Dare to be Gracious (with Yourself) – A Daring Monday Post

The thing about cliff jumping is that it inevitably leads to a free fall. I don’t know about you, but I’m not really big into to the free fall aspect. I much prefer to know what’s going on than to be left in the dark with nothing but hope and trust. Still, you get no rewards if you take no risks…

The problem is, we tend to try to hard. We screw up all this courage and then take a flying leap off the cliff and we think that we have to be the ones to make things happen. We decide we need to muster all of our will and self-control and step to it. Of course, the whole reason we had to jump off the cliff in the first place is because or dream, our vision, is way outside of our own ability to manifest it (otherwise we wouldn’t have been scared in the first place). But our silly egos hate free falling as much as I do.

If we really want to see the dive blossom into everything it can be then sometimes we need to learn to “let go, and let God” – as they say.

Last week I was diligently working at getting organized and being a professional business woman (to-do lists and all that) – and being slightly frustrated by all of life’s little interruptions and the things that happen when you are just trying to work a schedule into your life – when I found myself sick. And I don’t just mean sick – I got a nasty flu and my period on the same day! (If that’s not a message I don’t know what is.)

I spent the end of my week, my weekend, and today too, lying on the couch. Now, considering all the things on my to-do list not getting done: all the blog posts I wanted to make, all the emails to send, and systems to set up – this was extremely frustrating. But Wakizashi’s counsel was that the thing about to-do lists is that they are meant to help you, and sometimes… sometimes it’s in your best interest to leave them undone too.

Sometimes the thing we need to take the risk on is Grace. Sometimes (and I think it may be a lot more than some of the time with most of us women), the most daring thing we can do is pull our egos back into check and offer some kind of gracious act to ourselves. This week I had to be gracious enough to leave some things undone – to allow how I felt each morning decide how much I could really do (rather than how much I should do) that day. This week I’m daring to give myself the grace to have the space to get well.

Where do you need to be gracious to yourself this week? What gracious act of self-care can you take? Does your body need a little extra loving kindness this week? Is your soul longing to express itself? Is your spirit feeling parched? Dare to be selfishly gracious this week. It’s a risk, but you can do it!