I failed today.
My job was to host a guest on our podcast. In that role, it is my responsibility to create a space, rooted in love and curiosity, so that our guest can share their story.
And I didn’t do that.
Instead, I froze.
During the conversation, my nervous system hit capacity and my body shut down. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t move. I just sat there, blank.
My co-host noticed and asked me a few questions to checkin. The guest lovingly did the same, but sadly it didn’t make a difference. I was vacant and I couldn’t articulate why, but I knew, in that moment, I was failing at my piece of the puzzle. So I apologized. I wasn’t sorry for how I was feeling, but I was sorry that I couldn’t engage and fulfill my role.
Everyone responded to tell me that I wasn’t failing.
And honestly, it made me mad.
I wanted them to acknowledge the truth: I failed.
I know their intent was good and this processing isn’t to diminish their kindness; it’s about how we rush to rescue people from their emotions.
We often over-encourage positivity. We reroute too quickly. Reframing is powerful, but only after something has been fully felt. Otherwise, it’s just avoidance with better branding. If you move too quickly through an emotion, it doesn’t disappear. It lingers underneath the reframe, unresolved.
There are many places where fully feeling something may not be appropriate, but this wasn’t one of them. Our podcast holds emotions–ours and our guests’. I could have worked through it, but I didn’t. I was too unregulated. I need more space than was available.
So yes. I failed.
I failed to hold space for our guest and I failed to express myself in the space that was held for me by our guest. Oh the cycle of irony… I’m listening universe. I’m listening.
I have failed many times in my life. I have failed to be compassionate, to be faithful, to be truthful. I have failed and failed and failed and failed, over and over and over again. I have failed big and I have failed small. And every time, there’s an instinct–internally and externally–to move on quickly. To make it instantly mean something useful. To turn it into growth before it’s even been felt. But while my brain is doing circles trying to reduce the weight of this word, my wisdom knows that resilience doesn’t come from quick relief. It comes from staying. From being in the dark. Crying. Saying the messy truth out loud. Letting the experience land without immediately trying to fix it.
It’s ultimately uncomfortable–for everyone in the room.
Ugh, I hate making people uncomfortable. Trust me, I wanted to over-apologize for not just failing to do my job, but failing to express AND failure for making everyone uncomfortable in my emotions.
So guess what? I do this too. Someone expresses sadness and I start scanning the horizon for silver linings. I want to replace their “negative” energy with hope. Bingo! Emotional problem solved.
Except it’s not. Because when we rush someone through their feelings, even if it’s good intent, we don’t actually help them build resilience. We just help them escape discomfort faster, and we live in an age where instant gratification is killing our ability to regulate.
Discomfort is part of the contract. Sorry, not sorry, but it is. It always will be.
One of my biggest strengths is that I can take ownership of failure. I’ve had so much failure in my life that acknowledging I’ve failed is actually fairly easy. I can admit when I’ve fucked something up and the words fall out like “bless you” after a sneeze; it’s almost automatic. That came from determined practice over decades of dedicated to avoid it and finding only dead ends and unfulfilled desires. I am now able to (typically) feel through failure and learn from it, but only if I actually let myself feel it. Not skip it or soften it or reframe it. Just feel the fucking feels. Because when I do, the real wound surfaces–the one that I need to spend time in: I am never enough. Failing feels like concrete proof of that deep seeded fear that I am constantly trying to unravel, and when we hit that one, it really stings. Fuck. It resonates in my bones to the point of nausea.
But only temporarily.
The wound of not being enough is deep, but the emotions that are band-aided over it are more shallow. They are flippant and ever changing. They move and shift. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes it’s slow, but it’s always eventually. So I focus there, removing band-aid after band-aid one at a time. That first step, easier than trying to fix the wound, is what allows me to stay and show up for another round of trying (and likely failing) again. Next time I will sit a little longer with myself and with other people. When the instinct to fix arises, I’ll try to bite my tongue. I will remind myself that I don’t need to save myself or people from their emotions. I will remind myself that I need to make room for all of us to move through them.
I failed today. That’s true.
What is also true is that it’s already the past and there ain’t nothing I can do about it now, so I’m feeling what it means to fail. It feels like guilt. It’s tension all over my face. It’s terrible. Absolutely terrible. And yet, when I slow down and breath, all of those sensations have much greater subtly, slowing shifting when I give them space to express. It’s actually sticky in my mouth, which is dry and dense, tight around my jaw, pinching at my lips. And it pounds in my head, right between my eyes and deep in the sinuses of my nose. It feels terrible. And in that impermanence, I know that I’m already moving one step further through the darkness.
