes on to say that now is a time when the old methods of getting out of financial crisis just don’t work.  “It’s no longer possible to avoid failing simply by being conscientious and hard working-the formula our parents and their parents took to the bank.”

I had to “re-engineer” FAILURE to make it work for me; to make it something of a juggernaut toward success, a key element in accomplishment.  While that may sound like the motivational speech I’m going to win the World Championship of Public Speaking with in 2011, I honestly believe it’s true.

I know many of you are thinking this is entirely too warm and fuzzy and that one must teeter on the precipice of common disaster in order to be successful, fulfilled, and happy.  No, but I don’t know anyone, rich or poor, beautiful or homely, educated or not, worldly or cocooned that hasn’t known trauma, disaster, disapproval, broken families, poverty, losing a child, a love, or themselves.  The ones that fall upward attribute their fortitude and uniqueness of character, to those traumas.  Why should failure be any different?

Let me put it in this context:  when I say “failure” I mean loss of job, loss of nest-egg, loss of business, loss of self-esteem, loss of identity, and ultimately loss of hope.  This last one is the place where no human should reside.  I know because I’ve been there and back again….but not like Bilbo.

Most of us, by now, have heard the story of J.K. Rowling whose broken marriage, disapproval from her parents, and poverty drove her to her passion of writing because there was nothing else.  “Failure stripped away everything inessential.  It taught me things about myself I could have learned no other way,” she says. Oprah, Thomas Edison, Michael Jordan, Henry Ford, Winston Churchill, and Walt Disney have said pretty much the same thing.

Inspirational, but the Yang cynic in me knows it’s easy to be inspirational when you have millions in the bank, the world loves you, and your 4000^th experiment was a success and you change the world.  You wonder sometimes what the real ratio is…..the failure to success ratio that is.

I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I KNOW that failure is the path to my success and it’s a theory that’s clearly gaining momentum daily.  Why?  Because necessity is the father, or mother, or uncle of invention, someone famous once said, “Why is the FAILURE model changing?  Because we NEED it to.”  It’s called self-preservation, but more than that, it does strip us of our fears, our guilts, our scripts, and our social beliefs.  As I’ve said before, it takes us back to the true version of ourselves.

“I have failed so many times in my life, and for this, I am grateful,” I said.

The perplexed look on the faces of my audience was classic.  I knew what they were thinking: “Oh, here we go, she’s going to inspire us now about how grateful we need to be for what we have and not for what we don’t have…ugh.”

It’s easier and more comfortable to beat ourselves up over failures, unrealized goals, unexpected sharp turns in our lives than it is to celebrate them, but celebrate them we must.

That wasn’t my message, however. I wanted to show them why failure is not only good, but essential, because the social implications of failure are changing.  Let’s explore.

What if the requirements on a job description read something like:

“Ability to compartmentalize required; failure to achieve successes in life preferred.”

There are businesses that prefer to hire those that have failed, that can compartmentalize their failures, and not become emotionally attached to them, or take them too personally.  Would listing failures reveal more about your strengths than your weaknesses?  I think so.

The true version of you doesn’t care about how perfect you are according to the world according to Garp.  The true version of you already thinks you’re perfect, regardless of items on a paper list and how many are checked off.  The true version of you honors your failures, celebrates your successes, and wants you to push upward toward your higher self, that self that magnanimously doles out joy without precedent.

Falling upward is nothing more than saying you’ve failed at your goals, and moving on.  I have, many times, and it’s time to start moving, falling forward again.

Here are a few final thoughts for dealing with those dark times we all find ourselves in. Focus on the best possible outcome you can envision from where you are. Look around less at your dire circumstances and visualize more about what you really want.

If there are things you can do to resolve a situation, do them now. Try to ignore the things that you don’t have a solution for. Give those things up to God or source and move forward. Break free from being immobilized. Try to find even the smallest inspired actions to make progress and be as joyful as you possibly can.

Find a thought that brings the feeling of relief and hold onto it. Then find a thought that feels like even more relief and keep climbing. One thing I’ve found is that the miracles often come during the darkest hour.

“To begin again from scratch is part of the American Script.”  And, you’re not alone. We’re all in this together.