Working through challenging times with grace

 It’s been a really challenging year! I made it through 2020 in a good headspace, I really did despite all the challenges but this year, I have struggled immensely. I know this sometimes happens and I have to pick myself up and accept this and move on. I have been trying like crazy to do that, to decide that this year isn’t all lost. I know that your greatest growth often comes from the most challenging times. I’m trying to get there and understand where this is all taking me. I’ve spent the summer thus far, taking a personal inventory of where I was, where I am today and where I want to go. To determine a path forward. I’ve been honest with the people who have cared enough to ask about this and sought advice and counsel from close friends and colleagues that I respect a lot.

I know how fortunate that I have been in my life. I frequently still reflect on my trip to Africa and how it changed my life and perspective on this forever. So I feel bad, feeling badly too! I know I still have some hurdles to get over and I am confident I will with my new mindset and a whole lot of anxiety leading up to many of these times and people later this month. 

So, what have I done to move forward and ensure that 2021 is not just a year I look back to and cringe? I’ve tried to find Grace for myself and become more introspective than ever before. Most recently, I took myself off social media (Facebook and Instagram) for at least a month. This has probably been the healthiest improvement I have made. I left my accounts open but I have not logged into them at all after I said goodbye to my gym owner who moved to Texas for his family and a new exciting chapter in his life. I was so upset when Chris told us he was leaving…I could not face this and actually refused to say goodbye to him because he was planning to come back every 6 weeks. I hope this still happens because 5:30 am CrossFit waiting for his ADD meds to kick in just isn’t the same family without Chris. 

The other major thing I have done is to read off my Popsugar prompts and used this as a book therapy of sorts. I’ve found so many new books and genres that I have enjoyed and take some valuable message away from every book that has helped me to move forward and see that their is a brighter future that I can pave a road to despite how I’ve been feeling. Most recently, I read Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand, whose books I always love but haven’t read in a few years. While her books are usually light and take place on Nantucket, which I can’t wait to visit one day, they are full of characters you can connect to on so many levels. For me the message or take away was to always take the high road so that is your legacy when you are gone and how people remember you. I have struggled to do this recently but have a renewed commitment to myself that I will prove 16 people wrong by doing this. Before that, I read Virgin River because I just LOVE that show on Netflix! The book was so good and about  a fresh start after some terrible tragedies and about finding love again. Both things I have contemplated while working through my challenges. A friend recently asked me at brunch with the girls from the gym, if I was having a hard time? When I told her I was but that I was working hard to get through it, she said I can totally see you taking and loving an Eat, Pray, Love year. This would be my dream but I wouldn’t leave my dogs and I would have no clue how to finance it! the two books before that were from Matt Haig, an author I had never read before but has been heavily recommended in the book groups for the PopSugar Reading Challenge. He was the chicken soup I needed to start turning the corner and I would highly recommend him to anyone. His book Midnight Library spoke to me in the gentle ways I needed to reflect to start really doing the hard work of moving forward. The book is about the choices we make along the way and how they shape everything about our lives, both big and small choices. There are an infinite number of choices in our life but we make choices almost everyday that effect our outcome and while we are here on earth, we need to appreciate the people who really love us and shape our life’s choices. The Comfort Book he wrote this year, is a collection of the authors musings and they are so powerful and hit home on so many things. I kept a collection of many of these quotes to refer back to when I need them. 

Lastly, I started writing a book. Something I never planned on but then I never planned to get my doctorate or write a dissertation either. I just did it and I will do this slowly too. I have mapped out the chapters around big educational themes that I believe will be the key to education in the future. Most chapters are books in and of themselves that people much smarter than me have already written. But this too when I get inspired is helping me to give myself grace and move forward. 

This has been a pretty long and therapeutic post to write, so I want to end by thanking anyone reading this for being part of my journey and promise that when and if you are going through a challenging time like I have, I will be here for you. My hope is this post or something within will help you to find the right path forward for you and to give yourself grace. When I chose grace as my word for the year, the last thing I expected was that I would be talking later in the year about giving myself grace, it was all about giving grace to others when I chose this word but sometimes we have to put ourselves first, especially in the field of education today. 

Stay well my friends!