Grace in Real Life: When Emotions Speak Louder Than Words

What does grace really look like when you're knee-deep in motherhood, managing a marriage, running a business, or just trying to get through a messy day without losing your cool?

In this episode, I’m talking about the power of grace — grace for ourselves, for others, and in the moments we wish we could take back. From personal stories where I lashed out and still carry the guilt, to deeper realizations about how hurt often shows up as anger, this conversation is about honesty, healing, and giving yourself permission to not get it perfect.

Whether you're parenting through overstimulation, navigating tricky relationships, or trying to grow a business without burning out — this one’s for you. Because grace isn't weakness. It’s the strongest, most healing thing we can give ourselves and the people we love.

And stick around ‘til the end — I'm teasing what’s coming next week: a real talk about communication (the thing we’re all still figuring out).

Whether you’re a parent or not, motivated or still figuring it out, dreaming big, building something new, or rebooting what’s next — you’re welcome here. Let’s navigate real life and business together, one unfiltered conversation at a time.

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Transcript

Channa 0:01

Hey there, I'm C hanna. Welcome back to Off-Brand On Point. If you're new here, I'm a wife, a mom, a business owner, and a lifelong overthinker who's finally sharing out loud the things I usually just edit in my head. This podcast is for the people hitting backspace on their whole life mid-sentence, the ones who replay conversations in the car or rehearse what they should have said while standing in the shower. If you've missed episode one, I shared a little bit where I come from, being adopted from India, growing up as a middle child with divorced parents, how I pivoted from financial photography into marketing and what inspired me to start this podcast in the first place. So after this episode, I'd love for you to go back and check out that one too. But today, I want to talk about something we don't give enough credit for, and that's grace. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've really lashed out on someone in a way I immediately regretted, and not to mention to make things worse, they were with loved ones, friends, and family. So to put it in perspective, one time I was on a friend vacation somewhere beautiful where everything was supposed to be relaxing and jealousy just consumed me out of nowhere. Not because of anything that other person did, but because I was battling my own insecurities at that time. I snapped, words came out that didn't even sound like me. Though I quickly apologized and I was quickly forgiven, Time passed, we grew up and we actually don't have that friendship anymore, not because of that incident, but just adult life and all the things. So it just stinks being in a place now where it still eats at me and I look back and I wish that I could just say sorry, but knowing that I have not talked to this person a very long time just to be like, hey, I've been thinking about this and I'm sorry, well... I don't know. It doesn't seem like a right time, and most likely it's in the past, and we already had that conversation. But that's just a part of me. That's just how I am. But there is another side of me, the protective side. Like I said in my last podcast, I said I was a Taurus, which comes with a lot of loyalty and a protective trait. So when someone I love is struggling or in danger, my body goes into fight mode. I remember getting angry with a family member, not because of what they did to me, but because I was scared and worried about the other family member. That fear turned into frustration. And again, I just reacted in a way that didn't reflect my heart. And I was just scared and upset at that time. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I might have done this a couple of times in the same situation with family. I'm the kind of person who feels things deeply and responds quickly. I don't like injustice. I want to fix things, but that urgency, it comes off sometimes aggressive when it's really just rooted in fear, love, or hurt. Can you relate? I have done a lot of homework myself and a lot of self-healing and figuring things out to, again, just make myself a better person, but But something that I've come to understand over the years is the idea of gateway emotions. These are feelings that hide beneath what we actually express, like how anger is usually a mask for something else. Fear, jealousy, shame, even helplessness. So often when we lash out and yell or make a mistake, it's not about what just happened. It's about what's been building up inside of us. And unless we take time to name those underlying emotions, we keep responding in ways we don't even recognize. I've shared examples of how this showed up in my personal life, but this concept doesn't just apply to relationships. It's in my business too. With photography, I could have 49 amazing brides in a row, but if one thing went wrong with that 50th bride, What's that saying? When it rains, it pours. That's like my life. It felt like a waterfall of everything bad would just like hit at once. A typo, a missed email, something somehow. moved on the calendar. It's like when one thing went wrong, everything else just piled on top of it, and I used to spiral. I would lose sleep, replay those conversations, wonder if I was actually any good at what I did. Though I had served dozens of people well, one hiccup would wreck my confidence. Sometimes I think we subconsciously sabotage ourselves because we're so scared of messing up, and then when we do it, it's like it confirms it. We confirm that fear. So that's where grace comes in. Grace for myself, acknowledging the mistakes, owning it and making it right. But also knowing I'm still good at what I do. That one mistake doesn't cancel out the impact I've made. I think giving grace also means knowing when to let go. If you find yourself explaining over and over that you didn't mean to hurt someone or they just can't hear your heart, maybe that person isn't meant to be in your front row anymore. I've had relationships like that where I kept working for peace, trying to clarify, trying to be understood, and it just never landed. Eventually, I realized that peace doesn't always mean fixing it. Sometimes it means walking away without hate. And if you've been blamed for something you didn't say or do, that can stick with you. I've had this happen multiple times in my life and now I have a fear of being committed for a crime that I did not do. I used to wonder why that was my fear and it wasn't very long ago that I realized that I have been hurt multiple times in my life for being blamed for something I didn't do or saying something I didn't say or even that's not what I meant and I couldn't explain myself. Now I have that fear. I know it's honestly part of what made me a people pleaser. I work overtime to avoid being misunderstood because being misjudged once felt so painful. I never want to go through that again. But you can forgive someone and still choose distance. You can separate with grace even when you weren't the one who caused the hurt. I need to talk about where grace might be needed the most, in my life at least. Parenthood. I'll be the first to admit I'm loud, I get overwhelmed, and I react. And while acknowledging those moments is a good first step, it's not the finish line. I've learned that giving myself grace doesn't mean giving myself permission to stay stuck. It means committing to doing better, trying new approaches, and recognizing that I'm still learning too. I think sometimes we, as parents, need to be reminded that kids don't always need to be yelled at to listen. We were all kids once. I feel like I was a kid yesterday. I remember those days. We've all had bosses, mentors, or people in authority, coaches, and we've all made mistakes. I can tell you from experience, I would have respected those people just as much, if not more, had they corrected me and in a calm way and clearly instead of like yelling and not that they did but I'm just showing an example here because I think once I yell at my kids the lesson might get lost in the emotion I'm not helping them think about what to do better they're stuck on how bad I probably made them feel And hey, I'm only bringing this up because I had enough conversations with other parents and moms and even with my own husband to know I'm not alone in this. Let's be honest, husbands can have their own version of this too. A lot of them joke about how emotional us wives can get and the truth is sometimes they're not totally wrong. That emotional heat, it can spill over into our parenting for both moms and dads. I think we've all had moments where we've snapped or gotten more heated than we meant to, especially with our kids. Now, I'm not saying like all yelling is automatically bad or that there's one right way to speak to our kids. Every child is different. Every family is different. But what I am saying is that this is something I've personally noticed in myself and I've been working on it. This is just me sharing from my own experience, my own home, hoping it might encourage someone else to reflect too. I'm guessing if you're You have good kids, just like I do. And sure, they can be defiant sometimes, but that's part of being a kid. That's normal. With encouragement, clear expectations, and consistency, they learn and grow just like we did. They're already learning so much at school, in the classroom, on the playground, at sports. Most of the time, they don't need a screaming over spilled milk or like a dropped ball. The truth is, a lot of the yelling we do has very little to do with them and a lot more to do with everything else. It's the stress, the multitasking, the work, the deadlines, the overstimulation, the dinner burning on the stove. It all bubbles up and sometimes I explode. And I've been there, but what I've learned is that giving myself grace and motherhood also means working on it. Not just acknowledging when I was too harsh, but actually doing better. Trying again. talking to my kids after I've overreacted and saying, mommy shouldn't have yelled like that. I'm working on it, but you still need to listen because this is important. And if you don't, here are the things that are going to happen. That kind of conversation where I'm firm, but honest, it matters. And it gives them language for their own emotions too. It shows them that it's okay to be wrong and it's strong to take responsibility because grace isn't just something we give It's something we model. And I think when you raise kids who've seen what that looks like, you're raising humans who know how to apologize, how to communicate, and how to grow. And that's something I think we all want for our kids. Grace isn't just something we give. It's something we live, whether it's owning our reactions, forgiving ourselves for moments we wish we handled better, or letting go of toxic expectation. Grace can be the bridge between who we are and who we want to become. That's exactly why next week's episode is going to dive into communication, why it's so hard to Why so many of us feel misunderstood in certain situations and how we can all get better at saying what we mean in the way we actually mean it. Whether it's in parenting, marriage, a business, just every day. It's one of the most powerful tools we have and one of the hardest to master. If this episode hit home for you in any way, make sure you're following this show so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you know someone else who's in the messy middle of figuring it all out, just like we are, send this their way. Thanks again for being here. I'm Shanna, and this is Off Brand On Point, where we're giving ourselves a little more grace, one conversation at a time. See you next week.