Giving Yourself Permission

As the light of the day gives way to dusk and on into this first evening of 2023, I am feeling, for the first time in some little while, quietly content. Not ecstatic or especially joyful, but enjoying a feeling of completion, of having fully given myself permission to do something I hadn’t even realised how much my heart had longed for, some uninterrupted time for creative exploration.

Like many of us, I have procrastination down to a fine art, I am deeply practiced at doom scrolling, of pretending towards being the kind of artist frequently found brush in hand, when in reality I am often merely a curator of enough art materials to start a small school. Of rearranging that box full of material rather than making something or sorting the cupboard full of paints as opposed to taking them out and using them. Yes, this is all very familiar territory . . . and of course, as a woman, like many women, still occasionally wrestling those inner voices too of the ‘good girl’, ‘the acceptable woman’ ‘mother as provider’ ‘service everyone else’s needs first’ narratives that so many of us were conditioned to hear.

However, during this quiet time of the 12 days of Christmas, and as I begin planning a series of Courageous Conversations for late 2023, I have had to acknowledge this truth, that often the most courageous conversation we can have starts with that all important conversation with ourselves. Thus, I have been considering this phrase, this ‘giving ourselves permission’. Reflecting on some of the mentoring I have received during this past two years, ‘giving ourselves permission’ is definitely a critical and game changing piece.

What gets in the way?

What or who do we place in the way?

How do we get in our own way?

As my strapline says, ‘curious about the stories we tell ourselves and the tales we tell others’, on reexamining that statement and asking myself these questions, I had to conclude, now, was definitely the time to GIVE MYSELF PERMISSION.

So perhaps as you take some time to reflect on your year ahead and before you step towards your first chapter of 2023, you might pause, in a world that is forever pulling us out and away from our very own unique essence, surely the best gift we can give ourselves in 2023 is the gift of time, giving ourselves permission to follow, even just a little, of what our heart longs for, whatever that looks like for you, and if I can help you to get beyond the stories you tell yourself and the tales you tell others, let me know . . . I am ready, are you . . .