00:00:00: Music.

00:00:09: Very welcome back to a new episode of bitch breathe I am your host ricardia.

00:00:14: Today we're going to talk about one of those big words I think that one of those big words failure

00:00:20: and today's episode as you've seen is called the magic of failure so I guess you can already see where the journey is going a little bit but I always like to look into a little bit of the how the journey is going,

00:00:34: so for me personally I recently took on a very promising project right I work freelance and I had.

00:00:43: Come across this opportunity that I had worked towards for a little while and I couldn't believe my luck it.

00:00:50: So abundant in terms of you know finances and creatively speaking and just the whole idea of working in this kind of setting just seemed really really exciting.

00:01:03: When I got to this new job this new project I started to realize that maybe.

00:01:10: It wasn't quite what I expected that's putting it mildly I had

00:01:16: very firmly placed myself in a environment that totally totally wasn't up my alley there was a lot of elbowing

00:01:25: nothing wrong with ambition but a lot of ambition on account of other people there was a way of communicating that I had not seen since when I last worked in film and even there that.

00:01:39: Look like a perfect charity compared to where I had now landed so,

00:01:43: I started to think well what am I going to do here there has to be a way to sort of and here comes the yogi raise the Consciousness here raise the bar of how we communicate with each other and find ways to maybe change,

00:01:58: where I am for the better.

00:02:01: I like that I'm still this idealistic at this age and stage of the game and I thought let me run with that for a while,

00:02:09: so after a while of you know not rising to the bait of all the things that were happening there was a lot of aggression in my environment I was being insulted and attacked personally,

00:02:22: as well as professionally on a daily basis.

00:02:26: Several times a day and this was so new to me having come from the spiritual and sort of coaching and altogether transformative people working on themselves kind of background that I was like,

00:02:40: what the hell does happened here how did I land back here.

00:02:44: So then I was like I'll let me get some business advice I spoke to some of my friends have what should I do here I'm in a really sort of strange situation that really

00:02:53: resembles a mobbing

00:02:54: but a lot more aggressive and a lot more targeted I read my tarot cards I got spiritual advice I asked Mom,

00:03:04: and nothing there was nothing I could do I could not change the situation around and the attacks are getting so much

00:03:13: worse that every weekend Sunday night rolls around and I am dreading going back to this place I'm like oh my God how,

00:03:22: wrong was this decision and how am I not able to turn this around like what is wrong with me that first of all this is showing up in my life,

00:03:33: and secondly that I can't flip the script in some way.

00:03:38: So no matter what I did I was like no I'm going to give myself a hundred days at least a hundred days get this that's how challenging this was that a hundred days seemed like a good period to start with by day 77 and yes.

00:03:52: I counted.

00:03:54: I realized there's no way I got one more email this one not even so bad but I thought no this is it I cannot I will not I refuse.

00:04:03: To stay here so I gave up the project I left and with that departure.

00:04:11: There came first relief yes of not having to be at the center of all this egomaniac achill and crazy behavior.

00:04:22: But what very soon came in as a secondary perception was the idea of failure.

00:04:29: I had failed at this new project I didn't manage to turn it around I didn't manage to defend myself the way I should have and I didn't manage to stay here,

00:04:40: and that really beyond having hurt my feelings over and over again which I can sort of deal with it really hurt my Professional Pride.

00:04:49: And to be honest after all these years of yoga and breathing and self-transformation and doing all the inner workings.

00:04:58: I had not managed to come out of this with Grace I was for the first time in a very long time talking really badly about another person

00:05:07: for a sustained period of time I believe the word bitch was not used in the positively connoted way that I hope you understand my whole Title Here of a bitch breathe I actually used it the way it used to be used or a still use,

00:05:22: outside a certain community so.

00:05:25: First of all I want to talk about semantics a little bit this whole idea of failure I get especially annoyed when people talk about failed

00:05:32: marriage has failed Parenthood are they

00:05:35: failed in some sort of away now there are ways to fail Parenthood I think I can sign up for that one right away in some ways but this whole idea of.

00:05:48: Failing something really irks me because maybe something just drew to a close maybe something was over like in terms of my marriages I have to say I didn't fail them or.

00:05:59: We didn't fail the marriage we might have failed each other we might have not shown up.

00:06:05: For each other the way we should have but the marriage is didn't fail they had come to a natural clothes.

00:06:12: And translating that idea to this job was not working so well for me for the time being because I felt I had failed.

00:06:22: Not so much at the job because I never properly got to do it with all the distraction anyway first I thought I had failed this and I don't always think we should use that word so.

00:06:35: What makes failure this big I want to say illusion sometimes but what certainly makes it a big deal is.

00:06:42: Failure is only fundamental in what it will do for you it does not mean that you are a failure so just to elaborate on that point a little bit,

00:06:53: sometimes when we fail we

00:06:56: become very fundamental about it like suddenly everything about us is a failure and we start to tell ourselves all those stories of failure that we have experienced in the past

00:07:09: so now suddenly I haven't just failed maybe at this particular confrontation with a person or I haven't failed in this

00:07:16: job situation no generally speaking I'm a failure because I've quit so many things I've stopped where I shouldn't have prematurely or whatever it is but suddenly we have.

00:07:29: Officially identified with this idea of failure.

00:07:33: And so the first thing I began to do when this whole job situation arose was to not go into the self-defeating talk of.

00:07:42: You know you're a failure how could this be happening you should have known yourself better you should have anticipated that this business was not going to be your kind of business you Shoulda Woulda Coulda done all these things,

00:07:55: to avoid this situation to have to short cut if you will a new opportunity.

00:08:04: But the truth is most people.

00:08:06: Whom I speak to at this age they've tried a lot of things on what does that mean that means you've tried a lot of things you didn't just stay in some

00:08:16: Cooper has dead-end job or stayed because of security because that's a big thing right now everyone can understand that to stay in a job for years because you're so scared you won't have that kind of financial stability again maybe,

00:08:28: maybe it has something to do with health insurance whatever it is failure can be leaving too early in our own heads and failure can be leaving too late so it's just sort of disentangle this idea from having.

00:08:42: Short and a project having left a marriage versus failing at these things

00:08:48: and what I meant by it's only fundamental in terms of what it will do for you is that failure has often been the making,

00:08:57: of something new from me and essentially a new making of me.

00:09:03: And that is where failure is fundamental that is where failure is to a certain degree going to become a new identifying moment about us.

00:09:15: But failure is not us because we failed to just sort of look at that difference and to really make it a point to separate what has happened.

00:09:25: And looking at the several steps that got you here versus well I mess it up again I'm a total failure this is what I always do.

00:09:36: And another thing about failure and I think this is something we.

00:09:40: Want to look at maybe even before we look at the whole idea of failure is the Injustice what if it wasn't my fault what if I had to leave somewhere because somebody made it impossible whether it's.

00:09:51: A partner or a co-worker or,

00:09:55: a certain situation a store where you want to return something and they're just not doing it whatever it is right the Injustice of it can often make a stay in a situation that clearly we should be

00:10:07: you know abort mission right now but we stay because this is unfair and that was one of the things I had in this job as I was like.

00:10:15: This is so not right I didn't even do anything yet

00:10:18: if I'm going to be attacked I want to have properly missed you up before I want to be able to be sure that I caused this situation in a traceable or traceable way for me.

00:10:32: So that when I go forward I can understand how I caused this why this was my responsibility and most importantly how to fix it.

00:10:42: And then there's of course the other side of that what if this was my fault.

00:10:46: You know if you want to go back to that whole idea of self-loathing just go ahead and hop onto my last episode which is all about self-loathing I don't know if you recognize the theme in my podcast episode.

00:10:58: You're probably right so this whole idea of that it was my fault I did mess up and boy did I mess up at this job I should have stood up for myself way sooner I should have probably left even earlier than those seventy seven days which by the way I'm just remind reminding myself now I actually stayed the hundred days

00:11:18: after having already announced that I would leave so yeah me looking at the small successes here so

00:11:25: identifying okay what was my responsibility we like to talk about Falls and off a lot I know I sometimes do but really it's just sort of looking at our contributions of how this could have

00:11:36: Ben.

00:11:37: Made less painful which mistakes maybe or things that didn't serve as we can avoid going forward and having that kind of close.

00:11:47: Interest in what happened here without getting all morbid on oh my God it's all my fault.

00:11:53: Another thing that arises when an event Ally Face doesn't go the way it was supposed to the way we had anticipated.

00:12:03: Is when we try to tell ourselves oh it was meant to be sometimes that doesn't ring true for us though right what does that even mean it wasn't meant to be.

00:12:12: And the truth is is that it's true it wasn't meant to be but maybe not for all those reasons that are like

00:12:19: very sort of pseudo spiritual that feel a little bit like we're spiritually by passing an important lesson or we don't want to feel something that's really kind of awkward and maybe a little bit attached to shame and just altogether uncomfortable.

00:12:32: But it wasn't meant to be because something else is going to arise from this and what do I mean by that I mean that if this failure doesn't happen.

00:12:42: Other transformative aspects of us won't have the opportunity.

00:12:48: And the space to come into our lives and on that level it damn well is meant to be because what I can say truly is that.

00:12:58: Failure ultimately and here's where the title of this episode comes in was a very magical thing for me I have seen.

00:13:06: Myself change so drastically because of something I apparently failed.

00:13:12: Right this was the making of me and this is the making of us how we fail if we want to use that word how we fall flat on our faces.

00:13:23: And then more interesting Lee how we get back up whether it looks graceful whether it looks knowing whether it has this connotation of.

00:13:33: Right that it was right it doesn't matter but the truth is what does matter is that we got back up again.

00:13:41: And that we understood what happened here.

00:13:45: And that might take some time that might not be something that immediately comes to us but it is an important step on the way back up and on the way.

00:13:55: Of understanding what is going on in our lives and what themes maybe be playing themselves out over and over.

00:14:03: And another important aspect of failure is of course it's so called opposite if we want to go down that road is success

00:14:12: but the truth is success is nice I want success I think we can all subscribe to that notion that we want to feel and be successful in every area of our life truly if we

00:14:25: that opportunity who's going to say no to success in all their Endeavors whether it's Parenthood a job a marriage whatever it is traveling across the globe but Success is Not

00:14:38: as transformative on a deeper level at least as is failure.

00:14:43: Success won't transform us the way failure will.

00:14:48: Now I don't want to fail all day every day and God knows I don't need to be learning all the big lessons all the time.

00:14:55: That said I kind of do need to learn some lessons throughout so that I can feel I'm.

00:15:01: Evolving not so much linear progression or traceable steps and sequence of events that all fit perfectly together no but finding a life.

00:15:13: And an evolution that looks truly transformative that does make me a different human from maybe who I was yesterday last year several decades ago and just understanding that.

00:15:25: When we are successful it's great but it will maybe make our transformation and our personal Evolution go a little dormant here and there so

00:15:34: I can't say I've been in the privileged situation that had so much success all the time that I was no longer traps for me so maybe that's why I like it's probably not that great.

00:15:45: But I do believe and this is conjecture lastly that we can transform amazingly through failure.

00:15:53: And why do I say that as a few points I want to make around that one is that failure brings us closer to life when we are

00:16:01: looking at allies me feel like oh my God everything is falling apart nothing is working out the way I anticipated the way had dreamed of and the way I may be planned for,

00:16:12: but when we fail and we become this raw and this lesson seems so hard to stomach.

00:16:19: We are more sensitized to our surroundings and we pick up on stuff we normally wouldn't,

00:16:26: what does that mean in a practical sense it means that we will pick up on opportunities.

00:16:32: And on people and on signals in a way that makes us almost seismographic in how it plays out.

00:16:42: We will begin to realize wait a second I need to give this person a second look

00:16:48: or we're so desperate if you will in a failed situation that we are open to new signals because what we've been doing is not working so we're automatically looking

00:16:59: for alternate routes and that is where the magic lies in this now slight shift of our lens or maybe drastic shift of our lens good for us that is where.

00:17:12: A nuanced and new way of looking at things can arise.

00:17:18: And you really will shift your reality in a way that you otherwise couldn't have why because you're not as raw normally,

00:17:26: when we failed at something and we're really disappointed in this situation in ourselves even worse it will make us more perceptive and

00:17:37: more impressionable.

00:17:39: Yes maybe for negative influences to and God knows I've made the occasional bad choice because I felt my situation was so desperate or whatever but.

00:17:49: Even that bad choice what looked like a bad choice at the time also changed me in a way that became a very positive for us going forward and so lastly,

00:18:00: I think this is one of the most important things.

00:18:03: When I left this job when I felt I no longer had any other solution it brought me back to one of the most important Services we can provide for each other,

00:18:16: and that is empathy as a direct result of failure you will find empathy and humility and these are two.

00:18:25: So important are these especially when you think about the fact that they are hugely lacking not just in this world but in the leaders of this world,

00:18:36: so to understand that failure like we said before is not just the remaking of us.

00:18:42: But it's a re sensitizing us of what is going on around us and what kind of I'm going to say it in a very sort of religious sounding wait crosses people have to bear in life that we

00:18:54: when we do step into leadership when we do step into Community will put those qualities forward.

00:19:01: And I think that's probably one of the most important things we can learn from failure everybody does it everybody's been through it and so not only is there no shame need there be no shame attached to it,

00:19:14: it's also not the kind of failure we think of it's a kind of reshaping and renegotiating how we interact with each other.

00:19:24: So I'm very curious to hear about what you

00:19:27: have been experiencing in terms of failure whether you connoted it in that way and if you'd like to drop me a line please do so my email address is bitch breathe at gmail.com but the bitch,

00:19:41: is a one where there should be an eye because Google doesn't allow for such a vulgar email addresses I hope to hear from you please feel free to rate and comment on the show if you like and till next time send.

00:19:55: Music.