Below are 6 cards I wrote to my self about my own failures. Each one was written as I felt the feeling of failure in the moment. At the bottom of the page is the edited text of each.
Texts:
“The internal intervention is to make a decision to see your self and the world differently”
Dear Alice,
I am sorry that you stopped trying to exercise and loose weight. I think you are afraid of getting ill. I hope you can overcome this fear. As you have more time perhaps you can feel confident again. I know this is a goal for you. Keep swimming, rowing and walking as much as you feel you can. You must keep knitting your bones together with muscles. Try not to see it as a way of abusing your self by not exercising. Perhaps see it as a life giving activity.
Love,
Alice
Compassion for Failure
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“Failure is Part of the mantle of experience you take with you”
Dear Alice,
You are struggling to start conversations with people who you are having issues with. You perhaps know the commitment it takes to continue a conversation. Perhaps it means to much risk of anger. However I know you are strong enough to take it and acute enough to start making sense. Keep trying to move towards rather than away from these conversations. You know how much good they do.
Love,
Alice
Compassion for Failure
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“Understanding Brings Compassion”
Dear Alice,
You are aware of how much plastic you use in your lifestyle as a western woman however you don’t seem to be able to change it. It is really hard to cut down. Keep how much plastic you use in your consciousness and keep thinking of ways to reduce it.
Once we see something as unacceptable we can never put it back in the box of unseen and unknowing. I want to be free of discarding plastic in the future. Bringing it to my awareness is the first step. Keep Going.
Love,
Alice
Compassion for Failure
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“There can be no Lotus Flower without the mud. There can be no mud without the Lotus. TNH”
Dear Alice,
We are human. You look back on the girl who burst in to tears in the coffee shop in Durham. You were disparity sad that you had not got you’re A level results to go to Cambridge. I think what you needed at that moment was time. Time not to make a decision. time to think about what the sudden alternate future could hold for you. However you are so much more sustained now then you could ever had been by changing course to art then. Your battle enriches you. Your journey makes your more existing. Your future has the past in it. Like a knitting stitch you are held by the ones below and beside you and above.
Love,
Alice x
Compassion for Failure
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“Loss”
Dear Alice,
You have lost. You think about how you failed to listen and feel your own body. You feel guilt. You are standing and yelling at everyone that you lost a child and this should be mourned. They think you should be fine because it could have killed you and be amazed you are still alive. You have been shown your body’s skill to produce life and feel the hope. Try not to obsess over the chemical need to replace the hole you feel. a piece of your body has been removed. You will get over this and become a stronger person.
Love,
Alice
Compassion for Failure
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“Hope”
Dear Alice,
I want you to be strong and realise you have the ability to have children, you have only lost one of your bipod parts. There are times you can be sad but hope in the future there will be children and love and hope. This is not terminal but just a hiccup. Do not despair be strong and concentrate on the love that is possible.
Love,
Alice
Compassion for Failure
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(Un-Photographed)
“There can be no Lotus Flower without the mud. There can be no mud without the Lotus. TNH”
Dear Alice,
I am sorry you feel you have failed at school teaching. Your inner feeling perhaps did not represent the reality of the situation. However it has given you many strengths and confidences and has clarified an interest in development and learning. As you move away from thinking this is your vocation think about it as part of the whole of you. You see how conscious of the power relationship you inhabited as a teacher and how you are transforming into someone who doesn’t need that any more. You are also growing a consciousness of how to place our self at the centre but not push anyone else into being in a position of being told what to do. You can look back at being in a room with all those 13 year old boys who had really complicated needs and understand the huge desire for agency they had.
Don’t let the feeling of failure mask the capacities that the experience developed.
Regards,
Alice x
Compassion for Failure
Alice floyd 