In my therapy sessions, I try to get people to see that their basic essence is love. Now this is not a difficult concept to understand. In fact, every religion has love as one part of its belief system. Most people either believe you are loved by God or you are love because you are a creation of God. But even the majority of those who don’t believe in a God, believe that love is a necessary component of society.

With that said, how do mistakes and love work together? Most relationship conflicts happen around a mistake. Frequently people evaluate themselves and their friends on a sliding scale between mistakes and successes.  I believe that mistakes have been misused in this way because we have forgotten that mistakes and love are friends.

Mistakes and love are friends because without mistakes there would be no need for love to expand. Because, you see, when you can love someone beyond their mistakes, you have become a bigger love person than you were before. On the other hand, every mistake that is deemed unlovable shrinks the size of your love.

I remember reading a story one time about a mother who finally was able to forgive the mistake of her daughter’s husband. He was driving too fast and had a wreck that killed the daughter. The mother was eventually able to not only forgive him but to continue loving him.

Sometimes we feel noble saying, “I forgive you.” And it is noble to forgive. But if the whole space of forgiveness is not refilled with love, that particular mistake will become an empty space where love should have been. So not following forgiveness with love, will affect both you and them. For you see, if a mistake—yours or theirs—is not both forgiven and replaced with love, both people are denied a gift. What could have been a sharing of love in the forgiveness space was left unfinished.

So perhaps now you can begin to see mistakes—yours and theirs—as opportunities for love expansion. This simple addition to the forgiveness equation can not only change your perception of who you are but why you are in the world. So try redefining mistakes.