Yesterday in stories I shared the sentiment that for so long, I believed that having acne was my fault. That I must be doing something wrong. That my diet or lifestyle was the problem, even though I changed my diet and lifestyle many times over. I shared that I was tired of carrying around the guilt and weight for something I no longer believe to be caused by my actions.

What surprised me was how many messages I received from so many of you, thanking me for my words.

It wasn’t always skin related. Many struggled with infertility, or horrible migraines, or a living in a body for one reason or another our world calls wrong. You have tried a million things and nothing is working and you feel to blame. Thinking if you just did the right thing or followed the right regimen, you would cure whatever was wrong.

Something I learned from having four kids is that some newborns are really, really hard, and some are little angels. If your baby is fussy, it’s easy to believe you must be doing something wrong to make them that way (and likewise believe you must be an awesome parent if your child sleeps through the night). You can drive yourself crazy trying to find what you did to make your baby this way. But sometimes, the reality is, some babies are just fussy.

I know there are a million factors that go into how we live a life and real ways people change and see positive results, but other times you can do all the right things and still come up wanting. Our default is to believe it is our fault, but sometimes it’s life or genetics or our fallen world this side of heaven.

If you have something really hard and you’ve tried everything and are pulling your hair out, wondering what you must be doing wrong, I hope you can let go of the weight and guilt that you somehow brought this on yourself. Sometimes you switch the formula or cut out the dairy and follow the sleep schedule and the proverbial baby still cries. You can try it all, and in the end, it’s simply not your fault.