Grace

I was challenged this week to give myself grace.

I will admit, as part of my nature, and my standards for myself this is a concept that not only is foreign to me, but one I shrug off as perhaps counterproductive in reaching my goals.

-Grace-

What is it?

"a disposition to kindness and compassion"

"favor or good will"

"mercy, pardon, clemency"

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In my ever expanding search and desire to become stronger, smarter, wiser, it is hard for me to stop, to breathe, to slow down. It is hard for me to accept my frailities, my weaknesses and my gaps in my development too. I was challenged two weeks ago by the question:

"why do you think you are impervious to harm?"

Yet I did not fully understand this question or this insight.
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I was conducting a year end focus group of my program last night. While I listened to the participants post mortem of their experience, I knew that many of their criticisms were indeed issues that were things within my control and that had been problems because of my own limitations this year. Things I had been unable to "get together". I began to feel increasingly bad about my performance and how it had impacted them.

But then I remembered, the many intense stressors I have endured in the past 6 months. Many of which I have yet to perhaps allow myself to rest and fully recover from- some of which the very same day I was still dealing with. And I remembered, yes, I was not impervious to harm. My work had suffered from these events, as it should have. I was allowed this.

And,

I gave myself grace.
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In our daily lives, I think many of us are quite brutal to ourselves in our expectations of what we should be able to do and survive. Many of us do not allow ourselves to rest, to feel, to hurt when we need to. Many of us do not allow ourselves to be human. And as I have said before, being human is messy business.

In what ways do you not see your own humanity? If you were to give yourself grace today, what would it look like?

Thank you my dear friends, for pointing out my weaknesses as I continue along my very humbling journey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMVxzEueJ6A