97: Embracing Your Mistakes: The Heart Doodling Path to Self-Compassion and Growth

How do you talk to yourself when you make a mistake?

Is it kind and encouraging? Is it helpful?

If you talked to a friend the way you talk to yourself would you still be friends?

For so many years the answer was no. No it was not kind. No it wasn’t helpful. No, I wouldn’t have any friends if I spoke to them the way I spoke to myself.

It’s ironic that as I try to write this I am debating if it is better to go find what I’ve already written on this topic or to start over. And if I start over do I write or do I talk it out first? What’s the “best” way to do this? Because I’m afraid of making a mistake… 

There is no best way. The best way is to write, something, somehow. Not keep thinking about writing, not keep looking for things I think I said or where I think I covered this before. If I remember them and decide to include them that’s fine. Right now it’s time to write. Not to refine and produce a finished piece. It’s time to write. To get thoughts out of my head so I can work with them until they are ready to share with you.

One of the ways I fight this drive to always do everything in the “best” way is through Heart Doodling with Jesus. In her free workshop, Maritza Parra  teaches the concept of using a permanent marker to doodle and watercolor paint to paint your doodles. Her reasoning is to create the practice of accepting mistakes as part of the learning process. I have found this to be a powerful practice and encourage anyone trying Heart Doodling with Jesus to do the same.

Now there’s a voice inside that needs to be silenced. This voice tells me it’s bad unless it’s perfect, and it’s never perfect. This voice tells me if I don’t do well people will leave. It tells me if I cause problems they will leave. I silence that voice everytime I pick up my permanent marker and make an imperfect doodle. Everytime I keep going with a lopsided box, the head of my little Ava-Doodle wonky instead of round, I keep writing when I spelled a word wrong. I keep the message from the Lord even when the paint ran and no one but me knows what the picture was anyway.

Mistakes are okay. They are normal. They are part of learning. We practice. As we practice we will make mistakes.

Heart Doodling with Jesus gives you small, safe practice at many skills you may have missed growing up. Using the permanent marker and watercolor paints give you practice in seeing mistakes are part of learning. Mistakes don’t ruin things. I’ll talk more about that in Don’t Start Over Sit with It.

Discipling mothers to disciple generations

Kingdom Mothers Rise Up is here for you. There is encouragement and practical steps to improve your relationship with yourself, God, and your child.

I'd love to connect with you. You can find me at:

• email me: contact@mukkovejohnson.com
• Diamonds & Pearls Sharecast
• I often refer to HeartDoodling with Jesus. Learn more here.
• Learn how God communicates with you in Transformational Quiet Times.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

How do you talk to yourself when you make a mistake? Is it kind and encouraging, is it helpful? If you talk to a friend the way you talk to yourself, would you still be friends? Hi, I'm Nicole Johnson. I welcome you to this episode of the Kingdom Mothers Rise Up podcast and we're going to talk about fighting perfectionism, which often shows up in that voice of how we talk to ourselves when we make a mistake. So for me, many, many years, the answer to those questions I asked at the beginning of whether it was kind and helpful the way I talked to myself, whether I would talk to my friends that way, the answer was no. It was not kind, was not helpful. No, I would not have any friends if I spoke to them the way that I spoke to myself.

Speaker 1: 1:03

And as I was outlining this, it was very ironic that I kept debating if it was better to go find stuff that I'd already written, that I wanted to say, or if I should just start over, if I should talk it out first and like realizing I'm like in this, what's the best way to do this? Because I'm afraid of wasting time, which would be a mistake. So I'm talking to myself too and had to say there is no best way. The best way is to write something somehow, not just think about writing, not keep looking for things that I think I said or where I think I've written about this before. Just start writing and if I happen to remember them and I decide to include them, that's fine. But to make the time to write instead of stalling and trying to find the perfect way so that I don't make a mistake, I just need to get the thoughts out of my head so I can work with them and then I can share them with you. So one of the ways that I fight this drive to always do everything in the best way is through heart doodling with Jesus. I did a free workshop by Maritza Parra I'm not sure how she says it P-A-R-R-A on a concept she calls heartwork journaling, but she teaches to use a permanent marker and watercolor paint and her reasoning for this is beautiful and that's why I use it as well that it teaches us, like using a permanent marker, where we can't go back and erase the mistakes. Mistakes teaches us that mistakes are just a part of the learning process. I found it to be so powerful that I encourage everyone to try heart doodling with Jesus with a permanent marker.

Speaker 1: 2:49

When I look at my sketchbook and I don't know the best way to start, I draw a box and the box is freehand. It never has 90 degree corners, but what it does is it gets me started, and getting started opens the door for more, and it's easier to keep going once I've started. Even if the box isn't perfect, even if I don't have the perfect idea for what I'm trying to process or what I want to illustrate, it gets me started. Drawing the box without a straight edge allows me to practice in a small, safe way that I can receive from something that's not perfect. As I draw and write with a permanent marker, I can work my mistakes into my picture or simply overlook them. Nobody does everything perfect every time and there's no reason to feel that I should either. But I do and I did a lot more in the past.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Growing up, I absorbed messages like if you can't do it right the first time, don't do it at all. Do it right the first time. Doing things right or my best was out of reach, mistakes were bad or at very least unweighing, and my performance was directly tied to my worth. So let's unpack those messages a little bit with their impact. Do it right or not at all? For starters, what a completely unrealistic expectation, especially for a child Like you're, learning so many new things so quickly. Of course you're going to make mistakes and not know how to do it right. But if I got in trouble for not doing it right and was punished instead of taught how to do it right, it was just punished for doing it wrong. Then I learned that it's better to not make mistakes. Mistakes are unacceptable. Making a mistake means I failed or, worse yet, I am a failure.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Doing it right the first time is a lot like the if you can't do it right, don't do it at all. What an unrealistic expectation to put on ourselves or anyone else. How are we possibly going to do something right the very first time? And I realized that that probably wasn't always how it was meant. It was probably more intended that, once you know how to do something right, take the time to do it right instead of doing it so-so and needing to go back and redo it. But in my child reasoning that wasn't how it went. It was that I was supposed to know how to do stuff I had never been taught how to do. If it's the first time I've done something, how can I possibly do it right? Did you walk without ever falling or wobbling? Is it realistic to think you can write a paper right the first time? Or have a hard conversation, ask helpful questions, grieve. Not only is there not a right, as in a morally right or wrong way, to do most of those things. It's just ridiculous to expect to know how to do something you've never been taught to do.

Speaker 1: 6:01

And as an adult, I understand the intent behind the statement was to do the task well enough that it didn't need to be redone. When you wash the dishes, you get all the food off. When you take out the trash, get all of it, and I also can see that as a mom. Sometimes that statement means different things. Sometimes, take out the trash means there's an overflowing trash can right in front of me and I want you to take that trash out right now. Sometimes, take out the trash means that you're supposed to gather the trash from all the trash cans in the house and put the new bags in, and you know, take out all of the trash like a regular, routine chore that you would be trained in, ideally to know. This is what's expected. These are the steps, these are the standards. But sometimes, as a mom, I know I do this myself and I'm sure it's part of what happened to me is I'm in a hurry and not really being aware and I just say I told you to take out the trash. Well, did I clarify I want this trash right here, or the trash from that room, or like this is supposed to be your chore and I want you to do that chore.

Speaker 1: 7:18

By not communicating that clearly, it can create that expectation that are no supposed to know things that there's really no way for us to know. Our kids should not be able to read our mind and know what we meant. It's perfectly obvious to us, but they're not in us and they're not in our situation. They're in their own thing in their own world. Adding that frustration to the relationship of you just should know isn't fair to either one of you. Part of that lack of clear communication fed into that doing things right or doing my best at things was just out of reach because I could do what I thought was expected, and then it would come back that that wasn't right. So, say was told to take out the trash and I see that the kitchen trash is full, and so I took that, but I didn't go get the bathrooms and the bedrooms or whatever. So then I'm in trouble because I didn't take out the trash and kind of a black or white, um, all or nothing, not black and white, all or nothing, kind of thinking, um, instead of the degrees of, okay, you did part of it, but you didn't do all of what I intended. As moms now to take responsibility for that. Okay, I see I didn't communicate clearly what I intended. Let's try that again. This is what I intended. Now, you know, do that For me as a child, having someone even a little bit disappointed with me meant I was in trouble.

Speaker 1: 8:55

It was like the end of the world. Looking back, I can see that my sense of belonging was so fragile that it just took very little to threaten it. So having something not done right fed into that. I'm not good enough, I'm a failure. They're mad at me, like just all of those things.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Mistakes were bad or the least annoying. When I didn't do something right the first time or it didn't go right, I felt the displeasure of those around me and felt it was my fault that they were ignored. I had caused them trouble or pain. And if I could just not make mistakes then I could avoid having people be upset with me. And if they weren't upset with me then they wouldn't leave.

Speaker 1: 9:39

And this might seem a little extreme of like okay, we're talking about drawing with a permanent marker and making a mistake on his piece of paper. And you're talking like making mistakes go all the way back to like you're going to be abandoned. And yes, I can see that that might feel a little extreme, but it's how our minds work and those places when we're young that make those big jumps in decisions that, oh, they're upset with me, they're going to leave If those parts aren't nurtured and paid attention to like they need to be. They keep showing up in our thinking until they are paid attention to and get what they need. So we really do make those great big leaps sometimes and that's why practicing trying to do your doodle, you know, I often draw a picture of myself and it's really not much more than a stick person.

Speaker 1: 10:40

I draw a circle for the head and it's never a perfect circle, and I draw a triangle dress. That looks different every time and that's okay. That's part of the beauty of it is it's a very small way, a very safe way to see. Oh, I can do this less than perfect, and it's fine. It's actually even good that I can sit down and draw an imperfect picture of myself and still receive the message that the Lord had for me out of it. Those mistakes are normal, they're okay, they're just a part of how we learn and we practice and we can make mistakes and we can accept ourselves and accept what we produce, even with the mistakes in it. Our doodling with Jesus gives you a small, safe place to practice many of the skills you may have missed growing up. Using the permanent marker and watercolor paints give you practice in seeing mistakes as part of learning Mistakes. Don't ruin things, and I'll talk more about that in. Don't Start Over. Sit With it.