Give yourself some grace
Have you ever wanted something so bad that it was all you focused on? Have you ever worked so hard on something, only to see it fall short? Have you ever planned something out to the smallest detail, only to see it get derailed within minutes? Have you ever taken a risk, a chance, only to be rejected? Have you ever put on your best, only to feel demeaned and ridiculed? If you answered yes to any one of those scenarios, you are in good company! If you said no, you lie about other things!
There is not one person alive who has not felt less than; rejected; bummed out; fallen short; been disappointed in others; and worst of all, disappointed in ourselves. Remember when you were a kid and a parent would say: “I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.” Dagger to the heart! Everyone knows that’s worse!!
Sometimes the content for this column comes to me first; sometimes it’s the title. In this case, it was the title and I stared at a blank screen for hours. Why? This is an incredibly hard subject for me because I struggle with it. I am my own worst critic. The insecurities I battle internally scream louder than anyone could ever shout at me with a megaphone. All the type-A, overachieving, Enneagram 3’s know exactly what I am talking about.
However, over the past two and a half years, I have been challenging myself to give myself some grace (albeit not with great success). I discovered a thought process that had been poisoning my life’s disposition: you should be further along by now. This stupid thinking (yes, stupid!) is rooted in unhealthy comparison. Following fake lives on social media has made our society desperate to edit our real ones.
One of the things that robs us of joy in life is the picture in our head of how it is “supposed to be.” I cannot tell you how many times I have not enjoyed the process because I have just been trying to get to the promise/destination. To my fellow type-A, overachieving, Enneagram 3’s – we must make sure we are building a life that we are happy living and not treating our days like a rung on a ladder to future happiness. Maybe we all need to do a little better at releasing ourselves from trying to control where life should be and enjoy where it is at right now.
Grace accounts for the years we wasted, the time we lost, and even the opportunities we didn't know how to seize. Our lives are still on schedule. Bad decisions are not without consequence, but in the frame of grace, they are never beyond redemption. Some of my successes have been the fruit of my failures. Some of the things that have produced the most in my life were things that at the time, I was most embarrassed about. We must learn to not judge the experience the moment it happens. Give it some time to see what it is.
Grace means we don’t need to airbrush our lives to make them look perfect. For the first 35+ years of my life, the image of having it all together was a far cry from my reality. It was not until I began to change my environment and surround myself with people who were totally ok with not being ok that I began to see another way to live and think. That it was more than ok to be human and that shortcomings are not a thing to be avoided, but to be embraced and to learn from.
The biggest battles we’ll ever fight won’t be against who or what stands before us, but what lives within us. Of all the people on the planet, we talk to ourselves more than anyone. It is critical that we are speaking life over ourselves and not heaping on shame and self-loathing.
Sometimes we’re exhausted because we’re protecting the image that we want to project. If we could step out from behind that and bring our full self - our true self - we would find a strength that would surprise us. Perhaps those gentle, encouraging words that you offer others are the same words that would soothe your soul if you were to offer them to yourself. People will come and go in your life, but the person in the mirror will be there forever — so give yourself some grace!