Points of failure: Falling out of practice

In May I passed a milestone; one year since I stopped seeing my therapist.

Our work together changed me, and before we parted ways I showed her how I’d distilled my biggest lessons from it into a single acronym: BIBAVÖ.

- Balance: Learning to deploy my time and energy effectively, while avoiding burnout and anxiety.

- Integration: Learning to take direction not just from my head, but also from the wisdom in my gut. 

- Boundaries: Learning which limits I need to set in order to guard my well-being.

- Agency: Learning to make choices that match my values and not the expectations of others.

- Vulnerability: Learning that embracing openness with myself and others strengthens those relationships.

- Öm-Bizalom: The Hungarian word for confidence, my therapist’s native tongue. It means learning that confidence arises from trusting myself, and that my past experiences demonstrate my reliability.

Because I work remote, I spend a lot of time alone, with my partner, or with a small group of people. But last month an in-person work week forced me into various professional and social settings. It was an opportunity to put the acronym to the test. 

I found myself failing repeatedly:

• I nodded off during a volunteer event, thrown off balance by trying to force my usual routine into a week with an added commute.

• I got defensive during a work critique, more concerned with being right than being open and vulnerable.

• I lacked confidence when I undersold an initiative I’d led, to a superior with a differing point of view. 

• Burnt out after a long week, I abandoned my agency altogether when I deferred to my partner all the decision-making involving a weekend trip, then I had the gall to complain about the destination. 

I finished the week feeling as if bruised from a battle. As I reflected on what I could’ve done better, a thought occurred:  

I wasn’t being tested enough. 

To continue to evolve requires a constant practice of my values, and the only way to practice is to step in the arena with others. 

It brought to mind a speech often quoted in sports:

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.”

May reminded me that it’s easy to feel like you’re winning when you’re mostly playing against yourself.