Grace & Gratitude
I’m sure you know someone who went through or did something terrible & they couldn’t deal with it & so they just went down a path of destruction.
I’m sure you know someone who went through or did something terrible & they became toxically positive. Trying to right every wrong in their path and help everyone they could until it beat them into the ground. It stole all of their time, their health, their worth… Maybe it even turned them into a bitter shell of a person, because they felt they weren’t appreciated for all of the things they were doing. Even though no one ever asked them to do most of it.
I’ve seen it go both ways. Both aren’t good. Both hurt us in different ways. Because both of them tell us we are only worthy if ___. Only if we didn’t hurt that person or people. Only if we weren’t an addict. Only if we do better. Only if we help more. Only if someone tells us we are.
These two words, grace & gratitude were my words for 2022. Sometimes it feels like I didn’t really do that great at practicing them, living them out. But when I look at where I was last year and see where I am now, I think I did alright. I’ve been working on finding gratitude in my daily life as well as the big picture. And as odd as it may sound, sometimes I find gratitude in the shitty parts too. Without those parts, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I chose to (eventually after a lot of therapy), learn from them. They helped me grow & also helped me to be outspoken and share things with others which in turn, helped them feel like they weren’t alone. It makes it all worth it in the grand scheme of things. Beauty from the ashes.
I’ve also been working on giving myself and the people in my life grace. I make a lot of mistakes. People close to me make mistakes. But I’ve learned to forgive, draw boundaries if necessary, and just understand where they may be coming from. It’s still really difficult sometimes to do that, & sometimes I just have to let myself feel deflated for a few days so that I am able to process my own feelings around it so I can decide what to do in a healthy matter, but it’s been working. When I don’t let myself feel those feelings, they end up compounding and eventually I just lose my shit, which, as you can imagine, isn’t very productive.
I think I’m going to stick with these words going into the New Year, but maybe add in honesty. Which feels weird because the only person I’m really not honest with, is myself. But I really need to work on that. I need to be able to admit to myself “I’m not okay right now, I need a break.” Because white knuckling it through life hasn’t been going well for me (who could’ve guessed?) After realizing how dishonest I am to myself about my mental state, my wants & needs…I got to thinking. How many of us are living like this? In unnecessary misery because we think that if we take a break, take care of ourself first, do something we want, we’ll cause some kind of chaos. When really we’re already causing chaos because we’re dissociating from life, over stimulated, can’t focus or get anything done because our brain and bodies have just tapped out. But if we just were honest with ourselves, admitted we needed help, we could probably catch our breathe a bit and stop running on the hamster wheel of mental and physical exhaustion.
My kids went to grandmas for 1 night, dropped them off at noon & picked them up at dinner time the next day. Ya girl cleaned the whole house, go to sit at a coffee shop two days in a row & write blog posts, be creative, drop new stickers and sweaters, & I slept in until 9:30. It was miraculous, chef’s kiss! I didn’t realize what a bad mental space I was in until I had the opportunity to actually stop & breathe for a second.
Yes, mom’s are super human. We can handle a lot on our plates at once, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for us to handle it all. Kind of like a person could drink 5 redbulls but they’ll probably end up in the emergency room with heart palpitations, seeing sounds & hearing colors. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
So let’s be honest with ourselves! Let’s feel our feelings even if it means feeling like a deflated ballon because something shitty happened. Let’s find gratitude in the small things & the big things. Let’s remember that it takes a strong person to forget but it takes a stronger person to forgive and grow. Let’s build a community of people who love us, who will help remind us of who we are when we start to forget & let’s just freakin’ live our lives to the fullest! You guys, we are our biggest roadblocks so let’s get the frickin’ heck out of our way!
Happy New Year to all of you! You are wonderful & so capable of amazing things & I hope that you know that you can achieve whatever has been tugging at your heart lately!