Embracing our Failures

We so frequently glean things from our practice and can integrate the lessons into our lives, bringing about a truly holistic benefit to our Yoga.  As teachers we will often hear ourselves say, "embrace this as a practice, and not a performance, where we have expectations of ourselves, our teachers and our abilities ... but rather use our limitations and even 'failures' to our advantage that open the door to various kinds of opportunities.
Our thought processing is not always effective in helping us grow.  We might, by default make irrational decisions if we aren't more intentional at the front end.  Heidi Grant Halvorson, writing for productivity and ideas blog the 99u, points out that when we try to avoid our  failures we eliminate creative possibilities.
The problem with the Be-Good mindset is that it tends to cause problems when we are faced with something unfamiliar or difficult. We start worrying about making mistakes, because mistakes mean that we lack ability, and this creates a lot of anxiety and frustration. Anxiety and frustration, in turn, undermine performance by compromising our working memory, disrupting the many cognitive processes we rely on for creative and analytical thinking. Also, when we focus too much on doing things perfectly (i.e., being good), we don't engage in the kind of exploratory thinking and behavior that creates new knowledge and innovation.
Let's allow for ourselves to be human, as we live in a world full of them.  Each of us embracing our limitations and extending space and margin to ourselves and others ... learning from failures and accepting them as part of life's journey.