No matter how qualified or deserving we are, we will never
reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves
to have it. Richard Bach
For most of us, giving ourselves permission is challenging.
For many reasons, we can’t or won’t allow ourselves to put ourselves first.
Instead, we simply put one foot in front of the other and gut it out – and too
often convince ourselves that this is “moving forward” with our lives.
Part generational, part genetic, part upbringing, there are
many reasons why we never consider what we might really want or what might be
in our best and highest interest. We simply do what we think, or believe, we
have to do. We jump into a hole of our own making, we see the steep walls, and
then we don’t even acknowledge that there might be a way out, let alone cry out
for help.
But giving ourselves
permission to willingly consider alternatives is the key to making some
fundamental changes in our lives in order to manifest what we want to have, do,
or be.
Willingness is a necessary precursor to taking action: you have to
be willing to do something – or, at the very least, willing to try to do something – in order to truly keep
moving forward.
When you give yourself permission to think about what you
want, why you want it, and what you’re willing to do or even try to do, you
free yourself to at least consider alternatives. Ideas that might not have
occurred to you in the past now might occur.
I believe that when we give ourselves permission to rethink,
to consider other possibilities, we crack open a door to our Higher Self – and
our Higher Self, recognizing that the door has been cracked open, wedges a
crowbar in to make sure that we consider a different way ahead.
And here’s why I know this to be true.
In September 2014, I found myself at a personal and
professional crossroads. My 5-year contract with the government was due to
expire, and it had become clear that my company was not going to re-compete it,
meaning that all of us were going to be laid off.
Now, keep in mind that my expiring contract didn’t
necessarily mean that I would be out of work. Typically, an expiring contract
is awarded to another company, and the existing employees are offered positions
with the new company (to ensure what is called “business continuity”). And so
it was in my situation. I was confident that no matter which company won the
contract, I would be offered a position (though at what salary or benefits was
anyone’s guess), which was as sure a Sure Thing as it could possibly get in
this day and age.
Truth be told, I had been unhappy for a long time in my job.
But I was far more afraid of not having an income than I was of not being happy,
and so choosing not to accept a
position with the new company was, for me, no choice at all. I was just going
to have to stay down in that hole and gut it out, just like I always had in the
past and just like, I assumed, I always would in the future.
During the last two months of my employment, a couple of
colleagues suggested that I read The Joy
of Not Working by Ernie Zelinski. Actually, “suggested” doesn’t come close
to the wild enthusiasm that they both had when gushing about this book.
Okay, I’m game, I thought. I could use a little joy in my
life.
My first time reading through the book, I hated it.
Actually, “hated” doesn’t come close to describing how I loathed, despised, and
abominated the book. All I saw the first time through – that is, all I gave myself permission to see – was how so many of
the testimonials included some reference to the large sums of money they had
already saved, the inheritance they had just received, or the lottery ticket
they found in a gutter that just happened to be the winning Powerball ticket,
which gave them the financial means to take the unemployment plunge.
(Okay, I might be exaggerating a little. Maybe there weren’t
any Powerball stories.)
And another thing I hated about the book was Zelinski’s
tone: all gushy and “you too can have what I have,” and ain’t life grand. I was
reminded of something that Anne Lamott said in her book, Bird by Bird: “I once asked Ethan Canin to tell me the most
valuable thing he knew about writing, and without hesitation he said, ‘Nothing
is as important as a likable narrator.’”
I saw nothing likable about Ernie. (I decided to be on a
first name basis with Ernie; after all, if you’re going to dislike someone,
it’s personal and rather chummy, like being on a first name basis.)
But then I thought about another quote from Kristin Hannah’s
book, The
Nightingale: “Don’t think
about who they are. Think about who you are
and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you.” And I thought
about how unhappy I was, and I realized that I was sacrificing everything that
mattered to me just out of fear and for the sake of a paycheck. And this time I
gave myself permission to acknowledge that staying with my current job would be
my breaking point. As a result, I chose to walk away from my six-figure
salary, health benefits, and employee discounts, and instead accept the layoff,
a meager 3-week severance check, a small vacation payout, 26 weeks of
unemployment benefits, and an unknown job market – and when I say “walk,” I
mean I ran.
Giving ourselves
permission is the key to personal transformation. Nothing more and nothing
less. Permission to acknowledge our A-ha moments, wake-up calls, and the
spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical toll that our current circumstances
are taking. Permission to consider alternatives. Permission to let go.
Permission to say Yes to a new path and a different direction. Permission to
say Yes to ourselves.
In her book Bird by
Bird, Anne Lamott said, “If you start to look around, you will start to
see.” In order to crack open that door to your Higher Self, you need to spend
some time figuring out what it means to give yourself permission in terms of
your own personal transformation and reinvention. Once you can delve deeply
into the concept of permission, you will be able to recognize the impact it can
have, not only on your reinvention journey but on your entire life!
Interested in learning more about personal transformation
and how to harness the power of permission? Check out my latest book, I’ve Been Down Here Before But This Time I
Know The Way Out: Curing The No Way Out Syndrome, available now on Amazon!
