Giving Ourselves Some Grace
It’s been quite a few weeks. Wonderful, soul-filling, rejuvenating, and physically exhausting. Maybe like you, too, my plate is so overflowing and full! And full of wonderful, deeply meaningful things I am so passionate about.
I’ve had to force myself to take my own advice. To slow down, to listen to my body, and to give myself the permission to clear my schedule and rest. I’ve been travelling almost every weekend now for the last month, and this will continue until December. All for exciting and meaningful things that I have such deep gratitude for – TEDx talk practice, accepting awards, speaking, and attending meetings with like-minded colleagues and champions in the healthcare well-being space. I love it all so much – and, I’m so exhausted!
Along the way, I put completing the Boundaries for Women Physicians Digital Course on hold that I planned to release this fall and have put more LeadHER Podcast episodes on hold for now until I have the energy and space to put my all into them again. I also delayed the start of the healthcare MBA program I had planned to begin this fall, for the second time. It just wasn’t the right time, I don’t have the mental and emotional capacity to dedicate to this endeavor, either.
Just as I coach other high achieving women to do, I wrote all these wonderful things down on paper. To force myself to objectively look at the wonderful Thanksgiving meal piled high on my plate. And then to place each delicious item, one by one, to the side until I have the internal emotional space for them again. Some items just needed to go back into the oven to be kept warm for later. Some items needed to go into the deep freezer until another season. And some items needed to be taken out to the compost bin, or even better, to a person hungry and in need.
Taking our own advice is often the hardest of all. We teach what we most need to learn – and I am right here alongside learning with you, too.
I have always struggled with giving myself grace and space – and setting boundaries. Why do you think I wrote a book on Boundaries! Because I struggle so much internally with setting them, too. It’s a life-long practice, this daily commitment to changing our deeply ingrained habits and ways of being. And one that is worth the effort. Because we then come to realize that we have the power to choose. We have the power to choose our internal experience of our lives, and to give ourselves the grace we may so struggle to find.
Give yourself the permission to choose what you need, dear friend.
Talk to you again soon.
