Granting Grace
Happy Sunday and happy holidays! I’m super excited for Halloween tomorrow and I hope you all have some fun plans. Remember that it is a holiday, so let loose and have some fun.
For this week’s post I want to talk about granting grace. I have increasingly noticed how hard I am on myself. It is good to challenge yourself and set goals, however not at the expense of your mental health. You must be kind to yourself. There is a fine line between pushing yourself and being mean to yourself. I find that when I am not productive, I start talking negatively to myself. This is really important to notice so that we can rectify it.
As I have mentioned, being kind to others stems from being kind to yourself. You need to start respecting yourself: your body, mind, and soul. Speak nicely to yourself and think about yourself in a positive manner. You don’t have to love everything about who you are and what you look like, but you can still be kind. Focus on what you do like about yourself and emphasize those pieces.
Letting go of what you cannot control is key to granting grace for yourself. Fixating on the things you have no control over and continually replaying them in your head, wishing that their was a different outcome doesn’t help or change anything. All this causes is negative self-talk, and honestly, sadness. Accept the path of your life and have trust that there is a plan for you. There is only so much you can do. You can’t control the way the world works or the way other people around you work, but you can control yourself.
Just live your life to the best of your ability and know that is enough. Be gentle with yourself because you are fragile and deserve all the love and care in the world.
Know that you are ok. Everything happens for a reason. You are enough. You have done enough. I repeat these phrases to myself whenever I start to get too hard on myself or doubt the path I am on. I tend to feel like I need to do more. I think this comes from the lack of being content. Instead of honoring and giving time to what I have accomplished, I skip to the next goal. My new goal is to soak in my accomplishments and be content in the moment. Be here, right now, and be thankful. I will also really commit to being kinder to myself. Whenever I notice negativity towards myself, I will stop myself and repeat the phrases above.
In granting grace, allow yourself to feel all the feels. It’s ok to feel sad. Take your time and know that sometimes you may need to release your emotions. Being with your thoughts and feelings can feel hard, but respect them and listen to what you need.
Be messy!!!! Can we all stop pretending that we should know everything and be able to do everything. Instead of focusing on your “failure” focus on the fact that you got back up again. You persevered and although you may get knocked down, you will never get knocked out.
Ground yourself and breathe. Sometimes we need to sit with our feelings and understand what we are going through, but other times we just need to focus on returning to the breath. It is said that breathing, “increases the supply of oxygen to your brain and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes a state of calmness.” When you feel badly about yourself, what you have done, or start to spiral breathing will make you relax and view things in a more rational state of mind.
Show up for yourself even when times get tough. Allow yourself to be sad, angry, and, etc. You don’t need to be happy all the time. Life isn’t amazing 100% of the time.
Granting grace means that you grant yourself forgiveness and give yourself approval to mess up and not do things perfectly. Accept that perfection does not exist and trying to achieve any sort of it will be unfulfilling. Keep your expectations high, but be proud of the work you put in and be ok with your expectations being a bit too high. It is better to try and reach as high as possible but fall short than never challenge yourself, yet always meet your goal.