Giving Yourself Permission is Bull#@&!
Unfortunately in our world, full-grown adults still require permission to en-JOY life or to play and create.
We “grant ourselves permission” or wait for it from our bosses, jobs, family, or friends to allow ourselves the space to play and create.
This, my friends, is crap.
You do NOT need permission from anyone, except possibly yourself.
Last week, I went on a short vacation with my hubs and grown children. I debated possibly leaving my laptop at home but ultimately decided to take it. When it comes to my laptop I’m a little bit like Linus with his blankie in The Peanuts. I just like having it.
I didn’t end up working or writing at all because I had “given myself permission to play” for a whole five days.
It struck me on Monday morning, as I sat at my desk, opened up my computer, and began to dive back into work, that I never paused and “gave myself permission to go back to work.”
There was no moment of thoughtful intention where I claimed, “Now, I am at work. It is time to work,” like I did when I left for vacation and said, “Now, I am NOT at work. This is time to PLAY. It’s OKAY for me to play and NOT open my laptop.”
It’s interesting that we don’t ever require “giving ourselves permission” to work. Or to do laundry. Or to complete any of the other tasks we’ve decided are “obligatory” or that have a measurable outcome, like making money or growing our businesses or even cleaning our toilet.
Nope – those things happen because they have a measurable outcome. They’re productive and useful, and our society values hard work and clean homes.
Can I measure the quality of time I had with my hubs, son, and daughter on our vacation? Not in terms other than pure joy or the creative ideas that started burbling up around day three, ideas that I jotted down in my notebook as we were traveling home.
The Mindset Shift
Creativity and inspiration can be flighty. They happen at random moments. AND they often occur during those moments that you’ve intentionally decided and given yourself permission to play and create.
But…what if…you gave yourself permission to LIVE in a space of play, joy, and creation?
What if we didn’t “save” it for the weekend or when we’re alone or with friends or whenever we have a time when we “permit” ourselves the space.
Permission is an allowing, a letting go. Externally, it’s someone telling us that “we may do something.”
Internally, it’s allowing ourselves to do what we desire to do, with no guilt, or apologies. We claim our creative time as our own.
Here’s what’s interesting…as a creator, as someone who feels that writing and creating and even play is a sacred calling, I still find the need to give myself permission to allow myself to…
…grasp onto those fleeting openings of creative inspiration when they strike
…to release any attachment to an outcome or a finished product
…to create for the pure joy of creating
Claim Your Way of Being
Starting today, I’m shifting this up with a little experiment.
What would happen if you no longer needed to kindly grant yourself permission to play, to create, to have fun, to feed your soul, to write, to live life on your terms?
What if you gave yourself permission to work because your standard way of BEING is in the creative inspired play space rather than the other way around?
How might your life change if the whole of your life became your creative play zone and work was just a part of that?
What might that look like? What if you permitted yourself to BE and ALLOW joy, play, creativity all the time rather than in just designated times and spaces?
I’m claiming THAT – creativity and playfulness as my way of being rather than as a space I need to give myself permission to enter.
Join me. Make YOUR declaration. Share it in the comments if you’d like.
And if you need some support, tools, and strategies go get there, let’s chat.
xo
Amy