Author Your Life
Author Your Life
Giving Yourself Grace
In this minisode, I talk about giving yourself grace and space to process major life changes.
We look at why we often struggle to make big changes, and why you need to take care of basic survival needs before going after a big goal or dream.
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Music: Jason Kay
Cover Art: Angela Spellman
Welcome to author your life, a podcast about making bold moves and big changes, living life powerfully on your own terms, outside social norms and expectations. Through conversations with inspiring individuals who forge their own path in life, we'll explore what it takes to face your fears and go after your dreams. You are not a victim of circumstance, you can always begin again, start a new chapter, and rewrite your story. This is author your life. And I'm your host, Julie B. Let's get the conversation started. Friends, Welcome to another episode of author your life. Today we are talking about grace. So earlier this week, one of my friends was going through a breakup and called me for support. And she was so upset with herself wondering why she couldn't just get over it. She's like, why can't I move on and put it behind me? Why am I dwelling on this? Like, I, I just wish I could move on. And my advice to her was to give herself grace. She responded, I don't even know what grace means. And so I sent her a voice message explaining what my perspective is. And that inspired this episode. So for me, grace means to be gentle and forgiving with yourself. Especially if you're going through a tough time. It's putting things in perspective and understanding that you're going through a tough time. And whether you're upset, you're sad, grieving, struggling, dealing with a loss, lonely, it having a challenge in relationships or your business. Whatever you're dealing with. If you can take a step back and look at the big picture, you can say to yourself, I'm going through a tough time, and that is okay. Know that it's normal. And it is completely okay to struggle once in a while, you're not supposed to feel any kind of way, other than exactly how you feel in this moment. So you give yourself permission and space to feel however you feel you don't make it wrong, don't fight it. And then you do whatever you need to do to heal from there. So it's really about embracing, accepting and working through whatever you're dealing with, and not making it wrong, and the process and then helping yourself feel better. I first got the idea of giving myself grace in 2019, when my dad was diagnosed with cancer, I was going through an extremely tough time and had a lot on my plate, especially once COVID hit and dad was sick, and I began losing my business. In the moment, it felt like my whole world was crumbling around me. And most days, I had trouble getting dressed in the morning, like I just didn't want to do anything. And maybe by around lunchtime, I would get myself together enough to like make some kind of meal and feed myself. And as someone who's always been extremely high achieving and always going after everything she wants in life, that was really hard to deal with. And when you're already going through a hard time, the very last thing you need to do is make it even harder by being hard on yourself. I should say that again, that was good. If you're going through a hard time, the very last thing you need to do is make it harder by being hard on yourself. So I knew in that moment, I'm like there's a global pandemic. My dad is suffering with a terminal illness, and I'm dealing with loss of a job and income. Those are three major, really stressful things all happening simultaneously. I knew I had to give myself a lot of grace and space to process what was happening. I couldn't realistically expect myself to be operating at full capacity, or be as productive or accomplish everything I wanted under ordinary circumstances. When you're going through a tough time, your body and your brain actually need to dedicate resources to survival. My brain and my nervous system at that time had a lot more pressing priorities to deal with then new creative projects or building a business. And this goes back to the idea of survival versus thriving. You really need To get perspective, and make sure that your survival needs are always taken care of, before you go on to thrive, or take on any major life change, like any major change that you go through any challenge that you encounter, any loss that you have even a success, any major shift that you deal with in life is a huge shock to your nervous system and your body, it throws you off, and you have to give yourself a chance to adapt. So you have to give yourself grace and time to process whatever's happening and adjust to the change during that time. You can't realistically expect yourself to just pop up and instantly do whatever it was that you were doing before at full capacity. It's just like my friend who's going through a major breakup and wondering, why am I not focused on my business? Why can't I just, you know, live life the way I was before? Like, I used to be so driven, and like, why am I struggling now to have have ideas and want to like grow my business, it's because you just meant through a major life change, you are dealing with a loss. Even if a relationship is unhealthy, it was still a major part of your life. You it was it was a part of the fabric of your being and your day to day existence, there was a person there who was a big part of your world that's no longer there. That's a shock to the nervous system. And you need a chance to adapt and adjust. And in those periods of adapting and adjusting to the change. That's where the grace comes in. And I want to reiterate that it's not just loss, you could have an amazing life change. You could have, like an amazing new job, that you're just excelling at, where everyone loves you and you're getting so much praise. But it's still this big step up from what you used to be doing. And you might kind of wonder, Who am I in this new position, it's something new in your life. That's wonderful. But it's still something new. When you move like when I moved to Westchester, I loved it. I mean, in theory, I loved it, I wanted to move I so wanted to get out of the city. And even so, it took months, months of being here, to really acclimate to the new environment to start to feel like I was actually at home, and to actually start loving it. Because before that, it was just this world of being so disoriented. Like when you change your environment, your physical environment, that's another major life stressor. So when I say stressors, they can be positive or negative, it can be something that you lost, or it can be something that you gained and added to your life. Just think major changes, major shifts. So I'm we're talking about having really big goals and dreams and wanting to go after something in your life. Before you can even get there. The very first thing you want to make sure you do is look at, look at your basic survival needs. Whatever you would be doing under ordinary circumstances is great. If your basic survival needs are taken care of. If you're well rested, you're well hydrated, you're you're eating good nutritious foods, you're exercising, you're energized, you have healthy relationships, you have people who support you, you have a great home over your head, you have steady income, so you don't need to stress about money. All of these factors, when they're taking care of and they're in place, they're going to put you in a good position where you can take that energy, that energy that usually goes towards survival, you can put that energy towards thriving. That's when you can say, I want to start a new business, I want to quit my job. I want to go after this big dream. I want to travel across the country, but you got to make sure your basic needs are taken care of first. And if they're not, or if you find yourself really struggling to make a big change, or not going after something that you truly, truly want. Maybe you want to take a look at what other stressors are in your life at the moment. Take inventory of what's happening in all areas of your life, your work, your relationships, your physical health, mental health, your family, your environment, look at everything, all these aspects. And if there's an area where there's recently been a major life change or shift or something that that you have to deal with, give yourself grace, please give yourself the space you need to process the change and adjust your expectations accordingly. Give yourself grace, don't have the same expectations that you would have of yourself under optimal circumstances. Know that life is never perfect. We're never going to have everything figured out. That's just not the way it is. But you can always know that there will be periods where you will be focused more on survival. And there will be periods where you will be focused more on thriving. And that's the point of today's episode. So I hope this was helpful. And I hope you guys have a great day. Thank you so much for joining this conversation. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to leave a review a five star rating. Be sure to hit subscribe to catch all future episodes. I would love to know who's listening and your biggest takeaway from this episode. If this podcast was valuable, please share with a friend. Take a screenshot and post to your social media. Hashtag author life podcast and tag me. It's Julie B underscore Your support helps this podcast grow. Until next time, friends. Keep writing your story and author your life