The Permission We Keep Waiting For

Sometimes no one is actually telling us no.

No one is standing in the doorway.

No one is holding the permission slip.

And yet we hesitate.

Can I really do this?

Is it okay to change my mind?

Do I have a good enough reason?

What if someone doesn’t like it?

What if they think I’m selfish?

We may be adults making our own decisions, but somewhere inside, it can still feel as though our choices need to be approved.

Not necessarily because we’re indecisive.

Maybe because, somewhere along the way, approval became connected to something much bigger.

Belonging.

Being good.

Keeping the peace.

Being loved.

Being safe.

When permission came from somewhere else

Many of us learned early what was acceptable.

What emotions were okay to show.

How much we could need.

Whether saying no was allowed.

Whether resting meant being lazy.

Whether changing our mind disappointed someone.

Whether wanting something for ourselves was selfish.

No one necessarily handed us a written list.

We learned by watching.

By noticing reactions.

By discovering what brought approval and what created tension.

And eventually we may not have needed anyone else to enforce those rules.

We carried them with us.

So years later, we can find ourselves wanting something and immediately looking outward.

Will they understand?

Will they agree?

Can I explain this well enough that they’ll think it makes sense?

Sometimes we may even build an entire case for a decision before we’ve allowed ourselves to ask the simplest question:

What do I want?

Wanting something doesn’t mean we have to do it

This is where permission can get confusing.

Giving ourselves permission doesn’t mean every desire gets acted on.

It doesn’t mean other people no longer matter.

It doesn’t mean consequences disappear or that we stop considering how our choices affect those around us.

Maybe it means something much simpler:

Our own wants, needs, and preferences get a vote.

They don’t automatically lose because someone else might be disappointed.

They don’t require a courtroom defense before they’re allowed into the conversation.

And they don’t have to become urgent before they count.

That may be a very different way of living if we’re used to consulting everyone else before consulting ourselves.

Sometimes the permission we’re waiting for may never come

This may be the harder part.

There are choices other people may never understand.

A boundary they don’t agree with.

A life they wouldn’t choose.

A change that makes them uncomfortable.

A version of us that no longer behaves quite the way they expect.

And sometimes we can spend years waiting for someone to say:

I understand.

You’re allowed.

You’re making the right choice.

But what if they never do?

At some point, living as ourselves may ask us to tolerate the possibility that someone else won’t approve.

Not because we’ve stopped caring.

But because their approval can’t always be the price of admission to our own life.

Beginning with the small permissions

Maybe we don’t start with the biggest decisions.

Maybe we begin with the places where we can hear ourselves asking permission without realizing it.

Can I rest now?

Can I wear that?

Can I change my mind?

Can I leave early?

Can I say I don’t like something?

Can I try something I might not be good at?

Can I want this simply because I want it?

And when that familiar hesitation appears, perhaps we can get curious.

Whose permission am I waiting for?

And then another question:

Is this one I might be able to give myself?

Maybe living as ourselves doesn’t begin with some dramatic act of independence.

Maybe it begins each time we allow our own voice to matter before asking the rest of the world what it thinks.

Because perhaps the permission we’ve been waiting for isn’t something someone else forgot to give us.

Maybe some of it has been ours to give all along.

Messy. Bumpy. Possible. -Leigh