Embracing The Pain Of Failures In These 4 Holistic Steps

Updated: Sep 24, 2021

Failure is never the end of everything. We can certainly mourn about our failures but we don't have to give up our happiness.

#1. FAILURE IS ONLY A LABEL FOR NOT GETTING WHAT WE WANTED

Like a protaganist in the movie, all of us are born with wants and needs.

What we WANT are influenced by external goals and we know what they are. When we experience failure, if you think about it, failure is simply a label to reflect an outcome when we can't get what we want.

Maybe we wanted a loyal husband but he cheated, perhaps we wanted the wife to stay but she chose to leave, maybe we wanted to earn loads of money so that there is no worry to put food on the table, but we lost the job, maybe we want to be healthy but we found out that our body is sick, perhaps we wanted our business to take off but instead we lost all the money...

When things don't turn out the way we wanted, we label them as failure.

So before we suffer, judge, blame and torture ourselves over our failures, we can take a moment to re-evaluate why do we want what we want. And is not achieving what we want equivalent to not achieving what we need?

Our existential journey on earth, is a process of juggling between the discovery and achieving what we want and what we need. What we want, is very clear. But what we need is more of an internal goal which most of the time, we do not know, until we fall and stumble.

I had always wanted to be in love but is that what I truly need in order to flourish in my life? Well, it was only until I encountered all my failures in love that I realised what I really need is to heal myself from the past, finding back my light and love about this world, my life, my family, myself, that were all lost for a long time.

Discovering what you truly need can help you redefine what you truly want and hence expand your perspectives on success and failures.

It was this huge realisation that awakened me from my struggling with failures. As soon as I understood this, my failures don’t seem that painful anymore. But eventually became an inspiration for myself to heal.

But the irony is, while most of us take failure too seriously, we are YET afraid to take responsibility at the same time.

#2. DON'T TAKE FAILURES TOO SERIOUSLY, TAKE OWNERSHIP INSTEAD

Failures are nothing more than a result of us making bad decisions, not taking the right actions, or not taking delicate care of what we have got.

Failures can become entangled, chaotic and in the end, seemingly irreparable, only when we become too busy paddling in the mess instead of cleaning them up.

It's not that we don't care but failures have the ability to panic and paralyse our body and mind, making us feel weak and incapable to do anything about it.

And the next automatic behaviour is to find something else to distract ourselves and numb the pain. That's when alcohol, drugs and other toxic habits are developed.

If this is the state you find yourself stuck in right now, I want you to take a long deep inhalation right now and shout out the positive affirmation that all of these got to stop.

Failures are like bullies. The more you are afraid of them, the further they climbed onto your head and mess up your mind.

Place both your palms on your heart now, close your eyes. Can you feel your own heartbeat? Can you feel the warmth in your heart? Yes, this is your life. The only one life you have to take care in this lifetime.

Now open your eyes. My dear beautiful soul, this is your life, you own it. You may not be able to choose the circumstances or undo what had been done but you can choose how you want to experience the journey ahead.

You can continue to face down and struggle in the mud or look up into the sky and focus on how to get yourself out of it.

Taking ownership is an opportunity to reconnect with your own life destiny. Pick up the pieces, put all your issues on the table, break down the elephant and solve them one piece at a time, one step at a time, one day, one breath at a time.

Eventually, all failures will become success in a greater form beyond your imagination.

#3. BE MORE FORGIVING TOWARDS FAILURE

A lot of blaming work happen in the event of failure.

When a marriage failed, the blaming parties range from the husband, wife, parents, in-laws, children, third parties, career, money and the list goes on. The same blaming exercise happen for every other failures.

But the ultimate blame that crushes us, when we fail, is when we start blaming ourselves internally. Day and night, the blaming voices and regrets circle in our mind. And its hard to shake them off.

Is this happening for you too? If yes, my dear beautiful soul, I want to share with you a quote that had been my anchor of healing for a long time.

If you have to choose between being right and being kind. Choose kind. - Dr. Wayne Dyer

The reason why we hang on to our self-blame for failure is because we are so attached to the notion of right and wrong. We are devastated that we had made a big mistake, we fumbled, we screwed up, we did not succeed. But getting stuck in this self-blame does not make things right again.

There is a third option that you can look at your situation, not right, not wrong, but loving kindness.

Forgive your failure, forgive those who caused your failure, but most important of all, forgive yourself.

When you forgive, your body may still be stuck in the puddle of mud but your mind had been set free.

With a free mind, you are then now able to step up, take ownership and pick up the pieces and make things right again.

Well, your journey to heal from failures had just began when you work on these 3 steps. For the end of the video, I am going to leave you with this one last pointer, so that you can continue your journey to success.

#4. COMMIT YOURSELF TO DO IT RIGHT FROM NOW ON

I have a daily ritual which I had been practising for many years. And my key intention is to put my heart and soul into reinforce my commitment to "fix" my life and do the right things from now on.

I will put my palms together and touch these three spots - my forehead, my lips and my heart. Symbolising that whatever I think, what I say and what I do will always be aligned with my commitment to success.

This alignment is a powerful way to re-harmonise your life. You know one reason why most of us find it hard to breakfree from our failures and perhaps even continue to repeat them is because we tend to say one thing, think another and do something else?

Someone who is addicted to alcohol, thought of changing for good, but they cannot stop speaking negatively about their life story and continue to visit the bars. That's how failure continue to spiral deeper and deeper.

My dear beautiful people, failure is not the end of everything. In fact, it can be the beginning of everything beautiful! But we need to take charge and be committed to right our wrongs, change our old habits, take extra effort to clean up the mess, bit by bit, day by day, no matter how hard or how long it takes.

In my own healing journey, I have learned to use this one principle, to stick to my plan and be patient, and I want to share with you.

Whenever I feel like giving up, because things still don't appear to be in the "form" of success, I touch my heart and ask myself - am I doing my very best? If no, then continue to try harder. If yes, well then it is already a success!

Remember that life is never about a destination but the journey. So if throughout your journey, you are always trying hard and doing your best, then you're done. Great job!

Finally, you know we have been talking a lot about failure and success as if they two different things. But actually no.

Failure is twisted into the DNA of success, if you want success, failure is part of the process. Every failure elevate you higher in the path of success. So don't ever fear or stumble over failures again.

The above is a partial transcript of my video.