Today I have an anxious spirit. I couldn’t really explain much more than that. I just know that right now my stomach feels like I have butterflies, or like someone’s stirring something up in there. It got me thinking about how I handle things and I how I have lived my life up until now.

It is still possible to live your truth even after you’ve made a mistake. Part of having character, or learning your lesson, is learning how to own up to your mistakes. I’ve been doing that a lot. I’m reminded of my mistakes daily, and as I move farther and farther away from them and their consequences, I accept the responsibility of dealing with and managing the aftermath of my actions.

However, I’m still learning to be kind and gracefully continue forward. It’s an art. My favorite little saying to myself, and sometimes to others when needed, is “give grace.”

I’m not exactly sure when I started saying that to myself, probably about six years ago, but it has provided me with so many reminders and moments of clarity. It’s like a lightbulb going off in my brain or in my heart.

I’ll grapple with something for so long; how I handled something, how someone else handled something, or just something going on in my life that’s been weighing me down. Deep down I know it’s something I need to let go of and move through. That’s when I started saying, “give grace to get grace”.

When in doubt, continue extending that grace to others, extending it to situations…and in return, you might just find you give grace to yourself a little bit too. You become a little more forgiving toward yourself as well.

Contrary to popular belief, when we struggle, when we mess up, when we hit a bump in the road, the question is not: “Why am I so unlucky” or “ why did this happen to me?”. The REAL question is, “now that it’s happened, how do we handle today, the day after that, and the day after that, with grace?” Because coming out of a dark moment in life and knowing you did so with grace in your heart for others and yourself is something you can be proud of.

The grace that we have and hold for ourselves, do we identify that as part of who we are? Is it part of our character, part of our being? To be honest, I know it’s not an easy action to take. Giving grace to other people isn’t something that comes naturally for everyone. People can really do some damage.

It takes time, practice, and discipline to become a person who gives grace freely. And I have to practice every day, because there are so many times I fall short. There are so many times I can’t handle it, and I retreat, I disappear, I stay away, I distance myself out of protection for my own heart.

So, I have to take accountability for how I treat myself, how I see myself, and how I care for myself in times when I feel like I’ve made a mistake or when I’m having a hard time. How I love myself, matters. I have to make sure I give grace to myself, because at the end of the day, my being, my real self, matters.

As does yours. How you feel, how you talk to yourself, and how you handle yourself when you make a mistake—that’s important. That’s part of the self-love we give to the parts of ourselves we don’t always like.

I’m trying every day, and I’ll obviously be writing and reflecting more on these things. But right now, this is just what’s on my mind. So thanks for listening, reading along, and reflecting with me as I work through this.

P.S. Yes, this has been edited for grammar, but I just did this through speech-to-text. I’m driving to my sister’s house right now, and as a mother of two, this is one of the only times I have to process things and work them out, sometimes. So here are my thoughts.

Maybe I’ll make a little series of these: My Car Reflections

Anyways, until next time, my loves.

XOXO, Hallie