The Freq Show

45. Personal Development - Grace for Tough times

• Sam Thurmond & Jaclyn Steele Thurmond • Season 1 • Episode 45

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In this episode of The Freq Show, we dive into the inevitable bumps in life—those moments that test our patience, resilience, and faith. We explore how to navigate challenges with grace, shift our perspective, and use adversity as a tool for personal growth.

Whether you're in the middle of a tough season or supporting someone who is, this episode will give you the mindset shifts and strategies to move forward with strength and self-compassion.


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Jaclyn:

Hello and welcome to The Freq Show. It's been a minute since we have been behind the camera. I have done several episodes I think three or four just audio, which is kind of fun because you don't have to get glammed up and it feels very intimate. But being on video, I think, is just the move for us, because you can reach so many more people by video and it's kind of fun to do the techie stuff too. So here we are, we're back. This is episode 45 of the freak show, and this episode is entitled personal development grace for tough times. So why do you think we're talking about this today?

Sam:

Well, I would imagine, because

Jaclyn:

We had the bird flu

Sam:

Yeah very likely.

Sam:

Whatever we had was not nice. It wasn't nothing nice.

Jaclyn:

No

Sam:

That's for sure, and not only that, we were down and out with that for about two weeks, but before that you weren't feeling well for some time.

Jaclyn:

Well, that's for another reason that we can get into another day.

Sam:

Yeah, but I think it all.

Jaclyn:

Yeah, we were

Sam:

Another one of those periods. We kind of had the same thing last year we're at the beginning of the year. Roman got really sick and there was

Jaclyn:

Well, yeah, he had impetigo with MRSA, so that was a totally different thing. And then I got some kind of virus last February. Yeah, but this virus whatever we had at the beginning of this February in 2025, was by far the worst I have experienced. It was way worse than when I got COVID, and I got COVID when I was pregnant with Roman in the third trimester, right before he was born, and COVID was nothing compared to this virus. Like I said, we were out for about two weeks, but several of those days you described it perfectly. You were like I feel like a doll whose hips have been put on backwards. The body aches were I mean, I don't know that. I've experienced body aches like that Headaches, congestion, nausea, not being able to regulate your body temperature. It was just horrible.

Sam:

Yeah.

Jaclyn:

Horrible horrible, horrible yeah. And we're kind of joking about the bird flu, but it very well could have been, who knows? I'm just glad that we're, I think, on our way out. I still have some congestion. I think you do too. There's a cough that just kind of lingers. So if anybody out there has experienced this virus and actually knows what it is, shoot us a DM, because we'd really like to know. But I'm just glad that we're on the other side of it.

Sam:

Yeah, yeah, and I know we'll get into it, but I actually have it to talk about a little bit in another episode that I wrote. But I always feel like I come out the other end of whenever I'm sick. I hate being sick and I'm a complete baby when I'm sick. You're such a baby, I pretty much, just totally shut down, but I always feel like I come out the other end with like clarity. You know, we talked a little bit about that when we were on our walk the other day and I don't know, it sucks to get sick, for sure, and thankfully this isn't like a serious illness, it's just like the flu and lasts for a couple of weeks. But whenever that happens I always just feel like I come out the other end with perspective. You know, when you don't feel healthy and then you feel healthy again, it's kind of like you know you count your blessings.

Jaclyn:

Yeah, I think I we talked. We did talk about this on our walk, but I was just when you were saying that. I was like oh shut your mouth, because I was like I feel like I've been just low energy and not myself now for like two months. I'm so tired, I'm like angry that I feel like I've been down and out, which brings me to today's podcast episode, which is personal development, grace for tough times, and I think the thing that I learned, or that I am continuing to learn and still need to learn, is to give myself grace when I am super, super sick, because I have a tendency to be like well, I'll just get one hour of work done, I'll just if you're watching this on YouTube, I'm like pretending to do the army crawl I'll just make the homemade soup, I'll just do one more thing. Do one more thing. I'll just answer those text messages. You do a much better job of like nope, I'm done. And then you are like done, which can be a little frustrating for me, but I also understand it. I have a tendency to just continue to try to push, because it's like an old self-worth issue where I feel like if I am not productive or creating some kind of progress, creating some kind of progress, it affects my self-worth and how I feel about myself. And so, because I feel like I had been under the weather on and off for a little over two months, I was feeling so frustrated and felt so stuck. All of these projects and it's not actually true, but so much I felt like was at a standstill, and I think so much of it was at a standstill because I kept pushing and pushing and pushing rather than giving into the rest.

Sam:

Yeah, I think I think a lot of times you'll, what you find is when you just back off and let go. Oftentimes things will fall into place without you, though that's hard to accept, but I think for me it's just. Whenever I get sick, I don't know how to say this I just lean into it because I feel like I'm just going to prolong it if I don't and it's easier for me to just kind of lean into it and just say, hey, I'm sick, I'm not, I'm not doing anything I'm not. I mean I'll do what has to be done, but, and now it's easy for me to say this on the backend, but know that I'm going to get some perspective out of it. You know, like it is what it is, I'm sick, I'm not going to be able to think clearly, I'm not going to be able to communicate clearly I don't want to anyway because I don't feel good but uh, and so I'm just going to lean into that, rest, take care of myself. And, um, know that once I do come through this, that I'm going to have some clarity on the other end of it. And a lot of that, I think, is because, you know, I was out for 48 hours, I was pretty much out of commission. No phone, no TV, no any, no distractions. And I think that's kind of the magic in the is that you just get rid of all those distractions.

Jaclyn:

So what do you feel like your biggest takeaway was from this last round of sickness?

Sam:

I think it is a newfound perspective, or almost, or inspiration, on being healthy, on taking care of myself in all the different ways, whether that's, you know, food or fitness, faith and spirituality, all those kind of things. It's, it's almost, it's just a reset, you know. I feel like it's a reset. When I come out of it, it's like, okay,

Jaclyn:

You figure out what's important.

Sam:

Yeah yeah, you're just kind of it's, it's a, it's a reset, it's a new start. And and now I get to, it's almost like you know, the new year you get to start fresh, implement some new habits, um, be more disciplined with things that you know. That maybe kind of fell off there before. So I guess that's just my silver lining and how I look at it. It's a refresh.

Jaclyn:

I think for me it's a very humbling experience and I forget exactly what I was Googling, but there was a quote and it was like don't fool yourself into thinking that you are God. The world is going to keep spinning, with or without you being productive within that spin. And that was really good for me to hear, because sometimes and I think so many women are like this we're like our households everything going on is going to crumble if we don't figure out how to get the laundry done and the food done and all of the other things. And so that quote like don't fool yourself into thinking you're God, this is. Everything has a season. Nature has winter, where things go into hibernation, whether that's a bear or a tree, because we need rest to be fruitful. And I think that's the biggest lesson for me is we're not machines that can work 24-7.

Jaclyn:

We really do need to have a cadence of on and off, and that's something that I've gotten better at during certain periods of life. And then there are other periods where I just get so excited about things that I just I rush into them and then I get so absorbed or I want them so badly to like get done, that I don't allow myself break, like really good restful breaks in between, and so it's this constant cycle of go go, go burnout, go, go, go burnout. And I think during the winter season both last year and this year it had been go go, go burnout, and the burnout happened during, like flu season and sickness season, so I was just extra vulnerable. So my goal next year is to not be sick all of February.

Sam:

Yeah, well, it's hard coming off the holidays too because there's so much activity still trying to be productive, want to spend time with family, there's travel, there's all those sorts of things. So it kind of makes sense that it happens January February timeframe, because you've been burning, burning the candle at both ends, you know, starting in November with all the holidays and still operating your business

Jaclyn:

But I think think the holidays are meant to be the opposite.

Sam:

I know, but we don't really approach it that way.

Jaclyn:

No, we haven't, and I think we need to rethink that. I also learned that being hard on myself doesn't do any good, and I think that is a mental tape that if I want to live a high frequency life, I really have to delete and reprogram my mind. Louise Hay in you Can Heal your Life does such a great job of teaching you how to reprogram your thoughts. But since I was little I mean my parents will tell you I've just always been very type A, Like I would get super sick and I would tell my mom I still have to go to school because I don't want to have to make up for the time that I lost, and my mom would actually force me to stay home from school, and then I would get upset with her that she was forcing me to stay home from school. So that's just kind of

Sam:

You're like Leslie Knope in Parks and Rec.

Jaclyn:

I'm like Leslie Knope in Parks and Rec? Yes, exactly, and I've always been that way. But being hard on myself and replaying that mental tape that, oh, I just can't get done without me, or what am I? Who am I if I'm not able to produce is not real. I am worthy, independent of what, of what I create and what the output is. So I think that that is also a very grounding, humbling lesson that I learned in this really tough time. I think as well, treating yourself the way that you want, the way that you would treat others. Like when Roman is sick, I'm not forcing him to put away his toys or clean the kitchen or clean up after himself. We're babying him and making sure he has hydration and vitamins and cough medicine and like all of those homeopathic cough medicine, obviously but making sure that he has all the things that he needs to help his body recover. I'm not trying to make him do work, you know.

Jaclyn:

And so I think that idea of going back to 1 John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, oh, no wrong, wrong verse, but the golden rule of treat others as you want to be treated. It's so true and it's so simple. And it also goes the reverse like treat yourself the way that you, that you want others to treat you.

Sam:

Yeah, I think you, I think you've got some work to do on that, to be perfectly honest with you, and I think that, uh, um, it's, it is your personality, um, but I think it causes you a lot of angst and stress so much when it's just like and I told you this numerous times like just be sick, like that's all you need, that's all you need to do right now and honestly in that, if you allow yourself to do that, that's the work you need to do in that moment.

Sam:

And you need to look at it that way and stop trying to fight it, because I think it prolongs things and I think it just makes you miserable in the process and that's not productive.

Jaclyn:

It definitely prolongs things, without a doubt. I know that you are correct there and I know that it is something that I need to work on, and I think this last round of just being sick for so long was so humbling that I hope that the lesson really does permeate. But again it goes back to, like ancient self-worth issues, that who am I and what am I if I'm not able to produce?

Sam:

Yeah, but I think you know I I think God puts us in situations I'm not saying that God makes people sick, that's not what I'm saying but may allow us to be sick from time to time, because we need to get something out of that, we need to learn and take something from it, or we need to slow down and make some space for ourselves, and I think the longer and harder you try to fight against something that is the purpose and the point that you need to take away the longer it's going to, the more it's going to be exacerbated and the longer it's going to take. So I think, just surrendering in that moment and letting it run its course and learning what you need to learn, allowing yourself to learn what you need to learn, instead of trying to push, push, push is more effective.

Jaclyn:

Yeah, and I think for anyone who's struggling out there right now listening to this, maybe you're not like as extreme as me or as extreme as Sam where you're able to just turn off. But in these situations, I think what I would encourage people to do, and what I encourage myself to do, is just ask God what do you want me to learn from this? Because I'm down and out for a reason and there's a lesson here. So what is it that you want me to learn? And then be open to that answer.

Jaclyn:

I listened to a podcast. It was a Skinny, Confidential podcast and it was I forget the guy's name but he was talking about true happiness and life balance and he was like there's no such thing as balance in life. But I think there is such a thing as looking at your life from a macro perspective and a micro perspective. Maybe you're going through a season where everything does just feel out of balance, but then when you zoom out, you're able to go hey, overall this year there was some really great work and there was some really great rest. So he was talking about releasing a book and going on a book tour and how that felt very out of balance in his life, but then he was going to return back to some balance after, because he and his wife and their son had this trip planned um to just rejuvenate after this very hectic schedule.

Jaclyn:

And that was really helpful for me too, because I think even though I know in my head, especially when you're a parent and a working parent and an entrepreneur and your income depends on you, you want balance, you just naturally want balance.

Jaclyn:

You want to feel like that is possible, but the reality is there's go time and then we have to plan in the rest time and historically you and I are to call you out you're not a great planner, and so to nail you down and go hey, can we plan some rest time or like a little getaway or a vacation, has been extremely hard. Also, finances in the past have been like we have money, we don't have money. We have money, we don't have money. We've invested our money, we have no liquid cash. We've had a lot of like being entrepreneurs, and so one of the things that I think we need to do and we are going to go away for like a week to Colorado at the end of March, but something that we really need to do and stick to and, I think, be militant about is blocking out time on our calendars for just adventure and fun and rejuvenation. Otherwise we just work all year.

Sam:

Well, see, I would take it a step further and I think that we need to be better. Yeah, but you'll understand when I say this we need to stay, take it a step further and have it not be once a quarter. We're going to do something that's fun and we're going to take this time for sure yeah because I think that that makes things more extreme. I think it's because look

Jaclyn:

I totally agree with that. We need some rest, rest every single day.

Sam:

The reality is, you like to plan big trips and I like going on the big trips as well, but to me big trips aren't relaxing, Like getting on the plane with a two-year-old, a three-year-old and flying across the world.

Jaclyn:

We only did that once. Okay, but still, we only did that once. We've done multiple trips. Just the two of us.

Sam:

I know, but a lot of times the big trips aren't relaxing. They're fun, they're adventures, so they fill that cup, but it's not relaxing.

Jaclyn:

Sam likes to turn off. The last relaxing trip we had was when I was pregnant with Roman. We did a baby moon to Mexico and he barely spoke a word for like four or five days, cause he was like I'm just relaxing, recalibrating, and I was like this is so boring.

Sam:

Well, it's what I need.

Sam:

I need silence, I need to be able to. I need to be able to turn off. I don't need to be planning for the future and all those sorts of things. I just need to relax and not be worried about those things. But my point is, yes, we need to have those trips planned, we need to have those adventures to look forward to, but we need to be more organized in our day-to-day to where that is all built in.

Jaclyn:

I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm very glad to hear you say that.

Sam:

I know, and I know you're looking at me like I'm the one that doesn't do that, but I'm here to tell you you're good at talking about it, but execution is a different story.

Jaclyn:

I'll put it in my calendar and then not respect it.

Sam:

Yeah, so we both got some work to do.

Jaclyn:

All right

Sam:

As far as that goes. But I think that that overall feeling of balance is more related to how organized and how prioritized is your day-to-day versus the macro. I think it's true what you said, that there are going to be okay this month. We've got to really push hard to finish this project and we're going to be going there day and night

Jaclyn:

Our freaking app

Sam:

and knocking things out

Sam:

But that's and that's a period of time and then we'll build in rest after that. So there are going to be those periods, but that shouldn't always be the case. So you shouldn't be pushing constantly for a month and then roll into the next thing and push that thing for a month. You should be able to pull back and the majority of the time in my opinion, the majority of the time should be fairly routine. If you want to have some semblance of balance

Jaclyn:

And our word we discussed this last week because the beginning of this year was just so crazy, but our word this year is consistency, because we both love consistency, but we're not great at creating it.

Sam:

Yeah, and then my sub bullet. My sub word was organization, because I think that the organization will lead to consistency.

Jaclyn:

Yeah, and I'm better at being organized.

Sam:

I mean we could go back and forth on that a little bit. I think well,

Jaclyn:

way better at being organized. I'm not always consistent, but I love organization. I'm a Virgo, like you. Should see my pantry right now. It's labeled, it's beautiful, it's Instagrammable. Let's move on, yeah, but I feel like the perfect.

Sam:

I think this would be a good episode, but it's probably better to have this conversation right now, offline.

Jaclyn:

Oh well, we can circle back to that. I just don't want to go too far because I don't want this episode to be eight hours long. But I think the perfect example and I know so many of you are going to be able to relate to this is at the beginning of the year, or right at the end of 2024, I bought Jesse Itzler's big ass calendar. I've taken it out once and right now it's still in the roll because I don't know where to put it in my house and I've got the designer brain, but also because I just haven't prioritized it. But I got the big ass calendar to be able to map out the year and go okay, this is go time, this is rest time, this is go time, this is rest time. That was my whole point in getting it. So we just need to put it up and really abide by it and look at everything from a macro perspective and then get micro. Okay.

Jaclyn:

Last couple of points Don't let your brain override your body. This is something that should be obvious to me, but it's not. I allow my brain to override my body and when my body is saying just slow down, give me some rest, I often will just go nope, I can do just a little bit more. I can do just a little bit more, and I push, push, push, and then that bites me in the butt and I think my last point would be and then you can add anything else that you want is things don't always go according to our plans, but I do believe that there is a plan that's created by someone so much more powerful than us. And I've said this before and I know I'll say it again because I believe it to my core things are happening for us, not to us, and I know that during tough times it's so hard to give ourselves grace. Sometimes it's hard to extend grace to others, but it is of the utmost importance, because that's where the beautiful lessons are and that's where so much growth and development happens is during tough periods.

Sam:

Yeah, I would agree with that, and I think that those are that's kind of like the darkness before the dawn. I think that there's a way to remember when you're in that position, that things are tough in that moment because there's a breakthrough on the other side of it. So, as much as you can reframe these periods as opportunity and then lean into whatever it is whether that's you need to rest or you need to work in that period of time then that's what you need to do and just allow yourself to do that.

Jaclyn:

Yeah. So question to leave you guys with is what area of your life can you extend yourself? Some grace? And that's it. That's the end of the episode. Live on purpose, live on frequency, and we will connect with you. We cannot wait to connect with you next week.

Jaclyn:

Thank you so much for listening to The Freq Show with Sam Thurmond and me, Jaclyn Steele Thurmond. We would love to connect with you via our website, beckonliving. com, and on social media.

Sam:

You can find us on Instagram and TikTok @beckonl iving, and you can join our email list to receive uplifting messages, podcast and business updates and discounts on high frequency products, Just for our freqy community.

Sam:

Cheers to high frequency living!