Joanne Smith describes the emotional spiral after setbacks: panic, despair, then harsh self-judgment that feels like failure. She argues that negative feelings aren't proof you've failed, just proof you're human. Reframing setbacks with compassion instead of blame changes everything.
I would have been going back into a despair and a panic and being like, here we go again, oh my gosh, this is forever, clearly I didn't do this right, clearly this was just a fluke, clearly, and I go into like a despair and a freakout thinking I'm back to square one, then, and that does happen often, and I do see this a lot, and I have experienced this a lot for myself. But that, that can be part of the ongoing cycle that we can get really stuck in, because if we start to then be really judgmental on ourselves and, and give ourselves a hard time and be like, well, I'm doing something wrong, I'm clearly not capable, I'm doing— I'm not cut out for doing this, what's wrong with me, I'm missing something really I must be obviously missing something. Then, and then you're going off this belief that symptoms, having them must mean that you failed. But I want to share a home truth here which I wish I knew, which I do know now. And the home truth is that it's not a sign of failure. It really isn't.
