WHY PERMISSION? Two reasons:

The first is from my own life.

About 15 years ago, during an agonizing period of my life, I became aware of a consistent yearning for something to validate, hold and allow things for me that I couldn’t seem to do on my own. 

I remember walking around thinking, “It’s like I just need someone to give me permission…”

Some of the things I needed permission for were Big Issues, and they were complicated. Some of them were small, everyday, even seemingly ridiculous, wants and needs. [See those examples floating on the web home page? All my own.]

I felt shame about this desire for permission. I am an independent and resourceful person, after all.

Finally, though, I began, quite literally, asking for it. First in therapy, and from one extremely trusted friend and mentor — people who not only had my best interest at heart, but whom I knew would be completely honest and not pander to me in any way. It’s the only way it would have worked for me.

And it actually worked. Like magic. I could not believe how liberated and empowered I was, and how much transformation it ignited in my life.

But outsourcing it, having a proxy, during times when I haven’t been able to give it to myself has repeatedly helped me to do things I wouldn’t have been able to do, accept things I wouldn’t be able to accept, make big and small changes, feel things, pursue desires, and become more of who I am. And the great paradox is that the more I’ve let myself seek permission when the need arises, the less I’ve needed it overall.

Giving myself permission, and asking for it when I need it, has changed my life. I believe it can change yours, too.

The second is the word itself:

per•mis•sion

in its root form, is made up of “per” and “mission”

In other words, Per•mis•sion, granted to ourselves, gives us the access and freedom to do what we actually want to do, per our unique mission: rooted in our own deepest values, desires, and inner wisdom.