Failure, Scmaelure

A really bad thing happened to me this weekend. I failed a very important oral examination at school. It was horrible. I was called into the examiners office and they looked at me with serious eyes and said, "Sarah, we would like you to retake the exam." What!? I was shocked. "Are you kidding?", I said. As if an examiner would joke about that. I went home in a daze (well after some school chums took me out for some much needed vino). I was a wreck. I cried and sniffled and called all the people who love me to try and get sympathy. I sat on the floor in the dark and felt sorry for myself. "What a loser I am", I said over and over again. And then when I finally ran out of tears I proceeded to get angry. "I was wronged! Those examiners were too picky or they had something against me. This shouldn't have happened. I should never have failed. I am a smart girl and there is no way this is possible!" Eventually after much more anger and a little more pity, I fell asleep.

Upon waking I went straight to Google. I did every search possible on failures who succeeded and overcoming failing and getting back on the horse. I needed to find someone awesome who had failed at something so I didn't feel so bad. Well you know what? There's a whole bunch a people who have failed at stuff. Did you know that Babe Ruth was known not only for his home run record (714)but also for having the most strikeouts too (1330)? Hillary Clinton and John F. Kennedy failed the BAR exam the first time they took it. Michael Jordan didn't make the cut when he tried out for his high school basketball team and Albert Einstein failed his entrance exam into college. Leo Tolstoy even flunked out of college and Louis Pasteur ranked 15 out of 22 in college chemistry. When Fred Astaire auditioned for the movies, the president of MGM said, "can't act, can't sing, can dance a little." Basically what I learned is this: everybody falls down sometimes and it's not the falling or the failing that makes the man, it's the getting back on the horse. 

As I was reading about failure and thinking about all these strong people, my mind was pulled back to exercise. When you're lifting weights, it is only when the muscle fails you that it has broken down enough to be able to build back stronger. If the muscle never fails, it will never grow. It's considered hard core when you bring a muscle to failure. In yoga you are encouraged to push yourself to a point when you might fall.  It is how we react when we fall that matters. The point is not to not fall, the point is to do it calmly. I started to look at my failure in a different light. The more I let that exam define me as stupid or weak, the more I become stupid and weak. The angrier I became at the injustice, the less open I became to growth. The sadness and the anger were closing up my heart from the experience of learning. It was as if I were standing in a tree pose and the moment I fell, I gave up and stormed out. Every fall is an opportunity to do it again, to do it better. 

And so that is what I am planning to do. 

This week I would love for you all to join me in taking a look at moments in your life when not being good at something or failing something has left you feeling less than. I invite you to see how that moment helped create a more successful you. If it didn't then, let it now. 

In the fabulous words of Rosalind Russell, "Failure is just a part of life's menu, and I have never been the kind of girl to miss out on any of the courses."

Be Good to your Body, it's where you Live