Module 5
Now that you have gone through the self-soothe exercise it will feel easier to review one of the scenarios from your journal.
Allow yourself to feel any emotions that come up when you look back. How did the exchange make you feel? What do you think the request behind the complaint was?
Keep in mind that it is very unlikely that they were trying to be cruel, it's more likely they were trying to find a solution or a way forward.
Remember that your feelings are valid and you are not 'the problem. There is no failure, just feedback - as Dawn explains in the next module.
Failure V Feedback: Dawn Explains
My most favourite NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Statement is: There's NO Failure, Only Feedback. Not only is the statement true, it's truly freeing for anyone who takes it on as a mantra or belief. Failure lives in a backward-looking culture of blame. It's destructive because Failure wants to punish you - that's why it feels so awful when we identify with it. It keeps you in a cycle of Why. Why did this happen? Why am I like this?
Feedback, on the other hand, is completely positive. It lives in an expansive, forward-moving place, and focuses on the how things can improve. It's never about you as a person, it's about what or when or how you can do things to make a situation better.
Even if the feedback to a situation is 'We're never doing that again!' it needn't be picked over - just don't DO it again.
Doesn't that feel better? Make it a mantra. Say it to yourself often, and marvel at how situations around you everywhere change (not just in your most significant relationship).
