Candace

“My most important parenting job is to teach my children how to deal with being human. There is really only one way to deal gracefully with being human, and that is: forgive yourself. It's not a once-and-for-all thing, self-forgiveness. It's more like a constant attitude. It's just being hopeful. It's refusing to hold your breath. It's loving yourself enough to offer yourself a million more tries. It's what we want our kids to do every day for their whole lives, right? We want them to embrace being human instead of fighting against it. We want them to offer themselves grace. Forgiveness and grace are like oxygen: we can't offer it to others unless we put our masks on first. We have to put our grace masks on and breathe in deep. We have to show them how it's done. We need to love ourselves if we want our kids to love themselves. We don't necessarily have to love them more; we have to love ourselves more. We have to be gentle with ourselves. We have to forgive ourselves and then...oh my goodness...find ourselves sort of awesome, actually, considering the freaking circumstances.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed