Give Yourself Permission To Be Relevant In Your Own Life

It is a powerful thing to give yourself permission to be relevant in your own life. Let’s unpack that.

Ideally, you have a pulse on what it is you want and need in life. And that want and need is enough for you to act, enough to make yourself relevant in your own decisions and actions. This is what I mean when I say give yourself permission. 

Not so ideally, you adapt to your environment and go with what external factors permit and accept as normal. In this scenario, you’re ignoring your own wants and needs and instead trusting external factors that are beyond your control.

External permission to break up with your partner is waiting until your relationship gets really nasty and absolutely unbearable before you can leave. Internal permission is noticing that you’re not energized or fulfilled in the relationship and trusting you want and deserve more.

External permission to leave a job is waiting for some bizarre and “quit-worthy” experience to happen so there are no surprises. Internal permission to leave a job is noticing that your boundaries, time, and talents are not being respected the way you’d like them to be and trusting that you are deserving of more.

External permission to quit drinking is getting a DUI or waiting for a friend to pull you aside and tell you they’re worried about you. Internal permission is noticing that you’re not your best self when you drink and you want to know what you’re capable of if you change your relationship with alcohol.

External permission to rewrite the script you’ve been given is waiting for a therapist to validate your trauma or abuse in your upbringing which explains why you are the way you are. Internal permission is noticing that something is off and you want to reparent yourself and be your own healer.

External permission to stop giving time to friends you’re not aligned with is having a huge fight to help prove why you don’t get along anymore. Internal permission is noticing that you don’t have anything against these people but you also don’t feel aligned when you’re around them. You are okay with growing apart in peace.

Something doesn’t have to be awful or tragic to leave your life.

When we do have the external stamp of “this is worth leaving,” it is way easier to explain and justify your actions to other people. But why are you living your life based on what makes the most sense to other people? Where are you relevant in that?

When you’re waiting on these external factors to validate that your experience is worthy of moving on, you’re reacting. When you’re noticing what you’re thinking and feeling internally and giving yourself permission to know that is enough, you are being proactive. It’s okay to be proactive and set yourself up for success.

With all the roles and responsibilities we juggle in life, it’s easy to ignore our internal world and focus on the external world. I challenge you to put two simple steps into practice in your life: notice what you’re experiencing and trust that it is valid.

When you notice your experience, you’re basically becoming aware of what you’re thinking and feeling all day. And when you trust it is valid, you are not telling yourself you’re crazy or stupid for feeling or thinking a certain way. You’re not spending your energy trying to justify your relationships or environments that don’t serve you because they’re “not that bad” or “people have it worse” or “it’s fine.”

What if you stopped the internal chatter and instead noticed and trusted what you’re experiencing? You don’t even need to act on it yet! Start small. Start to notice and then trust it. You have limited energy, limited resources, and limited time on this planet. Why put anything towards literally fighting internally with yourself?

And I’ll actually go ahead and answer the above rhetorical question (why you’re not trusting your experience) — because it’s fucking scary. When you start to tap into what you’re experiencing, you’ll quickly realize that you hold all the answers to your questions and solutions to your problems. When you listen to yourself and trust your experience, you might need to take some messy steps to get out of your situation (quitting, breaking up, moving, having an uncomfortable conversation, going against what is expected). But goodness gracious, holy moly, is the reward worth it.

Imagine a life where you consistently put yourself in situations that lift you up, surround yourself with people who allow you to have an open heart, and you can fearlessly be yourself. You deserve that, and you have everything you need right now to achieve that.

It’s only a matter of whether or not you’re giving yourself the permission to do so.