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Don't worry about your mistakes. Embrace them.
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Everyone makes mistakes. It's what you do with them that makes you successful or not. - photo by Aaron Anderson
In my work as a counselor, people come to me all the time after they have made a mistake. These mistakes include having an affair, being angry at their child for years, or finally coming clean about an addiction - you name it. Sometimes people dig in and do the work to make things better, and other times people only come see me once or twice but leave before any real work can start happening.

I used to think that the patients who finished counseling with me were the ones who were more likely to be successful at overcoming their mistakes. But the more years I practice, I've come to realize a lot of the people who finish counseling aren't necessarily successful at overcoming their mistakes. I have discovered that theres a whole different recipe to overcoming mistakes and challenges in your life more than just talking about them: you have to embrace them.

Here are 3 things to remember when ready to embrace your mistakes:

1. Humans usually do what is easiest

As humans, we are creatures of habit. We shop at the same grocery store week after week, we take the same route to and from work every day, and we usually go to bed and wake up around the same time every day. We like our routines because they are predictable and reliable. We've done them several times before and we know what outcome we're going to get from them.

Embracing your mistakes on the other hand, is anything but predictable or reliable. Because you're not used to doing it, you don't know what outcome to expect. And as humans who thrive on reliability and predictability, doing something with an uncertain outcome is scary. So you'd rather shy away from it than confront it.

2. Embracing your mistakes is not easy

Embracing your mistakes is anything but easy. And it's not easy because it's not something you do very often - if at all. As a human, you'd rather keep doing what you're doing that's getting you by okay. Embracing your mistakes requires you to take a good, honest look at yourself, warts and all, and be willing to change.

As a human, you are infinitely complex and multifaceted. So when you take a good, honest look inside yourself, you never know what you're going to find. Looking at yourself is unpredictable and risky. There are all sorts of dark corners inside you that you've never seen. And instead of looking at them, it's easier to shove them back into that dark place and pretend they don't exist.

But here's the problem: things left in dark places don't stay there very long.

3. Go ahead, embrace your mistakes

Instead of pretending your dark places don't exist, go ahead and embrace them. That doesn't mean to continue doing them, it means to explore where these mistakes come from.

Give yourself permission to look inside yourself and see your dark places. Don't worry, you'll be okay. It's the good and courageous part of you that allows yourself to go there. It's the dark places that want you to stop looking because they don't want you to know they exist.

When you embrace that good and courageous part that allows you to look at your dark places, then you'll know you're on the right track to correcting your mistakes.

It's hard. And not many people do it. But after you've done it, you'll be a different person. And that person will know better now. You'll have experiences that not many others have. With this newfound experience, you'll find that you're in a much better place personally. When you find that better place, you'll find that those old mistakes you used to make are no longer around, either. You've embraced them. And that's what made them go away.
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Have You Seen This? Street musician slays with clarinet
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Better than almost every face-melting guitar or drum solo. - photo by Facebook video screenshot

THE BIG EASY — Yeah, yeah, we all know that New Orleans is stuffed to the gills will incredible musicians.

But knowing that fact and then hearing that fact are two different things. You can step into any number of jazz clubs on any given night on Bourbon Street, and you’ll probably be impressed with virtually every act. Or you can sit at home on your comfy couch and watch this featured video.

In the video, you’ll see a woman who is in the groove. She is swinging hard, and wailing on her clarinet with a practiced expertise that makes it sounds so easy.

From note one you’ll be drawn in; your appreciation will grow with every second, and then your face will melt off when you realize how incredible she really is.

If you’ve never played a woodwind or a brass, you may not know everything that comes with a performance like this. Lung capacity and breath control are huge factors in keeping your notes clear and loud, and hitting those high notes is especially difficult.

So when this woman hits that high note and holds it for several seconds, you know you’re dealing with an exceptional musician. It means she has worked hard for years to develop skill on top of her natural talent, and we get to benefit.

It kinda makes you wonder how we let people get away with mumble rap and autotune when talent like this exists in the world.

I wish this video were longer, and I wish I had more information about this woman, but as it is, we’ll just have to appreciate the little flavor of New Orleans jazz posted by the Facebook group Clarinet Life.

Martha Ostergar is a writer who delights in the ridiculous that internet serves up, which means she's more than grateful that she gets to cruise the web for amazing videos to highlight for your viewing pleasure.
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