Giving Yourself Grace vs. Making Excuses

Valerie Friedlander 0:00
Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Mindset Unlimited: Mindset Tips, Tools, and Inspiration for Women in a Time of Change. I’m your host, Valerie Friedlander, certified leadership coach, sociologist, intersectional feminist, artist, mom, and nerd. And today we are talking about giving yourself grace versus making excuses, and this comes up a lot with my clients because I typically work with women who are in a period where they want to make a change, and either they’re not sure what that change is, and they’re trying to figure it out because they know that making a change means that there’s going to be a lot of other things impacted, and there can be a lot of stress with change, wanting to make the right change, etc. So there’s that component, and then there’s the I know the change I want to make, and I should be doing these things, and I’m not doing them, and I know I shouldn’t beat myself up, but I also don’t want to just keep justifying and putting things off. So what do I do about that? Like, at what point does giving myself grace and trying to be kind to myself turn into laziness, turn into avoidance, turn into not not what I want. And usually, at the point they’ve come to me, it’s like, well, it isn’t what I want. I do want to do something different. And this is something that I think is important: is when you do get to that point where you want to do something different, and you know that you’re not doing something, whether you’re doing something directly related to that, whether you get to the point where you’re like, okay, I’m just going to do the thing, or you enlist support to do the thing, both both aspects are movement. So when I’m talking to somebody and they’re like, and I’m just not, and I’m like, well, and could we acknowledge for a minute that you you asked for help, right? You said, hey, I want help with this. That is movement. That is doing something. That’s not just sitting around hoping somebody else will make it go away-that is taking action. But the challenge is when we’re stuck in a loop. So let’s talk about how that looks. Now, I was going to repurpose because I’ve talked about this a fair amount, but I’ve talked about it in different ways, and all of the episodes that I would have repurposed for this. They don’t have video, and I’ve started doing video. So I was like, “Well, how about I take some of the concepts from each of these and pull them together for a little summary episode, and then I will point you towards those episodes if you want to dive deeper into any particular aspect, there are three main episodes that I’m referencing, and each one has a kind of a unique angle that I take on it. But they all cover the same flow. That’s what I want to say. The same flow. There’s a similar underlying vibe, which you know, not surprising. This is ultimately my philosophy and my approach to these things. So, if that resonates as we go through it, and you’re like, yes, I would like to have help with that. Please don’t hesitate to reach out. As always, I am here for you, and if you have questions about it, and you’re like, I’m not ready to get on a call, you can leave me comments. I love to hear from you all, and honestly, it really does make a difference in my energy and motivation because I’m doing this for you as much as I have enjoyed it, and that’s that’s another facet that I will I will dig into a little bit in this episode, but now let’s go through. We’re going to talk about what is grace, what is an excuse, why it’s hard, and ways to walk through it. So I’m going to give you like step by step. Here’s what you do when you find yourself in this pattern of whether you call it giving yourself grace, and but you’re still not moving, or whether you call it excuse and you’re just not moving. This is what you can do. So step by step, walk you through it. So now, without further ado, let’s get started. Let’s start off with the definitions, as promised.

Valerie Friedlander 4:47
I’m not going to go as deep into some of the definitions as I do in the excuses episode that I will be referencing, where I really dig into the idea of excuses, but. Because so often I’m asked about the idea of giving grace and work with people who have done a lot of self work, and like I have worked really hard on my self talk. I have worked really hard to give myself grace, and I still want to be able to do things. So, at what point am I giving myself too much grace. So let’s talk about grace. There are a few different definitions. The one that I pulled from Merriam-Webster is the fifth definition, which covers A through E: approval, favor, mercy, pardon, a special favor from a person in power, benevolence, goodwill, a temporary exemption. So that’s the idea of grace, and of course, there’s the more Christocentric idea of grace, God’s grace, and I’m sure that’s present in other religions and spiritualities and such. So thinking about grace as a spiritual concept, I’m not gonna follow that too far, just to because it can get complicated. But a lot of times, when people talk about giving themselves grace, there is that component of that spiritual sense of of giving yourself space, turning things over to a higher power. No. that you’re doing the best that you can where you are. So again, there’s that that I’m gonna I’m gonna give myself that space. I’m going to pardon myself. I’m going to grant myself mercy and not beat myself up. And I think that’s that’s a big one. The idea of mercy in grace, because usually when people are working on giving themselves grace, it’s because they have a history of beating themselves up and saying mean things to themselves, and so the work is: I am going to give myself mercy. I’m going to pardon myself for not being able to live up to the expectations, whether they were reasonable or unreasonable, I’m gonna give myself that grace, that pardon. I’m going to give myself an exemption. Hey, you were here, and I just I’m gonna let that go. So, I think that’s the that kind of the roots of when we talk about giving grace, we’re we’re giving ourselves mercy from the beating, the mental beating that we otherwise would be giving ourselves. So yes, yes to not beating yourself up, not self flagellation. Yes to that, and I’ll tell you why in a minute. But then let’s talk about excuses. Excuses, also from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, I’m pulling definition one is to make apology for, to try to remove blame from, and three is to grant exemption or release. So it’s very similar, right? Temporary exemption under grace and grant exemption under excuse. So it makes sense that there be some question around, like, at what point is giving myself grace, and what point is it an excuse? So this is where I would separate those two. Grace is when you aren’t beating yourself up; you are withholding the lashing, the mental lashing that you would give yourself, and you can withhold the mental lashing whilst. still taking forward movement, and that forward movement may not be doing the thing right away, and it certainly isn’t going back in time and doing it because usually we think about giving ourselves grace after we’ve already done a thing or not done a thing now. Sometimes it can be in advance of like I’m really tired. I just can’t get myself to do it. I’m going to give myself some grace. I’m going to pardon myself. I’m going to excuse myself from that right now. Again, understanding what our capacity is. It’s different in different days. Now, when it becomes a habit, that’s where there’s something else going on, and it isn’t a question of do I stop giving myself grace in order to do the thing. Now that is conditioning. That is what we’ve been taught to do. That in order to move ourselves, if we are not moving ourselves, if we are not doing the thing, in order to do the thing, we have to beat ourselves up. That is the answer, and a lot of us learned that from childhood. Frankly, that is very much embedded in our societal norms, the way we interact with young people, in particular.

Valerie Friedlander 9:56
Of I told you once, you should be able to do this by. Now, or just parents, adults, teachers, whoever the adults in a child’s life having a lot going on, being stressed out, being reactive, and so the automatic impulsive action is, oh my gosh, this is one more thing for me to deal with. Can’t you just? And I’m going to motivate you punitively, and that’s historically been what we do. And there is definitely a wonderful movement towards not that. And I think where the confusion has come in, and and it’s pretty obvious in some of the the swing from instead of positive parenting, we’ve moved into permissive parenting, and again, this is this is stress response stuff. Like, okay, well, if I can’t yell at you, then I’m just going to avoid you. And if we, if you’ll indulge me for a minute, I will go back to the Energy Leadership Index assessment, which you can find the episodes talking about that, but there’s level one and level two, and level one is overwhelm, inaction, life’s happening to me, I can’t do anything, shut down, and level two is that more like a fight response of for me to win, you have to lose. Like do the thing that push, that anger, frustration, and so those both are stress responses. So we went from the level two parenting to the level one parenting instead of into a more expansive space, and when I talk about parenting, I am not just talking about like actually parenting children. Though a lot of these things are things we learned as children and may also perpetuate because it’s it’s hard. A lot of us are in our stress response a lot because there’s so much going on, so it’s also the way we talk to ourselves, though, right? The way we were talked to as a child is the way we talk to ourselves now. It has to do with how our stress response is conditioned, and so the idea would be to step out of that, now how do you step out of that? That that’s the trick, and I think that is where grace comes into play, not as an excuse, not as a well, of course I didn’t, or I never will. You know, I’m just going to forgive myself, whatever those sorts of things, not like letting, not the the level one, no, of course I didn’t thing. That that falls into how we identify ourselves. So we we start to build an identity around our habits, and that is part of where we get stuck. It’s the story that we tell about ourselves in relation to the thing. Like I made a mistake, I am a mistake, and again, this ties back to a lot of conditioning. And this is where the invitation is to start separating those two out. And I think we can give that mercy. I’m withholding the lash on myself. I’m not going to beat myself up. I’m not going to self-flagellate my through all of this. That’s not what I’m going to do. What I am going to do is give myself care while holding on to what’s important. So this is the the next step. So it’s yes, and when we’re talking about giving ourselves grace and separating it out from making excuses where we never do anything, there’s a following step that often gets missed. Partly because, well, for a variety of reasons. One is because we’re working so hard to give ourselves grace because we’re not used to doing that, and two because when we do give ourselves grace, we haven’t been taught about accountability. Accountability often gets tied up with punitive behavior, the punishment. Accountability is punishment. It’s the consequence. Yes, there are always consequences, and the way we think about them, the way we engage them, matters. Are we doing it in a punitive way, or are we doing it in a supportive way? So accountability can look like, okay, so let’s give ourselves some space to think about what happened. What is stopping me from doing the thing? What’s going on? So, in order to keep myself from going on and on, I’ve made some notes that we’re gonna look through real quick. So. One of the notes that I have just across the board, I’m going to give you the overarching theme.

Valerie Friedlander 15:06
If you haven’t picked it up yet, it is that the reason that you’re not moving is rarely a shortage of discipline. Again, discipline tends to have very tight connections to punitive behavior, punitive action towards yourself. So that’s where the opposite of giving yourself grace comes in. So it’s not really a shortage of discipline, which is again the question of, am I making excuses and I need to be more disciplined? What avoidance is, or what that that I’m not doing the thing is, is a protective response. There’s a reason you’re not doing the thing, and it makes sense, but you might not know what it is yet. So that’s the the the next piece. It’s a protective response. It runs with good reason. There is a good reason, whether it’s one you like or agree with or whatever. Your body, your brain, all of that is like there’s a reason. This matters. This is important. So in a body with real limits inside the structures of our society that were not built for our flourishing, there’s a good reason. So change comes from restoring the context to the Reason, building capacity, or at least acknowledging what the capacity is, and then learning, okay, based on that capacity, what do I need? So that’s where the choice comes in. Then you get to choose what you do next. What am I gonna try? What am I gonna experiment with? Okay, so the what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working. So if that hasn’t been working, what else could I do? And this is where I acknowledge people when they’ve gotten a call with me and we’re talking about these things, and it’s like, but you did do something. You did do something different. You you reached out, you reached out to me, and it could be for those of you listening. It could be a friend. It could be a therapist. It could be anybody. You did something different, and that matters. And that is different action, which does create different results, even if they’re not as immediate as you want them to be. Okay, so a lot of times, people don’t acknowledge themselves when they haven’t achieved an outcome yet. Like the change hasn’t happened yet, but I think it’s really important to acknowledge when you do take action, and that’s something I’m gonna bring into this as I go through each step. So, I promised you step by steps. Here we go. The first step. So we’re moving from okay. I’m just I’m just giving myself grace. Okay, great. We got to the point where we are at least withholding the self-flagellation. We are going. I am going to grant myself some mercy here and know that I can’t, and I didn’t, and it doesn’t make me a bad person. It doesn’t make me a mistake. I don’t need to beat myself up for it. I’m I’m enough. And even if I didn’t do the thing that I said I wanted to do or that I needed to do, I I’m still a valuable, good person who is enough and worthy in myself, worthy of love in myself. So we got there, okay, yay! Now we don’t just want to stay there, though. Without there, we aren’t going to get anywhere else very well in any kind of sustainable way. So, yay, you did that. The next, so that’s that’s the first step. Okay, you did the first step. Yay, you dropped the verdict on who you are. So we’re not asking, is this an excuse. Am I lazy? What’s wrong with me? That kind of judgment blocks the inquiry. That’s the next piece. That’s actually going to help you do something different in a way that’s sustainable and doesn’t require whipping yourself along to do things, so we’re not asking about identity, who we are. One of the things that I mention in, I want to say it’s deep self care to shift habits, but it’s in one of the episodes that I’m I have listed at the. And I shared about how Resma Menakem said that personality or trauma decontextualized looks like personality, and collective trauma decontextualized looks like culture. I think that’s important here. So that’s the individual context and the the larger context when we look at it. And you don’t have to have like capital T trauma to understand that.

Valerie Friedlander 20:34
So often we tell stories about who we are based off of our patterns based off of what we have done, and so what we want to do is restore the context. What past structural circumstance produced the pattern, and you don’t necessarily have to identify exactly what that is, right? You don’t have to pinpoint where you had that come in because sometimes it’s progressive over time. But if you can recognize the pattern not as who you are, but as a pattern that you are currently engaging in, that helps separate out from your identity, and sometimes you can tell what that story is just by noticing what I am statements you’re using. When you use an I am statement, are you tying your behavior up into this point to who you are, because if you’re doing that, when you do that, makes it really hard to change it. Because well, that’s just who I am. It’s one of those things that I caution with personality assessments: is that so often we, I mean, our brains like patterns, so we hear these ideas about this is who I am, and it creates this fixedness around what’s possible for us. So when we can step out of that and go, okay, what am I telling myself about who I am that this is not working? That I’m not taking action. Maybe it’s cleaning up the house. Well, I’m just not a neat person. I’m just not an organized person. I’m just not a productive person. I’m just someone who isn’t like I just don’t do time well. Now, I will say here with the idea of time that certain neurodivergencies struggle with time blindness, so that can be a real constraint on capacity, which I’m going to get to in a minute because we do want to acknowledge capacity and real internal, external, structural challenges, but sometimes we take those on as who I am, instead of this is a facet of what I am dealing with in life, and so I can create supports for myself around that versus labeling myself and boxing myself into what’s possible. I don’t get on video because I’m an introvert, or I’m shy, those sorts of things are ways that we stop ourselves from doing something. Not to say that you have to do the thing. You might find that, you know, I’m trying to do something that really isn’t a good fit for me. So, what’s important about doing this is it something that I can let go, or is it something that I can ask for help with? But first, is taking it off of the identity piece and restoring the context to it. What what is the what are the components that I’m saying are who I am, the way I am, and what might have to do with things that worked well for me at one point in time that felt safe or created a sense of safety for me. A lot of times, our inner critic sits in that space, and I talk more about inner critics in the deep self care to shift habits. So that’s one to listen to if that comes up for you, so finding that protective function. What does doing this or not doing this thing get you? What is it doing for you? And it could be well, it keeps me conserving energy because I’m tired. It protects my energy. Sometimes it’s it protects my identity. That’s a big one. Again, going back to the identity piece, it’s a it’s a big piece of oh, this is protecting my sense of who I am. And there’s so many things that are changing that this just feels. Safer to have this for some people having a lot of clutter around them create a sense of safety. Oh, this helps me feel safe because there’s not big open spaces, and having more than I need helps me feel like I’m not going to be without, or not showing up to this thing that I keep wanting to go to means that I don’t have to risk rejection or be uncomfortable. Fill in whatever it is that you’re avoiding or what you’re not getting done that you want to be getting done that you’re trying to give yourself grace for and wondering about excuses. Fill in that blank and look at what is it doing for you, and explore it.

Valerie Friedlander 25:46
What else might it be doing? Right, you might find one thing. Oh, this is the obvious thing. Well, what is that doing for you, or what else might it be doing? Just really like dig in and explore it further than you think that you need to, and then and then the other pieces, as I mentioned, checking on capacity, energetic, emotional, physical, and treat rest as a legitimate action. Giving yourself rest without having to fight yourself to not beat yourself up for it can help expand your capacity to do more things, and yes, it takes time to do that, and it is a valid action if you haven’t been resting and you’ve been pushing yourself through, but you’re not doing certain things that maybe take more mental capacity, take more physical capacity, and you don’t have as much because you are pushing yourself through. Then giving yourself intentional rest might open up room to do the thing, to try something different, to have more space. The more pressures, the more our capacity is diminished. The more likely we are going to be reactive and follow into our automatic stress response actions. If you’re interested in knowing exactly what that is and what that looks like for you, that’s where I usually recommend the Energy Leadership Index assessment because then you can see how that’s actually showing up for you. But check on those capacity pieces. What is real? Because so often we don’t give space for those very real things in our life that are going on, and we’re like, why didn’t I do this thing well because there were other things that needed to take priority this week because I was a little under the weather because I’m grieving and it’s not done as fast as I want it to be. Those sorts of things are all very legitimate and giving them room and understanding what they are and where they are and why they are allows you one to give that grace again, and two to go. Okay, well, if this is really important to me, and I’m not doing it right now, what could I try differently? So again, that’s where we come into anchoring to your values, anchoring to what’s important about this. What is important, and I, I hesitate to say why is this important because why can often come across as judgy, but really exploring alignment does this fit within what’s really important to me or is it something that I think I should do because other people are saying it’s something I should do. Let’s check in with what I’m wanting to create in the world, and I will touch really quick on what I always say about what I want to create in the world. It’s how do I want to experience life? How do I want to show up? What difference do I want to make in the world? What impact do I want to have? Checking in on those things. What are my values that tie to how I want to show up? When you can connect to those things, maybe I’m over giving into a value, and I really need to be honoring this other value that feels super depleted. Each value is kind of like a bucket that we need to fill, and when we’re overfilling in one, we still feel depleted because there are other ones that aren’t getting that care. So maybe there’s a recalibration, a shifting of energy that we’re expending that is invited, and more on that and in values. I actually put a whole playlist together so you can really dig into each one. So, okay, this is where I’m going to go. So we’re we’re dropping the judgment. This is where we’re giving ourselves grace, restoring the context. What is this doing for me? How is this supportive? What’s that protective function? The reason I’m not doing the thing. How is that? Serving me, it’s serving in some way. What is my actual capacity? Because it might be serving and conserving my energy because I just don’t have capacity. So, what are those capacity constraints that are present? Whether I like to think that they’re real or just things I can mindset away, let’s just acknowledge them. Okay, mental load is a real thing. Emotional load is a real thing, even though it’s hard to give those things space.

Valerie Friedlander 30:27
Anchoring to what’s really important in your life right now, and then working with what your actual energy is and what helps you to do a thing. So sometimes it can be just this is a new thing. I’m not sure how it’s going to go, and we need to harness some push energy. We need to harness some fight energy. Fight energy really motivates a lot of times. It pushes us into action. It’s not sustained action, but it can be the thing that we need to give us that little initial oomph forward. So, what typically motivates you? What gets you going? And what could you do to apply that to this in at least that short initial burst of building into the thing? So, and sometimes it can be well when I’m doing it with somebody else, when I put on certain music, when I I have a buddy to go do a thing, when I go to a coffee shop to do this kind of work. What is it that helps you move into action usually, and what about that helps you move into action? That’s the next layer to it because sometimes it’s not like apples to apples. Sometimes it’s apples to oranges, and so we need to go an additional layer down of like, what about that? What happens in my body? What are the components of that that make that difference. Oh, I’m around other people, but I’m not talking to those people. There’s a different vibe. I’m in a different environment. I’m having a good time. It feels more playful. Like breaking it down into what are the pieces there, and then try it. Run it as an experiment, and this is where the accountability comes in. So you have identified something different to do. You’re going to try a different thing, and then you’re going to see, okay, what happened. And if you didn’t do it, we’re going to walk through these steps again, rather than beat yourself up. It’s going to be okay. What stopped me? What what worked in this? Even if it was just a little bit, it didn’t work all the way, but it worked part of the way. What worked? What didn’t? Where did I stop? What about that stopped me? And really explore what happened there. Okay, so what shall I try different this next time since that didn’t work. Let me try something different. Or if it did work, making note first, celebrating because that fuels that self trust. Oh, I did the thing because sometimes self trust is a big piece in this. You don’t trust yourself to do it, so you don’t do it. So by doing something small, because it might be oh there’s this big thing I want to do and I’m not doing it. Maybe we need a smaller thing that builds towards that big thing that you want to do. So we do a smaller thing and start to build the self trust that oh I can handle this. Something didn’t go the way I expected and I survived, and I was able to do the next thing that supported myself. So I was okay, right? I want to go to this big conference, but I’m not. I’m totally intimidated, so I’m gonna go to this networking event instead and just talk to people. I’m gonna go with somebody. I’m gonna have a timed out, so I don’t have to stay there too long if it’s not going well. Like you can build in those stepping stones, run it as experiment, see how it goes. Give yourself space after the experiment to check in. How did that go? And then the last piece is getting support. We aren’t meant to operate by ourselves, though we live in this over individualistic society. So, having community, having friends that you can lean on, who can hold space for you, for whatever support you’re looking for, whether it is feedback or whether it’s just listening, Coach, therapist, some sort of support for yourself-you deserve that. It is-it is something we all need. We are all worthy of that kind of care. So, I know that finances are often a constraint for folks. There are many of us who are practicing who have options to work with us, and again, it could just be listening to my episodes, and maybe you listen with another friend.

Valerie Friedlander 35:13
Send it to a friend and say, “Hey, would you be my buddy in this? Could we work on this together? That’s a I hadn’t thought of that before, but that’s something that you could do-is you know, book group sort of thing, but listen to podcast and be buddies on trying something different. So, those are my tips for you around-you know-is it an excuse or is it giving myself grace? They’re not the same thing, so so don’t worry if you’re giving yourself grace. Yeah, it might be excusing yourself. It’s giving yourself mercy for the thing, and that’s that’s the first step. The trick is that then there’s another step. So hopefully these steps were helpful for you. If you have questions, please reach out. I am here for you. I would love to support you. So you can drop it in the comments. You can send me an email or a DM or a voice note because there’s a little a little link in the show notes to send me a voice note, whatever works for you. I do really truly love to hear from you, and of course, if you would like coaching support, there’s a link in the show notes to sign up for a free initial exploration call with me. So that’s all for now. Check the show notes for links if you want to dive more in depth to any one of these ideas. Oh, I meant to say. So, what’s killing my motivation? I kind of that one’s really the main thing is is the structural analysis, taking a look at a lot of the societal components. That one’s unique in that the deep self care to shift habits hits more of the emotional somatic components the inner child validation and there’s a little short life coaching clip in there and then am I just making excuses that’s where I really dig into the the linguistic dismantling of understanding what an excuse is, and some ideas about like responsibility and definitions and things like that. So, all of those are great. I do have a playlist that includes those and more, which I will have on my blog page for this episode, and I will talk to you all next time. Thank you so much for being here. I really, really appreciate you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai