What was your part in what happened?

This applies in general and specifically to relationships.

It’s unusual to accept our mistakes. It’s easy to be defensive about things that you didn’t do well.  That may be the most common reaction. We all want to feel that we did the best we could. We are all human, we are fallible. We need to give ourselves grace to make mistakes and then to recover from them.

Something that might be helpful for owning up to a mistake is to figure out what percentage was your part.  I’ve discovered that when something doesn’t go well in my life, if I allow myself to say, “my part in this was tiny, maybe 20%, maybe 5%, but still, here’s what I didn’t do well,” I become more willing to be open to be aware of how I contributed to the situation and not be defensive.

Then I need to forgive myself, and maybe, if I believe in a power greater than myself, ask for forgiveness from that power. Then maybe, just maybe, I might be willing to think about what I could do differently. I will write about that next week.

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