Giving Grace

I am very exhausted. I battle fibromyalsi

When I looked up the meaning of the phrase “giving grace,” I was dismayed to read it defined on Quora as “to give someone undeserved kindness, love, and mercy: in fact, when they deserve vengeance and punishment.” I assert that when someone gives grace, they give unconditional kindness, love, and mercy. Deserving doesn’t figure into it.

People rarely give grace to others, and it is even rarer that we give grace to ourselves. Giving grace to others and myself is something I am also working on. But for me, it is also an essential part of losing weight.

You see, I am ill. I don’t have anything fatal. I have several issues that make my life very difficult. I have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, achalasia, Type II Diabetes, high blood pressure, hypothyroidism, high cholesterol, and CPTSD. I had adenomyosis for which I had a partial hysterectomy in my late 20s. I also lost my gallbladder and had a hernia repaired. Oh yeah, and there is random inflammation and swelling in my joints because I got nothing else better to do. Yes. I have several points of trauma in my life that contribute to the CPTSD. (Yes, I know my career path doesn’t help.) And there is the slight case of thoracic surgery wherein I died and was revived. Those points of trauma also contribute to my self-esteem, self-worth, and self-image issues. All of this has diminished the quality of my life over the years and brought me to 323 pounds.

For years, I would say, “My body hates me.” But, my body reacted the only way it could due to the harmful and unkind way I (and others) treated it over the years. I chose very unhealthy coping mechanisms. The most obvious one was food for comfort.

Every time I failed another diet, I gave myself no grace. I ate more. Hated me more. Dieted. Failed. Ate more. Hated more. Because I believed I wasn’t worth anything, I definitely wasn’t worth grace. But I am.

I am worth giving myself the grace to fail and still be loved. I am worth giving myself the grace to be kind to my body when I don’t feel well. Giving grace is unconditional. So even when I feel the least worthy, I am worthy.

This is hard stuff. I still have a very ugly tape that plays in my head. It tells me how unworthy I am. How ugly I am. How worthless I am. How I need to prove myself more. How I need to earn respect (which is pure BS, and I will explain that in a different post). How everyone will see that I am an imposter pretending to be what they see. It is hard to find the path to grace. But I try.

Personally, I don’t see how I will be able to reach my health goals if I don’t give myself that grace to fail or succeed. Grace is the only way I see to turn the volume down on the tape and start a new tape that celebrates my good points, worth, and success.

Giving grace is part of my radical self-acceptance and self-love. I love myself for who I am right now. I love my body exactly as it is right now. And because I love myself, I am working to make myself healthier. And I give my body grace to feel bad. I give myself grace to have food days. But I am working on my goals to a healthier me. And with grace, I will get there.