Permission Granted

Permission granted.

There. I did it. 

I just gave you permission to:

- want what you want

- feel what you feel

- be who you want to be 

- say what you need to say

- do what you want to do

Can we move on now? 

All kidding aside, I am amazed at how many of us are waiting for someone or something outside of us to give us permission to just be who we are.

I know this feeling intimately because I’ve been there.

I’ve people pleased. I’ve denied my own feelings. I’ve made choices based on what I knew others wanted me to do and how I wanted others to view me. I've second-guessed myself. I've brushed aside both needs and wants!

The crazy thing is, I didn't realise in the moment that that's what I was doing. All I knew was, it didn't feel good.

Yesterday I had a call with an intelligent, beautiful woman who has seen a lot of success (on paper) in her career.

She said to me, "We women are strong, we’re determined. We can put our heads down and get things done. We can tough it out."

And I said yes, yes we can. And we do. I know I certainly have.

But why? Why do we feel like we constantly have to sacrifice and get through and tough it out?

I for one am sick of it. 

Our grandmothers and mothers grew up in a different time. They had different challenges to overcome. The right to education, to vote, to go to work, (the fact that there are parts of the world where these things are still not available to women is enraging but all leads to my point, I promise) are now mostly ours. 

But we’re still playing a game with rules that we had little or no say in. And we have played by these rules and mostly done quite well. But what I’m hearing from women is that these rules just don’t feel good anymore. Maybe they did at one point because our egos felt good that we were "winning the game". But again, in most cases, it wasn’t a game we chose.

Giving yourself permission doesn’t always mean something drastic like quitting your job or leaving a relationship. 

Sometimes it just begins with being really damn honest with yourself.

This isn’t working.

I want more.

I want to feel worthy of having more.

Enough is enough.

I’m tired of being all over the place.

I want to trust myself again.

I want to feel allowed to want what I want.

I want to stand up for myself more.

I want to feel more fulfilled.

I want to care less about what other people think.

These are real words that have come from conversations I've had with women over the last year. These women would be deemed “successful” by all usual standards. 

Yet somehow we aren't giving ourselves the permission to be true to ourselves. I get it. But it's time for that to change.

So today, I'm giving it to you.

Permission granted.

You're welcome.

Next Monday, February 13th (Galentine's day apparently!), I'm hosting a free workshop called Falling in Love with You, A Radical Self-Love workshop. As women we hold up our children, our partners, our families and friends with our whole hearts, often leaving little for ourselves.  

In this workshop, we’re going to challenge what self-love really means, and how we can love ourselves into a more fulfilling, beautiful, authentic life.

A life that is true to you. 

The call will be recorded and sent out to those who sign up.

You can join my free workshop here. Please come and bring a friend!

With love,

Kena xo

Kena Paranjape, Founder, All You Are