How Do You Stop Feeling “Not Enough”? Finding Courage and Starting Over with Bernice McDonald

Get a copy of the chapter “Grace: God’s Power to Crush the Impossible” from Thriving in Grace: Unleashing Wellness from a Biblical Perspective at karenadittman.com 

Want to be a guest on The Grace Cycle Show? Send Karen Dittman a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1733503318442796293a1fecb 

Connect with Bernice at tinybravesteps.com 

What if the voice telling you you’re “not enough” has been shaping your entire life? 
How do you start over after a major life change—especially in midlife? 
And how do you move forward when fear feels louder than faith? 

In this episode of The Grace Cycle Show, Karen Dittman talks with Berniece McDonald, who shares her journey from striving and self-doubt into a life marked by courage, clarity, and God’s grace. 

Berniece opens up about: 

• Growing up with a deep belief that she was “not enough” 
• How that belief shaped her identity, relationships, and first marriage 
• The turning point of leaving that marriage after 24 years and starting over in a new city 

During six years of singleness, Berniece began doing the deeper work of transformation: 

• Facing fear instead of avoiding it 
• Asking, “Who gets to define who I am?” 
• Training in healthy relationships and coaching practices 
• Using tools like externalizing fear and keeping a strengths journal 

She now helps midlife women move from “not enough” to “brave enough” through what she calls tiny brave steps—small, consistent choices that build real courage over time. 

Berniece also shares: 

• How she met her current husband in an unexpected, ordinary moment 
• Practical ways to take your next step—even when you feel afraid 
• And how grace creates space for growth without shame 

This episode is for anyone asking: 

• “Why do I always feel like I’m falling short?” 
• “Is it too late for me to change my life?” 
• “How do I rebuild after divorce or a major transition?” 
• “How do I become someone who is brave, not just trying to survive?” 

If you’re ready to stop living under the weight of “not enough,” this conversation offers a powerful truth: courage doesn’t come from eliminating fear—it grows one small, brave step at a time, grounded in grace. 

00:00 Fear of Not Enough 

00:17 Welcome to Grace Cycle 

00:48 Weighed and Wanting 

02:41 Divorce and Aftermath 

05:44 Six Years of Becoming 

09:19 Not Enough to Brave Enough 

11:12 Childhood Messages 

13:01 God Meets Her in Fear 

15:00 Dating and Fear Fred 

18:22 Healthy Love and Remarriage 

23:56 Tiny Brave Steps Bridge 

27:47 Journaling for Strength 

28:54 Books and Brave Tool 

30:37 Courage Quote Takeaway 

31:42 Final Wrap and Next Steps 

Want to be a guest on The Grace Cycle Show? Send Karen Dittman a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1733503318442796293a1fecb

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Afraid that she was not enough, that she would always be found wanting. That's where God met Bernice McDonald and showed her the proper place for fear. Now she encourages other women to take tiny brave steps. Welcome to the Grace Cycle Show. I'm your host, Karen Ditman, and this is your place to stop striving and discover how to thrive by God's grace. Bernice, welcome to the Grace Cycle Show. It's so great to be here, Karen. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. I'm excited for our conversation today. And I'm going to invite you to just jump in here from the beginning and share with us your story of how you saw God at work in your life by his grace.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Well, I always say I have had so much grace poured over me my entire life. I was a very imaginative child. And so, you know, I want to preempt the story that I am going to share with the idea that I just wanted to be a good girl. And, you know, I wanted to be do all the things that I was taught was right and never get in trouble and all of that sort of thing. I was very observant of the people around me. And so I think that's why I took on a statement in my life very early. It was from a story from the book of Daniel. And I think it must have been probably at Cal one year or, you know, sometime like that, where the story of how there was that mysterious writing on the wall, you know, for King, I think it was King Bell Bell. Anyway, yes, that's it. Thank you. And Daniel interpreted the writing, right? And it's on there, you have been weighed in the balance and sound wanting. And really, I think that became the story as my life in many ways. I took on that attitude that so I was looking at everything through that lens. And so I had a lot of fear in my life. I was afraid that I wasn't an ass. And so as I grew up, I you know, went to college. I struggled through my 20s. I finally met someone who wanted to marry me. And I thought that would never happen because who would want to marry me? Right. So I got married and had two beautiful daughters and struggled all the way through that marriage. Really, I had chosen someone who was kind of like, you know, was like trying to see it a round peg into a square hole, that sort of thing. And so 24 years later, I made the decision to leave that marriage. And we had tried all kinds of things, counseling and gone back and forth, you know, really talked through a lot of things. And I had been very involved in my church, always wanting to live and be, again, still the good person. You know, I wanted to please God. I wanted to live a life that was a reflection of who he was. And so it was very hard to make that decision to walk away. But I was so barred inside and so distressed. It was like my youngest daughter was just graduating high school, and I thought ahead to the rest of my life and thought I I just can't continue to do this. And there were many reasons that are condoned for leaving the marriage. But I think the real story came in the time after I left my marriage. Because as much as I was, you know, had such a deep loving relationship with God, in many ways, God stepped in and became the rugs that I needed, that my husband couldn't give me. He became the one I went to, the one I spent a lot of time with. And so I thought at that time that I was making the right choice. And then God was blessing that. And I really believed in this state, God did release me from that man. However, I wasn't prepared for, even though I had kind of a mix of shock and relief at the same time, but it was as if suddenly there was a huge cloud between me and Bond. And I was again weighed in the balance and sound wanting. I hadn't been able to make this a success, my marriage a success. And so I felt my life was not a success. It changed everything. I actually moved away from my town. I moved away from my community, my friends, everything I knew. I moved into the the city that was nearby, and in Canada. So it was about 25 kilometers away. And I had to start a new life. And it was so difficult. You know, I can't describe how on one hand, I felt independent. I felt like I was gaining some strength, like I had taken a stand for myself, and on the other hand, I felt like I was shunned in lots of ways. I did have good meeting friends, Christian friends sit down with me and say, Are you sure this is what you should be doing? You know, but the thing that that taught me was that you can't know somebody else's story until you actually made it. And so I took that all as a brain salt, and I just started simulating the white way. But I can honestly say, in the six years that I was single, I actually became more myself than I ever have and ever had been in my life. And I think it was because I had to meet Zero face to face, and I had to ask myself the question, who do I want? Even in the middle of this, who do I want to be in? And then a second really important question was they tell us me who I am. And that was a difficult question that I've had, you know, because I was always thinking I was weighed in the balance. It was as if I'm standing on the outside of a glass jar. I always thought of it looking inside. And inside was this beautiful family that had everything, these women that had everything. They were perfect Christian women who, you know, they had the money, they had the home, they had the children, all of that. And I was always on the outside looking in, and I couldn't get to get through that glass. And so in that time, I learned so much as I walked that car from divorce to my second marriage. And it was it's a journey I would never wish on my worst enemy, but it's a journey that I am so grateful of I was able to take. So I I think that the key things during that time was that I had to look fear right in the eye, and I had to decide if I was going to listen to the fear or if I was going to just keep walking insane and just keep putting in one foot in front of the other and keep taking those stats. And even if it didn't, even if it sounded uncomfortable, even if I didn't know who I was in this weird place, you know. I mean, I was living in a renting a home and my younger daughter got married a year later, and suddenly I needed roommates because at that time, still is, I guess, our rent was very high, and so I had to take in roommates, which was very weird, you know, because I felt like I'm taking a step back into my 20s. And here I was in my 40s, actually, almost my 50s. So that's where my story lays, though, is in those years, those six years, because as I grew, I I learned to face my fear, and I had to embrace what I was. I had to see who I was and what it's like, everything was stripped away. So there I was, a walnut of cells, standing there on my path, you know, with all these bombs going over in my mind. And I just had to ask the best thing who died. And at the end of that time, I really discovered that that's exactly who we are. People, individuals walking a path from birth to death, and along the way, he bombs the lot, and rocks drop on you out of the blue, flattening you for a while. People throw rocks of criticism and judgment and expectation at you. And during in the middle of that, we have to decide, and I believe that this is what God wants for our lives. We have to decide how we're going to who we're going to do. Are we going to be people with character? Are we going to well our character and not or are we just going to sit down in our past and say, well, I guess this is all yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

You know, you said something earlier about living with the fear that you weren't enough. And I think that's something that a lot of women can relate to. And then when we make decisions in life that come from that fear, like the person you chose to marry. In a sense, when we're living out of that fear, it reinforces it, doesn't it? That's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

And I, you know, I mean, what I do now, I work with women in midlife, and that's exactly what I do is take them from that place of not enough to being brave enough, not even to being enough, you know, where they see themselves as yes, I'm and strong enough. Yeah. It's we need to have that bridge to actually face what it is that's going on. And we need to just find that bravery to take that one step, face that fear and decide who we are in the middle, and go forward with that. Living in the land of not enough, as I think of it, that was my life before I left, you know, like because it's the lens you look through.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

When you when you look at life through that lens, if you always, no matter what happens, you're you don't put a gun spin on it. You always are second-guessing yourself. So you're always wondering whether people are thinking about you you're always wondering if you're capable enough to do the same magic, or if you're just inflating your own themselves, you know, intelligence or or leadership or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Right. I also I talk to a lot of women who they live in this place where they've grown up with these messages, you're not enough and you're too much. And that is a hard place. It's very conflicting.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

I and that's that was just so much a part of it, too. Because even as a child, you know, I remember. Um, in fact, I I know as I've been thinking, and and as I've written my books, because my books are about living with courage, as Miss Amy Sultan's courage walks. But I remember my dad, and I he was a wonderful man, and he was trying on a very small salary to provide for a family of seven, five kids, very close together, living in uh like a 700 square foot house. Well, yeah, and you know, I mean, there was never quiet, and there's always noise, and there was always conflict, and he was always financial in stress. So when I would approach him to ask him anything, he would get this wrinkled brow, and I would immediately interpret that as me being an irritation, and he was just irritated with me. And so I would kind of quietly ask for something, say, Can I have a quarter in the the store? And he would respond with this irritation, like, what do you think? I'm made of money. But I mean, those are the little things, and and you know, I worked through that with my dad, and we we ended up with a very good relationship because I started to understand right from his personality, and um, but it was those kinds of stories, those sorts of things that that cause us to feel as if we're not enough, and we're also too much. You're always asking me for something. What do you think? Then I oh you're too loud, or you're too you're too passionate, you're too, you know, you laugh too loud, you know, your your hair's too much, you know, all of those things.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah. Yeah, a lot of those things we get those messages, and I don't think people even intentionally send them our way, but yeah, we get that. So yeah. So I want to go to this six-year time period that was so transitional for you after your divorce, and you'd move to another city, or you'd move to the city, and you it was you and God, and I'd love to hear some more about where God met you and how God met you and taught you courage. Uh yeah, tiny braid stats. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

That's not as I look back over that time, it really was one little thing, and you know, he was so faithful in just introducing me to things one at a time. For example, I'm always embarrassed to say it, but I do say it anyway. I came out of my marriage so hungry for mouse, and I decided to set a future vision for myself. I said, I just want to know what real love is like once before I die. I said that and wrote that in my journal many times. Not sure that God is listening at that time. I know he was, but I just I just did that. And so I began to realize that what I needed to do was find out what a healthy relationship actually missed that. And so I had just trained as a life coach at that time before my marriage ended. And so I decided, well, I'm not exactly in the place where I'm gonna be able to help other women right now. However, I can still learn more. And so I started, I signed up for couples more coaching courses on relationships. And so through learning how to coach couples and learning how to coach singles, I actually learned so much about what a healthy question chicken was like. That didn't mean that I had it all together, though, because during that time, I think I had my heart broken a couple of times worse, almost when I wanted what I felt coming out of my marriage, because I realized that so I was going to reach that goal, assigning the love I wanted, I needed to date. And so I entered that scary world of dating, which hadn't hadn't been there for a very long time. And I was following a coach actually introduced me to the concept of how to deal with fear. And what she said was when you go out and when you go, you're gonna be afraid, fear is going to show up. That's a given because you're dating and this is scary, and you never know what's out there. However, what I want you to do is I want you to look that fear in the eye, and I want you to say, Thank you so much for trying to protect me. But now I want you to go over there in the corner and eat it cookie because I need to go forward anyway and do this thing. And so I took that so much to heart. That's how I would envision my fear being outside myself, which I've learned is a very common psychological practice to take your emotions and see them as separate some of you. And so I just got this idea in my head that yes, I feel afraid, but I still need to make a decision about what I'm gonna do, even though I feel that fear and I need to move forward anyway.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

And so that's what I began to do. I was gonna say that's great because I, you know, I've I have said many times our emotions are real and we need to feel the feelings, but they point us to where we are, they don't get in the driver's seat and take us anywhere. We have to go where we want to go, and so whether it's fear or something else, we can't let that be in control, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yeah, and that's where you find a lot of your strength, and where you begin to really embrace whom you truly are is when you begin to take back your control. And in a sense, it's interesting you should say that because that's how I ended up seeing Sear, and I talk about it a lot that way, is like I actually named my Sear's friend. Okay. Yeah, that's great. And he writes in the backseat while I drive the car. In another book, Elizabeth Gilbert, I don't know if you've ever heard us write, she wrote a book called Big Magic, which was about the fear of being creative and getting out there and watch only using your guests. And so she said that that's what she did with her fear was she actually would have conversations with it, and she would say, I know you're here, and you are never gonna not be here. So we're gonna deal with this, and you can come along for the ride, and I will hear what you're saying, and I will listen to what you're saying and acknowledge that, but you will never have control of your steering wheel. I am always driving the car, just like you were saying.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great. And as you were talking about wanting to know what a healthy relationship looked like, and it's so true. It's one thing to study it and learn about it, but then you really did have to put it into practice and take those risks.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Yeah, you know, women in that situation, a lot of times I they talk about making their list, and I did that of pay for the kind of relationship I want. What kind of man am I gonna need to be looking for? And so I would make that list. However, all of a sudden I realized, and I think this was through the bulk and horse I was taking, I needed to insert myself into that later and say if I'm gonna have a relationship right, thinking I need to be in my that's a really important question.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah, yes, yeah. That is so important for a healthy relationship. Not just we do need to be aware of who we'd want to be in relationship with, but also who do I need to be?

unknown 19:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

And I almost think that's more important because I believe that we can't meet, you know, the person we attract is going to be somebody who is attracted to someone like us. You know, they're looking for someone like this. And I think it's really important for us to be very real, to be very transparent as a woman, so that a man knows what he's getting. I think, you know, like just like we want a man to show us, who he is. I mean, we don't see all the good, bad, and the ugly right off the boss, you know, and we don't show that either. But we do need to know ourselves well enough so that we can say, this is who I am, this is what I stand for, these are my values. This is what I'd prefer. This is what I like to do or to have or to be. And so that he knows who he's with, because I think that's what happened in my first marriage is I was trying so hard in naming to be the person that he wants, you know, because I wanted to get married, and I had a habit of being a million.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Yeah. To whoever I was with. And that was true, not just of in romantic relationships, but in friendships, I'm in church relationships, I'm in whatever I was carrying, I was looking for that new world so much that I would become who I thought I wanted to be.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Mm-hmm. Well, I yeah, I I can relate to that, and I know a lot of people can. And so I think that shows the courage that you had to move 25 kilometers away to start over and to figure out who you really were, too.

unknown 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

As far as it was, it was those yes, you well, I mean, I feel so bad for my daughters now because it was if their mom disappeared for a few years. They didn't know who I was either because the things I was doing and who I was being at that phone name, trying to sign down to who I was, because I'm just I just said I don't care. I'm I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to do some things that I really want to do and see if that's who I want to be. You know, it's almost like a trial and error thing. And I regret a lot of the things I did then. They were mistakes, but I also am so glad that I walked through that because at the end of that six years, when I met my second husband, I and I had been asking God for years also, don't you have one night and trying to learn out there smell? Can you send me just one night and trying to learn all that? So what by the time I met my husband, and I'll tell you how in a second. But I was to the place where I was content to be who I was. And I was content to stay as I was. If that, if the opposite, like if being with somebody meant that I was with somebody that, you know, I was going to have to set my values aside for it or to accept as, you know, something less than what I really wanted in my relationship. You know, it's kind of like it was like a instead of reading someone, I want someone. And I wish I had been at that place when I was in my early twins before I went and I got married the first time. You know, I so wish I had that, but I didn't, and that's okay. But anyway, my husband rescued me one night when McCar means. So we laugh about it because you see, God has such a sense of humor. Yes. Because, you know, he sat me a night, and he's just the kindest and exactly the man that is perfect for me. All of what I wanted to be in. And, you know, 14 years later, we still feel that way. And that, you know, as many hard times as we've been through, and all of the things we've had to encounter, we always come back to that center that we are just so glad that we sound each of them. He had been, he was a widower. He had his wife had passed away a year before he'd been with her for three or seven years, I think it was, you know, so but he had decided to, but he didn't want to be alone for the rest of his life, and that means for someone. And uh, so you know, we met that that need for each other, and we're married exactly here to the day that we met or went on our first date.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

That's so okay. Oh, that's sweet, that's really sweet. So a minute ago, you were talking about tiny brave steps, which I know is something that you talk a lot about. So, what does that mean and why are the tiny steps so powerful? They are so powerful, right? And I know you talk about that in your work too, somewhat, right? Just in the world, yeah, I talk about yeah, one simple change. So, yeah, one step in a new direction.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

And and it's the small thing. Sometimes we think, well, I imagine this when because I I had this bridge in the park where I lived that I would go to, you know, a couple of times a week, and I would see at the end of the bridge the place where I wanted to be. In fact, at the end of the bridge was this museum that had a little chapel just uh inside a fence, and I would see that chapel and say, I want to create that new life. And so from the beginning of the bridge, I would walk on that bridge and I would imagine myself taking small steps. Every little flat in the bridge was a small step. It was impossible for me to jump as much as I would have liked to, to leap from the beginning of the bridge right to the end of the bridge. I needed to take those small steps one at a time across that bridge in order to get to the other side. And so I practiced that in my head to try to, you know, help myself out, help myself realize that everything I was learning, everything in a you know, whether it was a day, whether it was a month, a year, all of those little steps on trouble, learning something new, believing something new about myself, writing something. I kept a strengths journal. So I would write who I wanted to be in that strengths journal. I would put quotes somewhere, I would put scripture, I would put passages from a book I had read, I would put that in, and each of those was a timely raise step that was saying, yes, I believe, I am going to become that. I am reaching for that future self. And I am, and as I did that, what happened was even me in the present became more fulfilled. I became because I had opened, and even on my hardest days, somehow I knew that this was all perfect. It was part of the joke, part of getting to warm one.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

So Yeah, and I think that's I think that's a lot of how God works in our lives. When something needs to change, I was just sharing this illustration this morning. Like if I decide I need to lose 15 pounds, and so I throw out everything in the pantry that I think is unhealthy, and I go sign up for an exercise class that I'm gonna do six days a week and all this, and then I show up for the exercise class and it's full and oh well, no big deal. And then I go to the grocery store and the cookies are back in my cart. Yeah, those huge things to overhaul, they just don't work. But if I can do one little thing different just today, and then build on it, like you said, one step at a time. You can't jump over the bridge, you have to take one step at a time to get across. Get there.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Yes. You settle in to do that, to just take that little step inside of you, even that little mindship, you do get there and look, and you'll see that when you look back. You don't see it when you're in the present, you only see it when we look back over your shoulder and you see how far you've come, and you see how far you've changed.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

That's so true. And I I love that you talked about keeping a strength journal and writing down all of the things that you wanted to be true of you. And I really think journaling is powerful because sometimes we forget where we've come from.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Oh, so true. I know it's like I heard once somebody say, and it's I gotta remember this forever. We wake up in the morning and it's like we start all over again. Our brains really need to be reminded of what we stand for and what is true. And because as you know, that strike chart all when I was in, when I would slip back into dark moments and no stupid, right? I would go and read what I had put in that journal, and it would again remind me of who the hope would come up again, the beliefs would come up again because I would get the same emotion that I had when I'd written my book in the first place. Yeah, it became such a source of vision for me, you know, that got me through some really big days.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

That's great. So, in a minute, I'm gonna ask you to share a big takeaway for our audience. But before I go there, how can people get in touch with you, get copies of your books? How can we reach out to you?

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Well, my books are on Amazon, and uh also I have a website called tinybrave.com. And on there is the thing that a tool that I have developed. It's an AI tool that actually is like sitting down with a coach. It's called the Tiny Brave Steps Generator and it's free. And they on my on my site, tinybrainst.com, they can opt in to use that generator and just pour their heart out into this. It's private, it's personal, and it will actually answer and guide you through your thoughts and help you figure out what you're feeling and how to manage that, what your strengths are. And then in the end of that discussion, it will give you one 90-second step and two five-minute steps that you can take. I have had so many women tell me it is truly amazing. It's just like they, and for me, I go there all the time. And I use it a lot to talk, you know, find out answers for my business, for my personal life, for relationships, how to like work with my adult children, all of those sorts of things, how to lose weight, you know, that like the best ways to do that. And it just look, it really is uh an amazing tool. So yeah, I just want to offer that to all of your listeners to try that out, it'll change their lives.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

That sounds like a really powerful tool. Thank you for that gift. Yeah. So if there's one thing that you want our audience to take away from this conversation, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 30:43

I think a quote that got me through all the way through those six years, and then my husband and I took this on together too. It's by someone called Ambrose Redmoon, and it it says this courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is not important. And he thinks that we need to always know, always assess when we're in that fear place. Who do I want to be? And what is more important right here in this moment than me listening to my fear and holding back? What is the thing that I need to make a decision to do and put that fear in the bus?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

That is really powerful. Thank you, Bernice. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time today on the Grace Cycle Show. It's been wonderful being here, Karen. Thank you. I really have enjoyed our discussion. Me too. Bernice shared so many powerful lessons from her story today. I loved the power of keeping a journal to remind you of who you want to be. That's something that will stick with me. And also the reminder that courage is not the absence of fear, but the belief that something else is more important. While Bernice talks about tiny brave steps, I wrote in Thriving in Grace about one simple change as part of the grace cycle. And you can download a copy of that grace chapter from the book on my website at Karenaditman.com. So that's it for today. Until next time, remember get curious, stay connected, and live in grace.