I am pretty damn comfortable with failure.

I didn’t realize this was true until this past weekend, when my husband and I were listening to an audiobook on a trip out to Ohio. Brené Brown was discussing vulnerability and shame, and she said this about speaking at TED:

“TED is like the failure conference. No, it is. You know why this place is amazing? Because very few people here are afraid to fail. And no one who gets on the stage, so far that I’ve seen, has not failed. I’ve failed miserably, many times. I don’t think the world understands that because of shame.”

So this got me to thinking about some of my spectacular fails:

During undergrad, I was all primed to start grad school in clinical psychology, but when I realized that wasn’t going to make me happy, I walked away.

I got married (the first time.) That didn’t work out, as I have already discussed.

I went to massage therapy school. I was a great massage therapist, but the career wasn’t sustainable for me physically and emotionally. I am no longer a massage therapist.

I moved from Chicago to Pittsburgh for an important relationship. After a few years, things weren’t working out. Instead of trying to force the relationship to work, I got my own apartment and started therapy. Instead of moving back to Chicago, I continued on in Pittsburgh, and went to grad school.

Speaking of grad school: I do not have a job as a librarian, and not from lack of trying. When I realized that I was continuing the job search only because I felt like I had too much time and money invested to do otherwise, I stopped the job search.

I am not afraid to live with passion, and I am also not afraid to let things that don’t quite fit fall to the wayside. I can pick myself back up and start again. And I love this about myself. I rock at failure, and I do not feel shame about it.

What about you? Have you fallen, picked yourself up, and moved on to something new? Are you starting again?