Giving grace
A do as I say, not as I do, sort of situation.
TLDR;
If you need to give yourself more grace, you’re not the only one. Many helpers struggle with it, me included. Just remember, it’s your inner voice telling you the thing you are actually most afraid to hear. People who matter don’t think you’re a waste of space, and you shouldn’t waste your time proving your worth to those who don’t matter anyway.
I give grace to everyone but myself. When I do give myself grace, it bounces back in my head as being “lazy”. I know I am not alone in this.
I think a lot of us who are overachieving helpers, or who deal with chronic illness, or who have a career talking about things that we have experienced, tend to hold ourselves to impossible standards.
We give grace to others for needing rest, for struggling, for being human - but when it’s our turn to fall apart, we call it failure. Why is that? Maybe it’s because our worth has become entangled with how well we show up for others and how useful we are. When we slow down, even for a moment, the inner voice that cheers on others becomes a critic we can’t silence.
That critic doesn’t just whisper, by the way. It drags out every memory of when we could have done more. It weaponizes our empathy, turning it inward and drawing blood. We tell ourselves, “Other people have it worse,” or “You should be over this by now.” If we try to reframe it with “But I need to give myself time.” we say the thing we think people really are thinking “You are so lazy. Ugh.” That is your inner psyche telling you the thing you are most afraid of hearing. Your inner voice can be an a hole sometimes.
Honestly, people who matter don’t actually think that we’re lazy or less than. We do waste a lot of time trying to prove to those people that we are not lazy and end up wearing ourselves out in the process, not getting where we truly need to be. Healthy, so we can work on the things that matter to us.
Grace isn’t a limited resource we have to ration out. It doesn’t lose power when we extend it to ourselves, however annoying it can be to hear this. In fact, the more we practice self-compassion, the more deeply we can hold space for others - not from a place of performance, but from a place of truth.
Here are 3 ways it shows up in daily life:
Over-apologizing for being human
You apologize for needing a break, for being late, for not texting back fast enough. Not because anyone demanded it - but because you’ve internalized the idea that rest or slowness makes you unreliable or unkind.Avoiding rest until you’ve “earned” it
You push through exhaustion because somewhere deep down, you believe that rest is a reward, not a right. Even when your body screams for a pause, your brain says, “Just one more task. Then you can stop.”Downplaying your own pain
You compare your struggles to others’ and decide yours don’t count. This is one of my worst tendencies. You show up for everyone else, even when you’re empty, because you think needing support makes you less capable - or worse, ungrateful.
That being said, there are a few ways to reframe things, but they take practice. We/You/I are not going to wake up one day and have immediate self-compassion and grace for ourselves.
You don’t have to earn grace by being useful. You’re allowed to receive it simply because you’re human. The same compassion you give others is available to you, too - and it doesn’t make you weak. It makes you whole.
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