A few years back, when I had my Atlanta practice, a man came to see me who was a singer…
Kind of a famous guy — been in the business about fifty years.
I was kind of touched that he came to see me. I asked him…how did you find me? He said — I looked on the internet — I googled ‘the best’.
Ah, flattery, flattery.
So now he is in my office.
Try as I might to act as professionally as I know how after about a million years in practice,
I stumble over my words.
I am self-conscious.
Now we are in the treatment room.
I put acupuncture needles into his back.
Turning to walk out the door, my foot catches on the treatment table support and I fall.
Onto the ground.
Onto the carpet.
Right next to the treatment table.
Flat on my face.
Now if you were at the hospital, in the operating room, prepping for surgery….
and the surgeon came to talk to you and then fell on the floor…
flat on their face….
Well….it would make you lose confidence in them, right?
For me it was shame.
Shame!
What a loss of face (ok, pun intended) I felt (and experienced) by falling on the floor, in front of my patient,….
Face down.
Flat.
I wish I could say that this was the first time I fell.
Okay, well, it was the first time I fell on the floor in front of a patient.
It was the first time I fell on the floor at my office.
But it was not the first time I have ever fallen.
And in my life….I have fallen a lot.
I stumble, I fall.
I try, I try — I am awkward, I stumble.
I fall.
I am no longer a closet fall-er.
Now you all know.
But you know, we all fall.
Everyone falls.
Everyone on this planet falls.
The planet falls as well.
Orbit is made of falling in forward motion.
Orbit is made of falling on your face, again and again.
Shame!
What this means is — in order to stay in step where you are meant to be in life — in the universe, orbiting the sun, as it were, you need to fall on your face again and again.
Like me.
Stumble, fall.
Make mistakes.
Embarrass yourself from time to time.
Years ago I was perfect.
I am sorry to say that I am no longer perfect but I wish you had known me then.
It makes us humble.
To stumble.
I fall on my face every day.
I hope you fall on yours.
I’m thinking of things I’ve said to people that I wish I could take back. Not as dramatic as a face plant, but just as shameful in my memories, and I often need to re-forgive myself for being human — just as you say, we all stumble!