Asking for Grace

This week the doctor is just the patient

“Forgiveness is all about what the world is asking of you. Grace is what you are asking back from the world.”
Tanmeet Sethi MD, Joy Is My Justice (Hachette, 2023)

This week, I have been asking so many people for grace. I haven’t felt very much like myself. And now I am asking it of you all.

I show up here every Friday with well researched and thought out articles because I love it. But as you know, life has been unpredictable for me lately with my breast cancer diagnosis. And just as I thought I was gaining some solid ground after radiation therapy, a new life-disrupting issue arrived, one related to my breast cancer treatment. It is not dangerous, thankfully, but it has consumed my week and it will require a surgical procedure. UGH.

So I ask for grace.

I have felt so little like myself and it finally hit me why. The feeling was so familiar that I almost didn't see it. I do not feel safe.

This week, I sat in the ENT’s office with blood gushing out of my nose after a biopsy, and he was trying to reassure me. He was 99% sure this was benign. He said it with confidence and he made sure to say it more than once.

But I could not believe him.

Not because I didn’t understand what was happening clinically. (I had seen this before in practice. I could have told you the answer myself.)

Not because I didn’t trust his clinical acumen. (He is quite a good surgeon and a good clinician, a combo I don’t always find.)

But because I am not feeling very lucky lately.

I remember this exact feeling when my son was diagnosed with a fatal disease. I am feeling it again now.

If you have had a scary diagnosis, you know what I mean. Everything becomes uncertain. Everything feels less likely to be normal. The 1% stops being a number and becomes the only part of the sentence you can hear.

Underneath all of it, my nervous system is threatened.

All logic goes out the window when you feel threat.

I know the physiology of why. I have taught it for years, and I touched on it here recently. But this week I am not writing it. I am just living inside it.

So here is my short message to you today and it is the same thing I have been asking for all week.

If you are not feeling lucky right now
If you cannot take reassurance even from someone who has earned your trust
If you have been told that you are catastrophizing when what you are actually doing is surviving…

Your nervous system is doing its job. It is just overdoing it.

Give yourself some grace. I am giving myself some this week. And I am asking you for some too.

Tell me in the comments if you have had trouble giving yourself grace lately. I read all of them. And if you have a second, there’s a poll below. While I catch my breath, I want to know where you want me to go next. See you next week.

Author’s Note

I'm Tanmeet Sethi, M.D., a board-certified physician with 27+ years in the trenches of medicine and life. Integrative medicine, menopause certified, and now a breast cancer survivor. Big 5 author. NYT featured. TEDx speaker. I translate Real Science into Real Medicine for Your Real Life so you can finally feel better. No 17-step morning routines or toxic positivity. I've got you.