The teacher who loved my mistakes.

Last week we looked outward…

at whether the values a business speaks actually match how it behaves in the small, unwatched moments.

This week I want to turn the mirror around.

To the one relationship whose inside-and-outside we actually control.

The one with ourselves.

Let me tell you about two teachers.

I dance Brazilian Zouk. I love it more than almost anything — that feeling of being fully in your body, fully in the moment, nothing to think about but the music and the connection.

One of my teachers knows this dance. Deeply. But he teaches from what you’re doing wrong. Every correction, every furrowed brow, every “no, not like that.” He’s critical. Always pointing at the mistake.

And do you know what my body does when I dance with him?

It freezes.

I get tense. Careful. Small. And of course — frozen like that, I can’t dance. I lose access to the very thing I need: the looseness, the play, the sensuality, the naturalness. The harder I try not to make a mistake, the more I make.

Then I went to Bali. And I danced with a different teacher.

Every time I slipped — every single time — he’d just look at me with this soft, delighted curiosity. Like the mistake was interesting. Like it was welcome. “Oh… look what showed up. What can we do with this?”

No exasperation. No disappointment. Just… curiosity.

And my whole body exhaled.

I relaxed. And the moment I relaxed — there it was. The creativity. The resourcefulness. The ease. I started to actually dance. Not perform. Not brace. Dance.

Same body. Same mistakes. Completely different capacity to grow.

And it isn’t only teachers.

It’s every partner I’ve danced with, too.

Some, when I can’t yet follow what they’re offering, I can feel the disappointment come off them — the little sigh, the wanting me to already be somewhere I’m not. And I shrink. Every time.

And others? When I can’t do the thing, they just… soften. “Ah — not that one yet. Let’s see what else is here.” No pressure. No agenda. And with them, somehow, I can do so much more than I thought I could.

Same dancer. Two ways of being met. Two entirely different women show up on that floor.

But here’s the thing.

Most of us talk to ourselves like the first teacher.

A client shared something with me recently that she wanted to work through. She keeps saying yes to every social invitation, and it’s eating into all the time she needs to build her business. And she asked me — with so much frustration — “Why can’t I just say no?”

And I could hear it. Not the question itself. The judgment underneath the question.

Because that voice — “why can’t I, what’s wrong with me, I should be past this by now” — is the first teacher. The furrowed brow. The exasperation. And it does to her inner world exactly what he does to my dancing.

It makes her freeze.

And you cannot change a pattern from frozen.

Now watch what happens with the other voice.

“Huh. Isn’t that interesting — I still find it so hard to say no. I wonder what’s underneath that.”

“Oh… I’m still really carrying what people think of me. Of course I am — so many of us do. But why? What’s under it?”

“…Maybe some part of me isn’t yet sure I’m enough, just as I am.”

And there — right there — is somewhere to actually go. Something to meet. Something to tend.

The critical voice hands you a locked door: you’re doing it wrong, again.

The curious voice hands you a doorway: let’s see what this is.​​​​​​​

Same pattern. Same you. Completely different capacity to grow.

I think this is why so many of us stay stuck in the very things we’ve worked hardest on.

It’s not that we haven’t done the work. You’ve read the books. You’ve done the courses, retreats and programs. You’ve grown so much.

It’s that we meet the leftover patterns with contempt — “I should know better by now” — and contempt makes us contract. And a contracted nervous system has no room to change. We’re trying to grow in a body we keep freezing.

The people-pleasing, the procrastinating, the old fear that still visits — none of it needs your harshness. It needs your curiosity and compassion. Ah, you again ;-) Interesting. What are you here to show me?

That’s not soft. That’s not letting yourself off the hook.

It’s the only stance from which anything actually moves.

So here’s what I’d love for you this week.

The next time an old pattern shows up — and it will — catch the voice that greets it.

Is it the first teacher? Tense, disappointed, you should be past this?

Or can you let it be the second one? “Oh… look what showed up. Let’s get curious.”

You don’t have to fix anything. You just have to change who’s teaching.

Because the way we’re met is the way we learn. It was true on the dance floor. It’s true in the quiet of your own mind.

​​​​​​​And the teacher you most need… is the one you get to become, for yourself.
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Lots of love,

Carmen xo

P.S. When an old pattern shows up this week, which teacher greets it — the furrowed brow, or the soft “oh, look what showed up”? I’d love to hear what you notice. Share it in the comments below — I read every single one and always respond. ♡

PPS: My email community read this a few days ago, before it appeared here. The letter is where I write most personally — new work, and the stories I don’t post anywhere else — and it’s where you’ll always hear things first. If that’s a space you’d like to be part of, come join us. ↓

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