PERMISSION GRANTED
When I look back on my life, I often wonder if there was something I could’ve told myself to make the tough times less tough and the good times last longer.
There is definitely no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. And depending on the day, you would probably get a variety of interesting responses depending on my mood. For today, I recall a pretty rad human in my life who used to say to me, “I don’t care if you are mad, sad, happy, upset, frustrated, just be you.” This advice changed my life. This is the advice that I would give myself earlier on in life. I would give myself full permission to be exactly where I am, whether that was on a mountain top, down a rabbit hole, or anywhere in between. Permission to be me.
The struggles I have experienced have stemmed from the expectation of where I thought I was supposed to be versus where I actually was. My struggle came from trying to stop myself from feeling what I was feeling, thinking what I was thinking, dreaming what I was dreaming, being what I was being. My struggle came from believing I needed to be anywhere else then exactly where my feet were.
Someone once said to me (after seeing that I seemed off, which I definitely was), “…only give yourself 30 more seconds to feel what you are feeling and then you need to move on because it is no longer serving you.” Well, sorry guide, you were wrong…for me, I need whatever time I deem necessary to feel what I am feeling and be where I am.
Any efforts to leapfrog where I am at are futile at best, deeply damaging to myself at worst, and usually end up wasting more time in the struggle by trying to avoid it then if I had just allowed myself to experience whatever I was experiencing in the first place!
I sometimes still forget to just be me. I forget because it’s normal to get caught in the expectations of life. Sometimes I actually need more time to vent. Sometimes I need to be angry for a day. A week. A year. Sometimes I need to feel manic. Sometimes I need to run. All times, I need time to process on my own terms. And only I know when it has reached a point of diminishing returns. Only I know when it is time to move on. And honestly, it’s different with each experience. I am not one size fits all either. And neither are you.
SELF-REFLECTIONS:
Where are you pretending that everything is fine when it isn’t?
Where are you trying to positively affirm your way out of where you ACTUALLY are?
Where are you attempting to leapfrog your REAL experience?
Where can you give yourself permission to just be you?
So, yes, the advice I would give my younger self is the permission to just be me, wherever I am at. It’s simple, yet, from my experience, not always easy or obvious to deploy. Luckily, I have also found that the more you practice, the easier it becomes. CHEERS for being you, wherever you are today!!