So let’s just jump right in to catching you up with what’s going on in my recovery. Like I said, I’m going through a divorce. What a rich garden of material to use to learn about myself! All along as I came to this decision, it was and still is very important to me to handle the transition from wife/mom to single/mom well, and with utmost grace. I actually took time to do a study on grace…went to the library and checked out books on grace even…to help me sort through my pain and feelings about the split and learn the best and healthiest way to get through it. (My favorite grace book was “What’s So Amazing About Grace” by Philip Yancey. It’s worth the read.)

So far it has worked pretty well. I do have almost 4 years of recovery work under my belt, but the grace studies helped me work my way through my feelings in a very particular way, and keep me on track. I really wanted to get through my divorce without bitterness in my heart. My husband and I are quite civil with each other, and are able to talk with each other without anger and reactivity. That is something I am SO grateful for/proud of. Divorce is hard enough without more pain being inflicted every time we talk.

What I’ve come to realize lately though is that I don’t really have a problem giving others grace, including my near-ex, because I have had to receive so much! When you feel forgiven yourself, it’s much easier to forgive others. What I’ve been working on lately though, inside me, is giving myself grace. (Now, let me preface this next part by saying that when I talk about “my inner voice,” I’m not saying that I “hear dead people” or that I’m schizophrenic or something! I’m just talking about the voice that everyone hears in their head…that is their thoughts, OK? OK then. Here we go.)

You know, it didn’t really dawn on me that I needed to give myself any of this grace I was working so hard to process through for my divorce, or that I wasn’t already doing so! After all, I’ve been a CHRISTian since childhood, I know I’m forgiven. One of my close friends recently pointed out, however, that if I spoke to my friends the way my inner voice speaks to me in my head, I would not have any friends! Wow. That was just so incredibly true, and hit me like a 2×4. I have some “tapes” in my head that I listen to…well-worn recordings from when I was little on, like we all do… that tell us truths about the way things are. I realized lately how much some of mine are just straight up mean to me! Critical, shaming, and otherwise putting me down. What about you? Am I the only one?

Well, I didn’t know how much that realization was going to affect me. Every time lately that I hear those mean thoughts, I shut them down immediately. Instead of letting that voice beat me to a pulp, I give myself grace and cut myself some slack. I grew up in a hard-core German family with very high moral standards and a strict work ethic. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it does make me a very upstanding, hard-working citizen, sure; but it sometimes feels as if I have a little Nazi in my head! A voice that tells me that I have to measure up, to be excellent, and if I’m not then I’m not worth the air I breathe. Who knew? I knew I had abandonment, but a very respected therapist I heard once at a training said that “all abandonment has underlying shame.” I’ve come to see that that really is true.

Think about it this way. When you have feelings of abandonment, what is really going on underneath it? Someone triggers your abandonment, and your inner voice says “they left me, they don’t love me, and they don’t care about my needs, I’m so sad and hurt.” But what is really underneath that? I think what is really the underlying fear in this situation is shame. The real thought underneath is “they left me, so I’m not worth loving or being cared for.” That is a shame statement. The same is true for shame statements you hear from your inner voice. When your shame is triggered, your inner voice says, “I’m a piece of crap, I will never be good enough.” But what is really going on underneath is a voice that says, “since I can never be good enough, everyone will leave me and no one will love me.” That’s abandonment.  And ya know what…and I’ll talk more about this another day…grace is what ultimately heals both abandonment and shame!

I’m just starting to realize that I can still be the best I can be, and be a very hard-working upstanding citizen, without the Nazi in my head kickin’ my ass every minute. I have learned to give myself some grace. I am also learning to rewrite some of the well-rehearsed, nasty things on the “tapes” in my head. Things I didn’t realize needed rewriting because I was so used to hearing it, and I thought they were necessary to keep me from “doing bad things”, as a little kid would say. After all, that’s when I learned to say those things to myself, when I was little.

So there’s where I’m at in my own work this week. Grace: It’s Not Just For Others! It’s for you, inside your own thoughts as well. The realization that I wasn’t giving myself enough grace has brought a ton of healing, more than I knew I needed. I hope I’ve given you something to think about that will bring you some healing too. Stop by again soon.

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.

©2010, Nancy Eisenman