9 Markers You’re Too Sensitive When You “Mess Up”

I admit it: I don’t like to mess up. I’m sensitive – perhaps hypersensitive – to criticism. So, I write this post as confession as much as catharsis. I hope these “markers” will help all of us know when we’re too sensitive if we don’t get something right.

1. You can’t let it go. You think about the issue throughout the day, regardless of what you’re doing. Nothing brings relief.
2. You don’t sleep. Your body eventually falls asleep, but you immediately return to the problem every time you roll over. It’s always at the forefront of your thinking.
3. Your eating patterns change. Maybe you don’t eat at all, or perhaps you overeat. Nutrition gets disrupted because you’re consumed by something else.
4. You let it affect your relationships at home. The mistake may be a work problem, but you can’t leave it at the office when you end the workday. You’re distracted at home, and your spouse and children know it.
5. You’re constantly thinking about ways to “fix it.” Somehow, you have to resolve the problem now. You’re consumed by “clearing it up,” “explaining it,” or “making up.” 
6. A simple, “I apologize,” doesn’t settle the issue for you. It might be enough for others involved, but not for you. Unless you apologize many times (often for several days), you still beat yourself up. 
7. You wonder if you should even be in your job. “Nobody who knows what he’s doing would have caused this problem,” you think. “Surely somebody else can do this job better than I can.”
8. You turn to some “pet sin.” You’re so bothered by what happened that you return to yesterday’s sin as a temporary escape mechanism. That’s an extreme reaction, but some folks go there at times.
9. You don’t even think about leaving the problem in God’s hands. You’re so busy trying to fix it that praying over the matter seldom comes to mind. You bear the weight of the issue on your own – a trait that may have contributed to the problem in the first place.

Here’s the bottom line: when we get consumed by our failures, allow them to dominate our thinking, and choose not to let them go even when God forgives us, we have become idolaters of our own anguish.  

Take that truth to heart today. Ask God’s forgiveness.

And then let it go.