I had a conversation recently that stayed with me. Not because it was groundbreaking, but because it quietly named something I see every single day in my work. The fear of getting it wrong.

 In the treatment room, in conversations, in the way people move through their lives. I see it all the time. This underlying pressure to do things “right.” To respond the right way, make the right decision, say the right thing, choose the right path.

And when they feel like they haven’t?  The weight of that lands hard.

What I’ve come to understand both professionally and personally, is that mistakes aren’t just part of the process… they’re a requirement of it.

 I’ve worked with enough bodies, enough stories, enough lived experiences to know this:

The people who grow, shift, and find their way back to themselves aren’t the ones who avoid mistakes.  They’re the ones who allow themselves to move through them.

Because when someone is constantly trying to get it right, I can feel it straight away. There’s a holding. A bracing. A second guessing of instinct.

And that doesn’t create ease - it creates tension.  Not just physically, but in how they exist within themselves.

But when someone starts to soften their grip on perfection… when they allow for a bit of messiness, a bit of trial and error… something changes.

 There’s more space, more honesty, and more connection to what’s actually going on for them.

 And from there is where real shifts happen.

I’ve made my own share of mistakes. In business. In how I’ve shown up for people. In the expectations I’ve put on myself and on others.

And if I’m honest, the moments that have shaped me the most haven’t come from getting it right. They’ve come from sitting in the discomfort of getting it wrong… and choosing to stay open anyway.

To get curious instead of critical and to adjust instead of shutting down.

That’s the work. Not perfection or simply being performative. But participation – in the messiness we call life.   Being willing to show up, with what you know in that moment, and trust that it’s enough to take the next step.

 So if you’ve been hard on yourself lately, replaying something, questioning something, wishing you’d done it differently…

 Maybe nothing has gone wrong here. Maybe you’re just in the middle of being human.

 And from where I stand… that’s not something to fix.

 That’s something to work with.