Grace
There is a split second when you know without a shadow of a doubt, that the glass or plate you’re trying to replace in the cupboard just isn’t going to make it. The brain has registered what the hand is unable to maneuver, as if it can see the play by play but you continue to try and make that connection, even as the fingers release and the object makes its downward spiral, fracturing into a mosaic on the floor at your feet.
The first reaction is to freeze so you don’t step in anything whether you have something on your feet or not. Or it might be to release a cascade of muttering and oaths about how you’re responsible for such a mess. You might do both. And then very gingerly you begin the task of picking up first those shards that are big enough so you can avoid the sharp edges, then find a broom and a dust pan to sweep up the remains. A vacuum manages to get the tiniest bits that the eye can’t see and you might even give it a wipe with a wet cloth.
The other night as I was replacing a wine glass in the rack, I could feel it going. I surrendered and waited to hear that definitive crack as it landed in pieces. And then began the cleanup. But first there was a string of negative self-reproach about being careless, about needing to take more care, about being so clumsy and now look at this mess I had to clean up.
As I set about the process of cleaning up, at the point where I was using a wet cloth to wipe that area of the floor where I could see the smallest bits of glass had sprayed, I picked up one of those specs and it embedded itself under the skin on the pad of my finger. I didn’t notice it immediately, it was only later when I was using that finger and I could feel the deep pain of it. I couldn’t see the glass until I put my hand under a lamp and then began the process of working it out.
As I was plying the tweezers I paused for a moment and thought about all those negative accusations I’d spoken to myself and realized that those words, those thoughts had been embedded in my subconscious. All the times as a child that something broke – an accident that happened when I was helping to dry the dishes or I was putting something away but had miscalculated the space and distance and the words that would be uttered to me before being told to “stand still” or “go into the other room” -- I was careless. I was such a klutz. I needed to pay more attention. I had just wasted whatever the object was. Somewhere in the middle of that recitation of my shortcomings, I would be asked if I was hurt. The question was about whether or not I was physically hurt from the broken glass or plate. No one ever questioned or talked about wounds of a different kind.
Those negative, hurtful words we say to ourselves when something goes wrong, be it an accident or a decision that wasn’t in our best interest, they’ve come from someone else. They’ve been spoken to us as if they define us and are often absorbed and embedded where they live and breathe in our subconscious. Just as we use tweezers to remove an unseen spec of glass, we can also pluck those too often remembered negative words out from under our skin as well. We feel a sense of relief when we’ve removed a foreign object from our body. We can feel that same sense of relief when we remove negative self-talk from our minds that has taken up too much space and we’ve carried far too long.
We need to give ourselves grace.
