I’m getting the flash of the “X’s” in either red or bold black on the school assignments.

The years in school had a huge focus on right and wrong, on correcting mistakes.  In some fields of study there is right and wrong.  Two plus two is indeed 4, it is not 5 or any other number.  We need to learn that.  And yet that horrible feeling – at least for me anyway – that would come when I saw those X’s or the grade that meant I didn’t get full marks.  It took me to that place of “not good enough”, that place of shame, and somehow that doesn’t seem best for learning.

I remember in particular an incident in grade 10.  The assignment was to read a story and write your feelings about the characters.  I did not find one of the characters very sympathetic and wrote this in my assignment.  I found myself defending myself in front of the whole class and being told by the teacher that I was “walking on thin ice,” that my opinion was incorrect, that my feelings couldn’t be that.  I don’t remember what my feelings were supposed to be, I just remember mine were wrong, to the tune of an F.  This was the first F of my life.  Life went on and I ultimately passed the class and Grade 10 with flying colours, yet I sure do remember that incident.  Even now I’m feeling the tightness and anxiousness in my body as I recall that experience.

Incidents like these have influenced my life.  For some, in those moments your voice gets louder.  For me, I shrink, feel smaller, and experience that warm wash of shame.  These experiences were not empowering – at least they didn’t feel that way in the moment.

Having them as part of my experience in this moment now, in who I am in the present does feel empowering.  I can work with them in ways that enables me to feel bigger, stronger, more powerful in my life.  One of the ways that I do that is to consciously, purposefully not use the language of mistakes, of right and wrong.

I’m more than willing to acknowledge those circumstances in which I make a choice, learn something after experiencing that choice and then perhaps saying “Wow, I wish I’d chosen differently,” or any sort of wishing for having done, said, or been different.  Was I wrong or mistaken with the first choice?  I believe not.  I practice discernment.  I generally don’t take decisions lightly.  I am a lawful citizen.

I learn and with that learning I make new choices.  That doesn’t make me wrong or mistaken.  That makes me a reflective, purposeful learner.  I’m happy to be one of those.

So I invite you to think about that voice in yourself that judges you as right/wrong, good/bad.  Consider being a little gentler with yourself.

To close, here is one of my favorite quotes from Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.

Text and Images Copyright © Dr. Catherine Hajnal 2011, 2012