During my Eponaquest group meeting recently I had a visualisation that brought me to a realisation about myself. In the visualisation I found myself on the outside of a secret walled garden that I couldn’t find a way into. The group facilitator then asked, “what do you want?” and at that moment I realised that, even though I now have the space and freedom to do the things I want to do since retiring from my job, there is still something blocking me and that thing is permission. Permission for what, you may be inclined to ask!
I realised that I have been waiting for permission to receive.
This need for permission may present itself in a variety of ways but it could result in feeling like we need to feel validated in our decision to rest (“I’ve worked hard in the garden today, so I’ve earnt the right to sit and watch TV”) or to set boundaries or say “no” to things that we don’t want to do. It can even show up in the decisions we make about our own lives and if you’ve ever found yourself asking people’s opinions on something even though deep down you know what you want, this may also apply to you. Personally, I have found myself experiencing all of these examples at different points in my life and I remember only recently seeking validation from my daughter, Ness, on some furniture I had decided on, even though I knew it was what I wanted. And, since having more time to myself, I still find myself justifying moments of rest.
A need for permission or validation often begins in childhood when we are most likely to have our decisions overridden or questioned by well-meaning adults. When a child picks out their own clothes for the day, based purely on what is visually pleasing to them, there will often be an adult who will say something like “I don’t think that’s the best thing for you to be wearing because it’s raining today, why don’t you wear this instead.” Of course, the adult is not doing this to be unkind to the child but when we have early decisions questioned it can lead us to feel difficulty in trusting ourselves when making decisions later in life.
One interesting area I have found this need for permission creeping in is my social life. Recently I had a week where I went to lunch three times. Each time was lovely, I am blessed to have wonderful people in my life who I enjoy spending time with. The first occasion was with my mother-in-law and the second was after taking my own mum to run some errands, so in my mind I justified taking time away from chores and work to make sure these two elderly women felt cared for. However, the third occasion was purely for social reasons, to spend time with a friend and enjoy the sunshine, and I found myself feeling somewhat uncomfortable about doing something in the middle of the day to do something solely for pleasure with nothing to justify it.
That evening I sat down with my journal, as I often do at the end of the day, and I wrote “What did I enjoy about today?”. The list included going somewhere different, lovely food, spending time with a likeminded person and learning something new from them as they were talking about a different culture. This exercise helped me tap into several things that I really want to do with this new chapter of my life. I love to explore new places, but I also get such a joy when I listen to other people describe places that I have yet to see for myself. This realisation led me to google “travel talks” to explore the different ways I might be able to learn more about these parts of the world. My friend and I also talked about books, and this reminded me that I have a desire to join a book club, which I also wrote down in my journal. (NB I’ve since joined a Book Club!)
My point to sharing this is that this particular journal exercise didn’t focus on whether I am “worthy” of taking time out to enjoy lunch with a friend, I actually reflected on what it was I enjoyed about it. I now know what to do in the future to stop thoughts of “should I be doing this when I could be doing something more productive?” and change them to “when I go out I will experience something new with someone I am interested in talking to”.
I’m changing the narrative from having to justify taking time out “just” to socialise to experiencing something that will light me up and from which I might learn.
The work that I do as both an EFL facilitator and as a riding instructor has always fulfilled my sense of purpose to help people and horses, and to inspire and support others in being their most authentic self. This has been my identity for a long time. But now that I am retired from the employed work I have been doing for the past few years, and have more free time to please myself with, I am aware that my identity needs to be free to change, so I am able to find purpose in ways that aren’t linked to how I can be of service to other people, but instead in the learning and exploring new things that bring me joy. There is space for both as my purpose transforms into something that allows for more freedom to explore the things that light me up, I can still honour the purpose that I have carried with me my whole working life.
As I explore a new identity I give myself permission to have a fulfilling social life and learn new things, without justification, simply because they are of value or interest me. If you only take one thing from this blog, I hope it’s to give yourself the permission to live the life you choose (although I appreciate that being told this and being able to believe it and live by it are two different things and you may need support to get to the latter!).
I am still on the journey to where it allows me to feel completely free to enjoy things just for me. I always say, the work is never complete, and this is a fine example of that!
Since entering this new phase in my life I also noticed that I wasn’t giving myself permission to rest or reflect unless I felt that time to “just be” had been earnt in some way. I was so busy in keeping productive and using that to justify any down time I had. In fact, this need to keep busy is something many of us experience even when we are not working. How many times have you come home from holiday and thought “I need a holiday to get over my holiday!” – it’s such a common saying because we often try to cram as much as we can into a trip to a new place and even though these things are probably fun and interesting, we feel more justified in the busyness of this kind of “break” compared to the discomfort we might feel if we were to just sit by a pool all day and read a book. Likewise with our weekends, instead of resting after the working week, we are often more inclined to try and do all the jobs that we feel need doing around the house and garden and by the time Sunday night comes around we realise that we don’t feel rested. The truth is, we don’t need to do all the housework and make sure the garden looks beautiful before we can rest or do something we really enjoy, yet we often feel a sense of shame when we do choose these things over productivity.
I can see now that since retiring from my employed work in January, when I’m not coaching, I have (perhaps subconsciously?) kept myself busy rather than allowing myself to take some time to reflect on how I want the next phase of my life to look and feel. This is amusing to me because some years ago I was at a transition in my working life and a business coach who was supporting me at the time advised me to take a few months off from working so I could have the mental space to think about what direction I wanted to go in with my work. At the time, I remember feeling like I could take this time off because I had been given permission. However, now I find myself at a similar crossroads in life I’m so grateful for the insights and learning which came out of my recent visualisation and to know that I simply need to give myself permission to be and do what I choose.
If this blog helped you to notice that you have a tendency to seek external permission or validation and you would like that to change then feel free to contact me to learn how my coaching style might benefit you.
