Sometimes I can really beat myself up for my mistakes.
But what is a “mistake?”
Something I apparently did in the past that, right now, I wish I hadn’t done?
If that’s the case, a mistake is not a problem of the past, it’s a problem of the present. I’m telling myself a story of an unacceptable past, believing it, and then wishing it never was. Well, congratulations! While something may have happened, this story I have in my head never WAS.
It only IS.
What I’m believing now is not what happened then. What I’m believing now is imagination now. Imagination now is the only way I can have a “then.” The picture in my head is not the event, not the situation, not you, not me, it’s imagination. Now.
The only real me is now. The only real you is now. The only real situation is now. The only real event is now.
Serve that. It’s the only thing I can serve.
Through connection, listening, apologies, kindness, caring, presence, surrendering to what is. Now. And now. And now.
It’s all there is.
So there can be no mistake in reality.
Because reality has no way of dealing with things that aren’t, well, real - things like an image of a past. That’s why I suffer. Try as I might to fix an unacceptable past or prepare for an unacceptable future, both keep receding away from me. Because they aren’t there. They’re imagination. I’m doing it all now and neglecting the reality of now.
Living outside reality is impossible. That’s why it hurts to try.
Return to now and serve peace.
See what IS. Now.
Hear what IS. Now.
Receive the gift of what IS. Now. Even if that gift comes wrapped in stories of a painful past or a frightening future. Those are gifts too. They’re waking me up to an argument I’m having with reality. Now.
Respond to all of it now, with love and compassion and total openness to what is happening now.
I can’t make a mistake if I just do that.