Raspberry Iced M

If you came to me hurting, I would listen carefully.

If you told me you made a mistake, I would tell you with all sincerity that you’re human. I would reassure you that growth is not linear and that it takes time.

If you admitted that you didn’t know better at the time, or that you had a momentary lapse of judgment, or even that you knowingly and willfully screwed up, I would probably hug you, keeping my ears exposed for extra careful listening.

But when it comes to me?

The rules change.

Suddenly there is no nuance. No context. No gentle explanation. Just judgment.

I can understand other people’s fear. Their trauma. Their blind spots. Their immaturity in certain seasons of their lives.

I can say, “They were doing the best they could.“

But when I reflect on or replay my own worst moments, I don’t offer that.

Instead, I prosecute.

That’s weird, isn’t it? How compassion flows outward so easily, but inward so stiffly.

I think I do that because it feels safer to be hard on myself. Part of my instincts are set up to stay harsh so that I won’t repeat mistakes, like if I punished myself thoroughly, I would somehow prove I understood the damage.

It has always felt like the responsible thing to do.

But shame is not the same thing as accountability. And self-attack is not the same thing as growth.

The idea of control is illusive, and there is something sort of seductive about self-blame. If everything is my fault, then everything is within my control.

If I am the problem, I can fix it.

But when I am able to step back and think more objectively, I can see that sometimes I was the only factor. Sometimes I was human in complicated circumstances. Other times I lacked certain tools that I hadn’t learned yet.

In keeping to a theme, into which I have been putting a lot of energy – grace – I have challenged myself to adopt the following theory: Grace doesn’t erase responsibility. It simply widens the frame.

I’m not better, or worse, than anyone else. I’m not unique. And like other people, I am allowed to say that I was wrong. I hurt people. I didn’t handle some things very well. And I would choose differently now.

And I can say all of those things without bookending each declaration with critical declarations that I am fundamentally defective, or that I can’t be trusted ever again, or that I don’t deserve peace.

Growth does not require self-contempt.

So what would it look like if I responded to myself the way I respond to others? How would I feel, when reflecting on the mistakes I’ve made, if I acknowledge that I was overwhelmed, seeking relief, and operating from old wounds?

Not as excuses. As explanations. Explanations that lead to responsibility, not self-erasure.

Right now, giving myself grace feels foreign. Almost arrogant, like I’m letting myself off the hook.

But I have to challenge those thoughts, too.

I am stepping off the gallows.

Grace says, “I am accountable. I am changeable. I am not irredeemable.“

That’s an extraordinarily different posture than permanent self-condemnation.

It is not my desire to be someone who empathizes with everyone else but lives at war with myself.

If grace is something I extend, it has to apply exteriorly and interiorly.

Not because I didn’t mess up, but because I am in charge of my own narrative, and I won’t settle for this warped belief that my worst moments are my final form.

Maybe the hardest grace I’ll ever extend is the grace I finally offer myself.