I recently went to a birthday party for a family friend’s baby. I still remember the baby being a toddler, barely recognizing anybody but now she’s a big sister turning 4 years old. The family also let us know that this would be the last birthday that would be adult-oriented because next year, she’ll be at preschool so the birthday parties will be kid-oriented! How time flies.
This family’s really great at planning entertaining parties. We prayed (the family’s Christian), ate some lunch, played some board games and went out to the backyard to do a new event: painting. There was a simple canvas with an animal to draw, along with small containers with different colored paints and a small brush.
Now, I’m no artist but I did spend a significant amount of time in high school painting because we were working on an admissions portfolio and art was a component in it. I hadn’t touched a brush in so many years but I quickly got into what it feels like to paint.
I decided to paint a monkey because my in-person workshop happening today (catch the recording here) was named Monkey Think, Monkey Do. So as I was painting the monkey I noticed that there was no brown paint. I asked my wife “Hey Claire, how do I make brown?” and she replied, “Lots of yellow, red, and black”.
Indeed that was the recipe for brown. Later I messed up with the ratio and the monkey became too dark, but nevertheless it was a fun experience. What I’m really trying to tell you with this story is, brown is a mix of colors but when we look at brown, we just look at the color brown as if it’s a paint color.
We have a tendency of seesawing between two extremes. When you don’t get your desired results, it’s so tempting to think we’re failures. But does that mean we’re actually failures? No, we can do everything right and still not get our desired results. So maybe we’re not failures. But this doesn’t mean that we did everything right; it is possible for us to not fuck up AND still have some room for improvement.
It is SO FUCKING HARD to think of ourselves in this nuanced view. It’s so much easier and comforting to think of ourselves as having one dimensional traits. We did one thing wrong, so that means we fucked up! We did everything right, so we better get the results! There is no breathing room when we bounce back and forth between extremes.
If I punch babies, I’m a bad person. But just because I don’t punch babies, doesn’t mean I’m a good person. If I feed hungry babies, I’m a good person. But just because I don’t feed hungry babies, doesn’t mean I’m a bad person.
When we feel paralyzed by our own failures, we have to understand that just because we have moments of failures we’re not failures. Even when we are actively going through moments of failures, we still have options; we don’t have to submit to the flow of failure. When I’m falling off of my bike, I can still try to save the balance until the last minute instead of just accepting that I’m going to fall.
When you feel brown, don’t just accept the brown as a state. What is the yellow, red, and black in this situation? When you feel sad, don’t just accept the sad as a state. What are the individual events and emotions that lead to this output emotion? If brown is the color I want to paint in, then I can accept the brown. If feeling sad is the emotion you want to be in, then you can accept the sadness.
After I’m done painting the brown, I moved on to painting the yellow butterfly. What’s next for you?