What Failure Really Is

It's funny how the deepest wisdom resides in the gut. I mean, we can know something intellectually, but never truly understand it. It's the difference between reading something and saying "Yeah, yeah, I get it" and coming to a realization that strikes so deeply that you can feel it in your body.

 

Our bodies hold an infinite source of intuitive wisdom. The trick is learning how to sense it. Our everyday lives are so overfilled with stimulation that it can be hard to find time to be quiet, listen, and feel what our body is saying.  Learning to listen is so powerful because when we tap into our bodies' wisdom we connect with a deep-seated knowingness that has the capacity to change everything.

Last night I was reading and reflecting upon a question posed within the pages:

• How do you hold yourself back because you fear failure?

Almost immediately I was struck with a knowingness that I could feel. Even before I had thoughts, I had a sensation that something changed within. So I paused, quieted, and listened to the knowingness of my body. And as I listened, I realized something.

•  Failure comes not from the attempt nor even from the result. Instead, failure resides in the holding back that keeps us from ever trying.

In that timeless moment, something changed within. My body's wisdom told me that if I tried something and failed, well, it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't change the way I feel about myself. And if it changed the way other people saw me, that didn't matter either. Failure was just not a problem any more. It's the holding back--the fear of trying--that is the real failure

I have many dreams. Some dreams are even bigger than I've dared to dream. But now I see that my life--that all of our lives--are full of limitless possibility. We can dare to dream. More than that, we can dare to do. And all the while we are safe in the knowingness that the only real failure comes when we hold back from ever trying.