Your best friend calls you in tears.
“I am the worst mother in the world,” she tells you. “Chase was being such a brat and I just lost it on hims. His feelings were so hurt when I yelled, and I am just awful.”
How do you react?
Here is what I am betting. You say something like, “Oh, honey, you are not the worst mother in the world. You sound stressed about more than just Chase. What is going on?”
And then you listen. You make sounds of support and understanding. You commiserate. And you tell your friend in no uncertain terms that she is not awful and instead has this and this and this and this going for her. Then after encouraging and supporting her, you help her come up with a plan for how to go forward.
Before we go any further, let me just tell you what a good friend you are. Your peeps are lucky to have you.
Now, I want you to feel lucky to have you.
For the last couple weeks, I have been on a self-acceptance tear in these parts. After spending so much time talking about it around the country in recognition of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, it has just really been on my mind. And so I have told you probably the truest, simplest, and most important thing I have to say about the matter in It Comes Down to This We have talked about what self-acceptance actually means and what some starter steps to self-acceptance are. Tofay, I want to talk about doing for yourself what you already do for other people.
I want us all to work on replicating grace.
One of the fundamental parts of friendship is holding the person we love in the light. We do it effortlessly for our friends. We offer it to them without hesitation. It is as natural an expression of life for us as breathing air.
And, yet, when we talk about being kind to ourselves, about being self-accepting, we are stumped. We say we have no idea how to do that. But, clearly, we do. We do it everyday. We just do it for other people. Now, it is time for us to do it for ourselves.
Today, I want you to practice replicating grace. What grace do you extend to others in your life? What do you do to help others? What do you say to comfort them? How can you begin to replicate this grace for yourself?
