Living With Grace Season 6 Episode 88

Check out this episode to learn how to combat tension and divisiveness by living with grace for yourself and others. 

Show Notes: 

Episode Summary:

In this episode:

The following notes are key concepts from the episode, not a word for word transcript. We generally start with key points and then give examples and stories to illustrate the ideas. For the best experience, we recommend that you listen to the episode.

Introduction:

As this episode drops, it is just before the presidential election and our country, and the world in general seems extremely divisive. People are pitted against each other and anger and hurt are escalated. We are constantly surrounded by news and social media that allows fear and worry and shame to enter our daily thoughts.

People are hurting, and as a society we are recognizing the need to support mental health.

In this arena, there is support and comfort in living with grace. Stay tuned to today’s episode as we discuss living with grace.  Why do we need it?  What does it look like?  And most importantly, how can you level up your own life by choosing to live with grace.

What do we mean when we use the phrase “living with grace”?

When we talk about living with grace, we aren’t talking about being graceful, like a ballerina, though that might also be a worthy goal.

Living with grace is about choosing to be a better person.

It means showing kindness, or understanding or forgiveness.

It means having an open mind and being accepting of others’ beliefs and values.

Grace is a refinement- it is the absence of difficulty and instead feeling ease. It means making moments less serious, severe or difficult. Living with grace means being thoughtful, rather than overreacting. It means having common courtesy, which sometimes doesn’t seem all that common.

Michele: I remember a situation with a person who I had know for a long time but often struggled with.  I felt judged by her and didn’t think she really liked me. We had a large holiday party and she was there.  My daughter, who was four or five at the time, came running up to me crying and then proceeded to vomit all over everything- including herself, the floor, and the furniture. This person jumped in immediately and told me to go take care of my daughter and she would take care of everything. She’d find the paper towels and clean it all up. I was surprised by her kindness, and I remember it clearly to this day. I see that as an act of grace from one mom to another.

Paula: I think of grace in a teaching situation. We all know those students who it would be easy to be angry or upset with. But when we step back and look at them through a lens of understanding or kindness, that is giving them grace. They come in and they are angry or upset and if you feed into their anger you make them even more angry or upset.

When you say something like, “It sounds like you’re having a rough day. Can you tell me what’s going on, I’d love to be able to help,”  you’re showing grace to that student. We all know when we’ve said something like that, their whole demeanor can change. Sometimes we don’t give each other enough credit for giving grace to students. It can be difficult to give grace to others.

Let’s look at some ways we might work on living with grace.

Give yourself grace.

Sometimes, we hijack our own brains. We’re hard on ourselves and sometimes unforgiving.

That leads to a lot of personal doubt, the feelings that I’m not worthy enough, or I’m not good enough.

We tend to overemphasize our mistakes and let them drive our feelings about ourselves.

What would happen if we gave ourselves more grace?  We could forgive ourselves.

Recognize that what is over is done. You can’t go back, so you need to move forward.

Think of this through the lens of how you would treat a friend. Treat yourself like you would treat a friend. What would you tell a friend? You would speak kindly. We give grace to our friends. When they are in a rough time, we’d say things like, “It’s okay, you’re in a rough time, you’re doing the best you can at this time.”

How often do we talk to ourselves like that? Not often. That playlist in our mind to ourselves rarely  includes giving ourselves grace. If we added that into our internal conversation, wouldn’t that be wonderful? It is a goal for so many of us, we’ve thought about it, but we don’t think of it as giving ourselves grace. ” That’s okay. It’s alright. You’re doing the best you can.”

Why is it so hard for us to say that to ourselves?

It is like the well-known phrase from Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better.  Then, when you know better, you do better.”  That is the truth of it, you’re probably doing the best you can at the time.

Give yourself grace as you are learning and doing better.

Extend grace to others.

This one can be difficult. Sometimes it is easy to judge others. But you don’t know the whole story. You don’t know what they might be going through.

Paula: I was once working with a coach and having a difficult time with someone. The coach asked me, “What would change if you looked at it through the lens of someone who is…” and she proceeded to tell me the things this person was going through.

I immediately understood. She said, “Imagine extending that grace to her. Although she is not the best colleague, this is what she is going through in her life that makes her not her best.”

I think about that often. What if I assumed the best of her? Maybe she’s having a bad day because of what she is going through. People around us are struggling all the time, with an illness or a problem with a loved one- things that we don’t know.

What if I saw her through the lens of this?  My first thought is that I would give her grace. We need to extend grace to others.

What would be the worst thing that would happen if you always assume the best of others?

Michele: Sometimes I find it easy to take offense. If the clerk at the grocery store is rude to me, I feel it. I also assume it is about me, even though intellectually, I don’t even know that person and I know it isn’t about me. I have to remind myself to brush it off and let it go. I don’t know what is going on with her, but it is not about me.

Another way to live with grace is to respect diverse beliefs and perspectives.

Respect diverse beliefs and perspectives. 

There would be a lot fewer problems in the world if we could all learn to respect other people’s beliefs and perspectives. That also might mean being open to learning about them. We’re educators, we should be open to learning.

We tend to fear something we don’t understand. When we don’t know or understand something about someone else that seems strange or different to us it’s easy to be fearful of them.

Michele: I observed a group of Muslim men praying at the airport. A clock had started chiming, and their tradition is to pray five times a day by dropping to your knees while facing Mecca. They were very reverent.  I wish that everyone could observe acts such as these. It diminishes the fear and helps you see people in a fuller, more humanistic way.

The stereotype is that all Muslims are extremists and terrorists. You can pick them out from central casting displayed in almost every American movie about violence. If you don’t know anything about their lives or their culture, it is easy to be fearful of the unknown.

There is also a Muslim tradition to make the words “ God is good” the first words they speak to a new baby.

If people could see this kind of practice and understand it, they would not be afraid of someone just because they are Muslim.

Paula:  In Uganda, I had to learn to give people grace. I saw a little baby crawling in a village with no adult supervising. I was quick to judge. Where is the mother? How could a baby be crawling around without a mother? This was an example of  “It takes a village to raise a child.” Everyone needed to know that child in case something happened to the mother and she was not able to take care of it.

The mother was actually being a good mother by allowing her child to be independent and go out and seek others. In our culture here, if a baby was crawling around outside it would be very different. I had to give that mother grace. How difficult it must have been for her to let the baby go crawling around, knowing that it would find its way home or someone would turn it around towards home.

Wouldn’t the world be a better place, if we could all respect each other’s beliefs and perspectives? And then give a little grace once we’ve learned about it?

Try to see the good in the world.

There is certainly negativity and evil in the world. Bad things happen. News and social media feed the negativity.

It can be overwhelming, and if you let it, it can change your viewpoint towards the negative.

What if we believed that life is essentially good and that people are essentially good?

There would be less to worry about. There would be less fear.

We can choose to flip the script and assume that people is good and that life is good. As Mr. Rogers famously said, in any bad situation, “ look for the helpers.”  The helpers are the good in the world. That is an example of seeing the good in the world. There may be helpers out in the world but we miss them because we aren’t looking for them.

Michele:  I am currently loving a CBS Morning Segment called Kindness 101 with Steve Hartman and his children. It is available at CBS website or YouTube.  They find a story of someone who has done something kind and they explore that kindness. They interview the person and the kids ask questions. Now they have just rolled out an initiative for schools with lessons and materials. It always makes me feel good! I am also rewarded by knowing that there is good in the world.

Paula: I love the show what Would You Do? by John Quinones. People are put into a situation that is challenging. They don’t know it is a fake situation. For example, it might be a bakery and the clerk refuses to serve someone because of their race or gender. Then they stand by and watch what people will do. Often, people will step up and ask the person what they wanted to order and offer to order it.  Then they interview the people afterwards to find out why they chose to step in. So many times it is because they saw the injustice and wanted to make the world a better place.

I also remember learning about silver linings when I was taking a class for my Masters’ program and it has stuck with me. For every cloud, there is a silver lining and the silver lining is actually the beauty in the cloud. If you only look at the dark cloud, you will only see the dark cloud. If you see the silver lining, the shiny part, that is the good in the world. That’s the beauty, the bright spot peaking through.

Even in a bad situation there is a silver lining, that’s the beauty.

We’re not glossing over this and saying that everything is rosy all the time. We know that there are lots of issues and challenges in our world. But you can also see beyond them, or behind them, or in them see possibilities and opportunities to change things. That is the silver lining.

Yes, there is something bad, but I can step in, I can do something or I can say something. That’s hard. it takes a lot of courage but that is the silver lining, knowing that something can be better.

When a person is on the receiving side of grace, they are more likely to reciprocate.

We can do that in our world. We’re more powerful than we think.

Conclusion:

We end today with this quote from author and teacher Caroline Myss,

“Grace is a power that comes in and transforms a moment into something better.”

If you want to make the world better, make the moments better.

Recap:

Living with grace can help us to be kinder and better people and to impact the world in positive ways. You can start by giving yourself grace. You can also give grace to others. Grace is fueled when we respect others’ beliefs and perspectives, and when we try to see the good in the world.

Did you know that we have a free resource called The Inspired Teacher’s guide to Taking Back Your life?  Get it here. 

Quote:

“Do the best you can until you know better.  Then, when you know better, you do better.”

Maya Angelou

“Grace is a power that comes in and transforms a moment into something better.”

Caroline Myss

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Co-hosts Paula Schmidt and Michele Vosberg are award winning educators with the experience and skills to help teachers thrive in life and work. They’ve taught at all levels, worked with thousands of teachers, and conducted workshops around the world. They are also the authors of the #1 best-selling book The Inspired Teachers Journal: A Weekly Guide to Becoming Your Best Self.

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