Fail

When have you failed at something?
How did you navigate the experience?

I was talking this week with some of my favorite people about that bad feeling we get in our tummies when we make a mistake.

I remembered the time I'd signed up to bake communion bread for our church service, and then showed up late -- having forgotten all about the bread. When I realized what I'd done, all I wanted was to turn around and walk out the door, and never come back. Know that feeling?

Instead, everyone came together to help me find some frozen pita and the pastor laughed, responding to my angsty apology with this: "The next time you forget, my prayer is that you can laugh and only laugh."

That experience helped expand my repertoire of "failure responses" -- sometimes I blush or get that knot in the pit of my stomach, and sometimes I laugh. Of course I still regularly fail at things, but it feels good to (at least occasionally) have options for how I react.

Failure's a hard thing for many of us, and our bodies are primed to make it even harder. I guess my hope is that this question might normalize the whole package, and maybe even help us all one step closer to laughter.