We all make mistakes. Some small, some big. 

It can be a humbling experience. 

When it is a small mistake, like not noticing a typo in an email until 5 seconds after it has been sent, we can make a mental note not to make that same mistake again. 

But sometimes we make big mistakes that have a lasting effect on us, and possibly on other people as well. 

These can be difficult to work through and the lesson may not be as easy to understand. 

In an address from 1967, Dr. George King mentioned that no one is above mistakes: 

“There isn’t one person on this platform this morning who has wings, neither is there a saintly person here. We all make our mistakes and I hope we will go on making mistakes, because the man who does not make mistakes is the man who does nothing for anybody at any time. Let us not forget that point.”

If we did everything right all the time, we would not learn anything. 

While nobody likes making mistakes, we can look at them as opportunities to improve. 

Each mistake can teach us a valuable lesson. Once we realize the lesson, we can move forward.

As the saying goes: every saint is a sinner who didn’t give up. 

***

I am fortunate in that I am able to attend Operation Prayer Power each week at the American Headquarters and I am on the prayer team. 

During this cosmic mission, we invoke energy through prayer and mantra, and direct it into a spiritual battery so that we can release it later in times of crisis. 

This means that each week I am saying prayers from The Twelve Blessings in front of a lot of people. Even though I have done this for many years, I get a little nervous when I am about to pray. But when I first joined the prayer team, I used to get really nervous. 

I started off OK, but after a couple of months I started to make mistakes. I would lose my place in the prayer or I would say the wrong prayer. 

I got really down on myself. I know this energy is important and yet I just couldn’t seem to do it correctly. I considered taking a step back and moving off the prayer team until I could sort myself out. 

Then one day, while I was waiting to pray, I realized that it was all in my head – I said these prayers everyday and knew them well. 

So, while I was waiting, instead of trying to remember the prayer, I just focused on my breath. I tried to detach from everything and just focus on the here and now, and it worked!

I learned that I am in control of my thoughts and my emotions. I learned to trust myself more. 

I now look at this as a helpful learning experience. It was something I had to go through so that I could have more confidence and focus in the future.

Something you can try

Our intuition is the best guide that we have in making choices. When we trust our intuition, we strengthen it, and can tap into it more in future. It can help us to find a solution to the mistakes or to avoid them altogether.

In 1961, Dr. King gave an address on this subject:

“Now, you might say, “Well, alright, we have this intuitive ability. How do we train it?” There’s only one way. There are not two. There’s one. That is to listen to your intuition and act upon it, and the more you do this the more it will be trained. You must, within your mind, within yourself, within your heart, try to differentiate between your basic conscious likes and beliefs, and the higher guidance which comes from within you.”

Do you have any experiences that taught you a valuable lesson?