Permission

Man oh man have I been in the current lately. The “river of change”, as Dr. Joe Dispenza would call it. Things have been moving so fast, and it has been so very, very uncomfortable.

I’ve been “off the radar” for awhile. Not hiding, but rather focusing inward. In this house. In my work. In my family, my marriage. In my heart.

When you go inward – really inward – you find all kinds of stuff to keep you busy.

It’s safe to say that our family has gone through a period of immense transition over the past few years. Cancer shakes things up like nobody’s business, and almost every aspect of our lives shifted in some significant way.

It has been a journey of exploration without question. I have analyzed the meaning of things deeply, more than my regular neurotic tendencies dictate, since that day of diagnosis and it has brought me down paths of enlightenment and compassion and fear and grief and everything in between. And I keep thinking I’ve gotten to a place where I can really settle in to this new world view and then BAM! – another tear in the universe rips open.

But these past few weeks have seemingly been about one life lesson that I’ve been trying to get at the heart of for years. It was the topic I wanted to explore in the beginning of this blog but didn’t quite understand it. “The Art of Allowing.” – The Allowance Project.

What is the “Art of Allowing”? It’s a term used by Abraham Hicks – a “woo woo” spiritual teacher that I have followed, a bit self-consciously, for decades now. Abraham Hicks is an authority on the Law of Attraction. Anyone who gets on the train of “manifesting their dream reality” has likely heard of Abraham, though I think few really understand the teachings at a deep level.

Even myself, who has been all about this shit for years, didn’t really get it. Intellectually, maybe. But not really. Not really.

But this recent shift – this crack in the cosmos – has clarified this whole concept to me in a practical, tactile, sensory way. To manifest things, we need to allow. Not imagine. Not desire. Not validate and explain. Allow.

All of my life I have been asking permission. I have wanted – needed – to be approved of. Yes, it’s an instinctual, evolutionary need to be validated because approval means that the tribe will take care of you. If you are not accepted, you are not protected. We are social beings and our networks, historically speaking, are our means of survival.

On a very deep level, we fear being alone. And if people don’t like us, we are on our own.

I’ve taken this to an extreme. I’ve assumed at some subconscious level that not only do I need to be accepted, but I need to be the gold standard of acceptable. I need to play all the games right, get all the marks on the chart, get all the thumbs up from every diverse group, every divergent perspective, because you never know when one door might close. Better not to put all your eggs in one basket.

I want eggs in all the baskets.

But here’s the problem with eggs all over the place. You gotta go out and gather them up if you want to make a decent omelet (bet you didn’t think you’d get a breakfast metaphor out of me this morning).

We can’t be everything to everyone. I know that wisdom. I’ve preached all these ideals. I’ve written and coached and mentored on all of these concepts that encourage us to look within instead of without for approval.

And yet I still continued to play the game.

Something happened over the holidays that made me snap. Something big and painful and not to be ignored. Amid the tumultuous grief and suffering and fear we have been going through on and off for these past few years, cracks were beginning to form in the foundation of my reality. I thought I saw them. I thought I knew what they meant and that if I just manage things carefully I could build over them, cover them up, lay new groundwork overtop and not have to deal with them.

But despite my best efforts to see things straight and be a good person and do the right thing and play all these games by the rules, the foundation shattered under the weight.

And what was left was me - raw, real, alone. Despite doing everything I could think of my entire life to please and explain and be understood, here I was, for the first time, realizing that no one was ever going to truly put me before themselves.

But guess what? I’ve said it before, friends, but now I mean it – no one will ever truly understand you. No one will ever truly put you first, not really. Because they can’t. Because the only person we can put first is ourselves. Because we have no other lens, no other context, than our own perspective. Our own agenda. Our own priorities and values and beliefs and needs. Everyone else is just a story to us that has meaning only within the context of our own.

So, who the hell are we supposed to ask for permission?

I was raised to be respectful and considerate and polite. I was told there are rules for a reason and to notfollow what teachers or parents or the government or the social group expects of you is in some way selfish and immoral. Why would the government ever want you to behave in a way that isn’t “right”? Why would your parents ask something of you that isn’t “fair”? Figure out what people want from you – perform appropriately – be rewarded.

I am here to tell you for the first time in my life that I am over looking for external rewards. I am over trying to figure out what others want from me. I am over trying to figure out how to be appropriate and acceptable and understood.

Instead, I am going to give myself permission. I am going to allow all of the things into my life that I want and deserve. Why? Because what other perspective makes more sense than that? Why are we even on this planet? To please others? To play the game right? To get the gold stickers?

No, absolutely not. We are here to love. To follow our hearts. I explore our options and find what lights us up. It is from that place – that compass – that “good” is accomplished in this world. It is from a place of “self-serving” that we ever really achieve anything meaningful. It is from this place and this place only that we participate in this world in an authentic way. We don’t owe anyone anything but our best selves. Not their idea of what that is. Ours.

We write our own stories. And for me, I am finally focusing on the vision I have had for myself and my “work” in this world with my whole heart. Because I am giving myself permission to do what I love, what means most to me, without the need for validation or approval.

Abraham Maslow (a different Abraham) proposed a theory in psychology called the “Hierarchy of Needs”. This theory is a classification system of the needs of human beings that suggests that once each “level” of needs is met, we are naturally inclined to pursue a higher level of human experience. This has always resonated with me in a deep way. It suggests that the less vulnerable we feel in this world, the more we are inclined to want to contribute to the greater good of the whole and be “better” people.

We don’t need a church or a teacher or a government official telling us how to be good people. We just need to feel that our needs are met and we naturally gravitate to “good”. We take care of other people when we feel taken care of. We are kind when we feel kindness and aren’t afraid of other’s judgments or threats. We crave safety once we are fed, and belonging once we feel safe, and deep connection once we feel we belong, and so on.

I love people. I love life. I want nothing more than to do big things that light people up and put them on a path of their own self-discovery and actualization. That’s in my heart and I don’t need anyone’s permission to go and do it.

How utterly empowering to just let that be what it is.

And now I am watching my family – my children – navigate this world while they are experiencing disapproval and misunderstanding and disconnection and judgment and loss, and I am hoping that they will learn this lesson before I did. I hope they will give themselves permission to live the lives that mean the most to them without needing to explain. I hope they serve themselves so that they can reach these higher levels of experience and meaning, not waiting for others to serve them, but finding a way to fulfill their own needs and be confident in this world regardless of what others think or say or do.

We are all capable of anything. It is our own choices of what we are focusing on that hold us back, keep us small, make us look to others for approval. We don’t need it. We only need the call of our hearts. Everything else falls into place and the things that don’t fit, that don’t serve our “higher purpose”, fall away. We don’t have to cling. We don’t have to be afraid of being alone. Because if we are able to take care of ourselves, we can send that light outward without grasping for others to shine their light on us.

As Mel Robbins would say, “let them.” Just let them. Let them be. Let them think whatever they want. Just do you. Just be your light. Do your best and forget the rest. Allow – give yourself permission.