Permission Granted

 I sometimes feel like I am not alone in wanting someone to give me permission for the decisions I make.  From mundane things like staying in bed to get the extra rest I need, to taking a sick day when I feel unwell.  I find myself wishing that there was another voice in the room, telling me that it is okay to feel how I feel or to want what I want.  I also feel envious of those who seem to move through life with ease, making choices that suit their needs and well-being without a second thought.  Perhaps that is just the vision that I see on the surface, and maybe the same sense of uncertainty lingers underneath the facade.  

Glennon Doyle wrote about permission slips in her book Untamed, and although that idea resonated with me when I first read it, I didn't give it much thought afterward.  Until now.

As I lean into some pretty big life changes ahead, I find myself getting in my own way.  I often joke that my five-year plan has been ten years in the making, and I am excited to say that I am finally taking steps to put these thoughts and dreams into action.  Although there are moments when this feels liberating and I can sense a weight lifting off of my shoulders, these are often followed by other moments of deep fear and uncertainty.  As I was journalling the other day, it came up in my writing.  I allowed myself to dive into what it is that I am afraid of exactly and I was amazed to see the words that hit my page - I am afraid of failure, I am afraid of letting people down, I am afraid of screwing my life up, and the list went on.  I paused to ask myself whose judgment I was most afraid of and the honest truth is my own.  What I came to realize in those few minutes of writing was that at the core of my ambivalence is fear of my own negative self-judgment. 

And the more I sat with that, the clearer it became.  This is the same feeling that has held me back from pursuing goals that seem way outside of my grasp.  This is what has made me live small at times and put off changes in my life to a later date.  When I am ready.  I roll my eyes at this last line, because when are we ever really ready for anything?  And how do we know until we try?  It is often hindsight that tells us that we had all we needed before we took our leap of faith, and we had it for a lot longer than we realized.  

At that moment I decided to do something that I had not done before.  I decided to give myself permission.  I began to write "I give myself permission to..." and just let the words flow.  It was amazing to see what came forward.  I give myself permission to try and fail.  I give myself permission to celebrate my wins.  I give myself permission to make mistakes and learn from them.  I give myself permission to feel good about the progress I am making.  I give myself permission to love myself no matter what.  And the list went on until I had given myself all the permission that I needed at that moment.  Once again I paused and re-read what I had taken down.  I felt a sense of peace and clarity that had been missing until that point.  This simple exercise had, in essence, provided that extra voice I was looking for.  It is something that I fully intend to keep as part of my journalling practice, calling upon it when I start to feel the scales tip towards fear, which I know they will do.  And I will give myself permission to feel fear and to ask for help and not feel like a failure for doing so when that happens.