This post is part of a series celebrating the release of Building Balance in Your Body & Life, my new 30-lesson audio course on Insight Timer. Find the previous posts in the series (starting Mar 2, 2022) here. If the ideas here interest you, please join the course! Go to the Insight Timer web site to listen to the first lesson for free and to join us. Just $20/US for 30 Lessons! Thank you for supporting your body, your life and my work.
“No human ever became interesting by not failing. … Ever meet someone who’s always had everything work out for them with zero struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don’t exist.” ~ Chris Hardwick
Every morning after flossing and brushing I take the coldest shower I can stand. You might understandably guess that is the oddest thing I do in the mornings. Oddly enough, you would be wrong.
While writing the Building Balance in Your Body & Life course this winter, I experimented with balancing in lots of ways and incorporating balance into other things I was doing anyway. One winter morning, I got to wondering if I could stand on one foot and dry myself off post-shower.
I couldn’t.
Especially on my left foot.
I’d step on the bathmat, grab my thick chocolate towel, lift my right foot, and immediately put it back down again. Every morning, same thing: cold shower, grab towel, lift foot and put it back down. And then one morning, I only tapped my toe down whilst drying. A few mornings later, if I focused my eyes on the knot in the bathroom door, I could do it. I could balance and dry my whole shivering self off.
Then I got to wondering if I could look around while I was balancing and drying. Same situation: lots of bobbles and wobbles and putting my toes down until one day, I could watch the birds out the window and the cat running around impatient for breakfast and stay on one foot.
American culture casts a pall over failing. Failing and losing is equated with embarrassment, shame and even death (ever hear someone say, “She lost her fight with cancer.”?).
[SIDE NOTE: I intended to open this post with a quote from the US’s former president since he seems to have strong feelings about winning and losing and success and failure. I did my best but after 3 minutes of reading his words, I just couldn’t do it and went with an American comic’s words instead.]
The Flirting with “Failure” section of the Balance course strives to change our orientation to “failure.” Instead of something to be ashamed of or be discouraged by, what if we saw it as a source of curiosity, learning and information gathering?
This idea isn’t new. But I notice that when it comes to physical endeavors, especially as I age, I feel afraid of experimenting beyond what I know I can do. The invitation is to take “safe risks” (as my teacher and colleague, Helen Terry calls them): small nibbles of exploration along the edges of your current capability into things we cannot do…yet.
Learning isn’t a straight line. The body changes every day. Some days I can dry myself off on one foot, other days I just can’t. But I keep playing around with it to see what happens. These days, the birds and the cat might catch a glimpse of me drying my cold-shower body off with my eyes closed.
The Flirting with Failure section of the Building Balance in Your Body & Life course offers exercises and inquiry into awareness of and choice around our willingness to “fail.” This week, notice when you avoid a physical task because you think you can’t do it. What might be a way you can “inch” yourself into it? Then please join the Building Balance course. for $20/US and receive more ways to feel balance in your body and your life.