My five year old has a saying, it may mean something different to us as adults, but I just now finally understood it. I have always tried to parent my children with acceptance, love and most importantly, grace. What I mean by that is when they mess up or make mistakes I always let them know that it’s ok, because mistakes happen and no one is perfect.

One of the most common phrases you will hear me say as a parent is “It’s okay, mistakes happen”, but when my daughter was smaller and learning how to talk, she would change that saying to “It’s okay, nap time happens” because she still couldn’t understand what my words meant. As she got older though, she started to realize that it’s a phrase we say when we make mistakes or do something accidentally. Her speech has gotten better, but that phrase has not changed to this day.

My life has been pretty stressful lately. With homeschooling both my kids, trying to blog and craft, trying to study for my yoga teacher license, and keeping up with everything in between (dishes, laundry, doctor’s appointments, etc.) I guess you could say I’ve been spreading myself a little bit thin lately. Nonetheless, I LOVE what I do and am grateful for every part of it; but boy does it all make me tired.

You’d think that with all my activities, I’d plop right into bed and pass out as soon as my head hits the pillow every night. But no, it can’t ever be that simple. On top of everything I’ve been doing, I’ve also been getting random bouts of insomnia. I consider myself lucky if I get 5-6 hours of sleep at night. Needless to say, I’ve been pretty exhausted lately. So the other day, it’s no wonder that when I was in the middle of doing my chores I took an impromptu nap. It’s OK though, because nap time happens.

I was finally finishing up folding the towels and had just placed them in neat piles on the couch. My son was at his dad’s for school, my husband at work, and my daughter at my side (unfolding and re-folding the same hand towel, because she likes to help me) when I finished up my pile. I grabbed my phone, headed to the bedroom and decided “I’ll just take a quick break, watch one of my shows, then finish the rest of the chores”. Well, we all know where that way of thinking leads…

You already know, of course I passed out! I don’t ever remember laying down, or feeling tired, but there I was, waking up 3 hours later with my daughter still snoozing beside me. I checked the time, realized my husband would be home from work in about 2 hours, agonized that I didn’t have dinner started nor planned, and beat myself up over not getting ANY of the chores done that I had planned to. I sat there for a minute, hating myself for being so incompetent. I didn’t even hear my daughter sit up beside me until she asked me what was wrong. I told her my dilemma, and she responded with our special phrase, “It’s OK mommy, nap time happens” and then she pat my back.

Even though nap time had quite literally happened, hearing her say to me what I’ve said to her thousands of times awoke in me something that I don’t usually wake in myself, grace. I try to give others grace; to my friends, my family, my husband, my kids. The longer I sat there, the more I realized that I give grace to so many, but rarely to myself. Why is that? I could blame society’s teachings on being a mom, or my own upbringing, or the pressure to be perfect in the eyes of others; but what it really boils down to is just me.

I have no reason to do this to myself. Yet every time I mess up or make a mistake, I beat myself up for not being perfect. So after I beat myself up about always beating myself up, I decided to make a change. I decided to give myself grace.

Giving yourself grace looks different to each person. For you, it could be acknowledging you’re human and then moving on, or it could be reciting self-affirmations. For me, I pray about it, do something I love, and then get my body moving. For the rest of the night, I said “screw it” to my chores, ordered a pizza for the family, watched the rest of my shows, and spent 45 minutes doing yoga with my daughter.

Be kind to yourself

It is SO important to both our physical and mental health to be kind to ourselves, and to give ourselves grace. No one is perfect, no one will ever be perfect. We will all make mistakes, we will all mess up, we will all fall below expectations of others and maybe even ourselves. THAT IS OK. Just remember to give yourself a “pass” when things don’t go as planned, and if you’re feeling like you’re stuck in that cycle of negativity, remember that it’s ok, nap time happens.