So yesterday I dropped myself on my head!
Another hard day at the office!
I was learning how to do drop backs on my own and had asked Nancy Gilgoff about it. (If you haven’t encountered drop backs yet then it is what it sounds like. you stand upright and then drop back, free falling through the air, onto your hands into a crab). I told my teacher that I fear it, even though I know that I can do it, my body can do it, I can do it from the floor up and I can do it if there is someone there. Nancy said sometimes you have to feel the fear and do it anyway!
Wise words!
So… last week I did it with no help, I did it! All by myself.
Yesterday though, the fear returned. I felt myself clamming up. I got scared, I felt the fear and I remembered Nancy’s words. Feel the fear and do it anyway.
I threw myself backwards. I went far too fast. I didn’t round my back enough, I didn’t bend my knees enough, my arms hit the mat and bent at the elbows and my head crashed into the floor ‘must try harder’
It made a hell of a bang, much louder than it actually felt. No getting away with it…. everyone in the room knew I had fallen on my head!
I laughed at myself and got back up.
One of the things that you must learn in these situations is to laugh at yourself and not take yourself too seriously! I wasn’t injured. So I got back up and tried again. We went over everything I didn’t do that should have done and she made me do 4 more straight up.
Like riding a horse right. when you fall get straight back up.
So on the days that I wonder why I try and twist myself up in knots, get my foot behind my head or fall over backwards and land on my head. I remember the important lessons that I have learnt.
If you want something bad enough you have to really work at it, you have to put blood, sweat and tears into achieving it. You have to make mistakes, you have to learn from your mistakes and you have to carry on when you fall. You have to laugh at yourself – in a good way – instead of punishing yourself, beating yourself up or belittling yourself. You have to pick yourself up off the floor and get straight back on it. Keep going in the direction of what you want no matter what.
Mistakes are super important, if we don’t make mistakes then we don’t really learn not to do something again.
My favourite quote for today. I have learnt so much from my mistakes that I am thinking about making a few more.
Happy mistake making.
