We all know that recovery is not linear. There are ups and downs and you will get frustrated, discouraged and upset sometimes. Sometimes, when meeting challenges and doing exposures, you will “fail”.
Maybe you couldn’t sit through the panic so you ran. Maybe you called for help, or went to the emergency room, or took your rescue medication to get through it. The specifics do not matter. What does matter is that even in what you call failure, there are lessons and there is value. HOWEVER, if you fall into the trap of beating yourself up, berating yourself, and calling yourself names, you will miss those lessons and completely lose out on the value of the experience.
The biggest mistake you can make when you fail is to glue yourself to that failure and to use it to define your worth as a person.
“I hate myself.”
“I am a failure.”
“What kind of mother does this?”
“What’s wrong with me???”
These are all common statements of self loathing and harsh self judgment that we hear in the community when our friends experience failure or disappointment in recovery. Have you done this to yourself? Have you “failed”, then lashed out at yourself and declared yourself broken, unworthy, less than, or awful in some way?
I know that the recovery process can get emotional at times. Big feelings are going to arise. And we all make emotionally fueled mistakes that can sometimes lead us to be less than nice to ourselves. That’s going to happen. The trick is to catch it when it does.
Start from the premise that failing at an exposure or recovery challenge does not in any way define who you are. It does not diminish your value as a human. If we start from here, we can then say that spending the next day or two beating up on yourself is pointless because it amounts to just telling a story - out loud - that isn’t in any way true. If someone you love stumbles while meeting a challenge, would you say bad things about them and call them broken? Of course you wouldn’t because you know that it’s not true.
Really, ranting and raving about being “the worst parent in the world” (for example) serves only to temporarily soothe your pain. When you say it out loud, and especially when you get others to respond with sympathy and reassurance, you get a little relief from that sense of failure. Nobody would blame you for wanting that, but you can get that without the self-flagellation if you start from the premise that failing feels crappy, but doesn’t define who you are.
There are two steps we can take to avoid falling into the “beating ourselves up” trap. One is speaking about ourselves objectively and with kindness. The other is looking at failure as something you DID, not something you are.
Tomorrow we’ll finish this discussion by walking through those steps to see what they look like.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
79. Failure Is NOT Who You Are