Hi Jen,

I can really resonate to the feeling of being failure in others eyes and the embarrassment around that. I'm in a kind of situation where I committed to an endeavour and pulled myself out. I again committed myself to it and by then people around me commented that I'm flaky. Now I'm thinking of jumping out because really Im not that excited to do it and I doubt I created for a sense of security and safety. Yesterday I literally ran out of a situation because of the fear of being seen in such a way. I came face to face with an old me who chooses to hide and not be vulnerable under any cost. I don't know what's there to loose so much, yet this is a pattern I can't plaster over. Jeff Foster in his book says to be 'wildly uncertain'. I doubt if anyone truly following the soul and not fixating to an idea can be really certain about anything. But that's what the world demands! Or rather me. Lol!

I guess it's about learning to look failure and success from an entirely different angle. Yes, if we are softening and learning from the sense of failure, then is that failure at all. I remember playing chess with a younger cousin brother of mine. Now I can see we both have this attatchment over winning and huge sense of resistance and embarrassment over loosing. Over time I made it a practice it to watch and observe what this 'loosing' really does to me inside and softening around that. And I noticed a sense of success even when I was loosing outside. Now I didnt magically start to win because of the realizations inside, he has somehow become way better than me! . Maybe chess is not really my thing and I know some other games which is more natural and authentic to me. But through these experiences it was interesting to observe how the fear of making the wrong move constricts us in the chess of life. If we always succeed, how will we learn resilience?

Vimal