You Are Not A Mistake

Growing up with traumatic experiences…abuse…pain…confusion, many of us come to adopt, and to take in deeply, a belief that we do not “belong” in the world. We come to believe that a mistake was made somewhere, somehow—and we say to ourselves, “The mistake is me. I’m the mistake. I shouldn’t be here.”

I used to believe that my “worth” was the sum total of all the opinions about me floating around "out there" in the world. That’s what I thought I was. “They” were the balance sheet upon which was figured whether or not I was okay.

Let me ask you something that a mentor of mine once asked me. Does a tree worry about its “worth”?
Does a tree appear to have a concern about whether it is an elm, or a pine, or a palm? Does a tree feel horrible shame because it is not producing oranges or walnuts? Does it feel “useless”? Does it feel “ugly” because it doesn’t flower the way a cherry or apple tree does in spring? Does a sequoia feel superior because it is so tall? Do all the other trees sigh and wish they were as strong as the "mighty" oak?
Those ideas seem rather absurd, don’t they?

Somehow only humans plague ourselves with these comparisons.

The rose blooms, gives off its perfume, and then slowly lets all its petals fall back to the earth, while the daffodils and tulips greet us freshly every spring with a bright “hello!”

A salmon is not a parrot and a parrot is not a dragonfly and a dragonfly is not a frog. And that’s all okay. Well, of course it is! In nature it all seems so obvious.

You are the same way, Beautiful One. Guess what…nature includes you. Life includes you.

You are as you are in this moment, and that’s all you ever need to be. You are not what you were yesterday and you can’t yet be what you’ll be tomorrow. You are always quite naturally and instinctively moving toward something. (You don’t have to make yourself crazy about that either. It's already happening. The tree takes water into its roots, and it grows. It stretches toward the sun.)

At the same time, for right now, you’re here. Look around. This is it and it’s perfect. In the eyes of whomever or whatever created all this, in the eyes of God, you are exactly where you need to be.

Take that in for a moment. You are exactly where you need to be. Not behind. Not ahead. Not off the path.

Whatever you are feeling, whatever is moving through, is allowed. Wherever you are in your life is allowed. You are not a mistake. (Of course not. Do you believe God makes mistakes?) What you are is a miracle.