18. Are you waiting for permission?

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I am in a new 'Tunnel of Un'*
(*my turn of phrase for the uncomfortable unknowns of a period of growth).

and will be reporting from the inside, on this new area of belonging to myself that I haven’t yet reached - when it comes to reputation, being seen publicly in what I do, owning how I really want to express myself visually.

This looks like: examining all the ways I've internalised 'rules' about how I'm supposed to be in the new arenas I am entering.
Then making up my own rules, and giving myself permission to decide for myself instead. To be intentional about how I am THINKING about who I get to be, and how.

As I travel through this Tunnel of Un, you can expect a series of podcasts on this topic of belonging to ourselves more fully, and in every new arena we enter...

But for now, you might say that belonging to yourself means:

Deciding that you allow… yourself.

That you allow… the experiences you are actually in.

That you are allowed to like yourself, love yourself, without conditions.

Unconditionally. 

Many of the siblings I coach enter my unmasking unschool 'The SOLA System' with beliefs that are all variations on one theme:

that they are fundamentally wrong on some level.

That they are too much, or not enough.

That they are the problem.

That there are conditions on their belonging.

That they need permission, because they don't yet have it.

And that those conditions are dictated by an authority, another person, an outside source of approval.

This belief has had them making DECISIONS, and thinking THOUGHTS, based on the idea that they need to get approval first.

That the barrier is outside of their control - because permission is up to other people.

That permission isn’t yet granted.

That they need to convince, conform, or persuade, to get it.

But permission to be who you are, can only come from inside you.

You give yourself that permission.

How?

by recognising: all the ways you are waiting, holding back, being timid, playing small… and by starting to take up space, try new and scary things;

by being okay with being bad or embarrassed;

saying yes to yourself, backing yourself not matter what happens.

When you give yourself permission, you no longer need to GET anything.

You can be in the energy of GIVE.

You can show up without requiring anyone to think specific thoughts *about* you, in order for you to do you, share who you are, and be of service.

I emerged from my teenage depression, because my counsellor gave me permission to feel sh*t. To hate school. To dislike the social environment. To find it hard.

From then on, I gave myself permission to feel bad when I needed to. To be where I was at. And to learn to like myself even when no one else did.

To feel embarrassed, fall over, look foolish, and not reject myself as a result.

I want to pass on that permission to you. 

For you to know that YOU get to decide that you are allowed.

Does the moon ask permission to wax and wane? Nope.

Your existence = permission granted.

Now go give yourself permission to go do the thing that you’ve been hiding from;

Give yourself permission to fail.

Give yourself permission to be rejected,

Give yourself permission to get it wrong,

Give yourself permission to be disliked,

Give yourself permission to be misunderstood.

Give yourself permission to let people be wrong about you.

Give yourself permission to no longer attach your self image to someone else's idea of you...

permission to DECIDE who you are for yourself instead.

permission to love yourself anyway.

Permission granted :)

LISTEN HERE

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TRANSCRIPT

0:48
Alright, siblings, I'm in my very own 'Tunnel of Un' of late and it's crept up on me on the double whammy of eclipses, the second of which hit my 12th and 10th houses, for all you astrology geeks, so all about hidden work subconscious in a work stuff being triggered. But then also 10th houses like professional role, or the work that you do that is visible, or how people see you that don't know you. And the 10th House bit is is my mercury, right? So the eclipses aspected my mercury in the 10th house with positive angles. So it's been fruitful. And it's been really an exploration for me about how I've been thinking about who I am when it comes to putting myself out into the world, and meeting people who don't know me yet. And all of the thoughts that I have had previously, that have been recently triggered by me going out and doing new things, meeting new people, and seeing how certain ideas that I've absorbed in the past are showing up for me. And, of course, it's mercury. So I'm going to also do a series of communication related things. podcast episodes for you are along similar themes. And it's going to take several podcasts to share what came up for me what I felt compelled to talk to you about. But also some things that came out of my very own 12th House spaceship that is the solar system for siblings. The siblings in there had a series of coaching requests, all on similar themes on belonging on rejection on rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria. So I'm going to talk about all of those things. I'm also going to talk about reframing scripting, and do a whole series about how do we show up? How do we communicate? And how do we do all of that while risking rejection? So today, we're just gonna start with a very straightforward episode on are you waiting for permission? When I was 16, I had a breakdown in school, I had been in deep depression, clinical level depression for about three years. And I'd learnt to hide it. And this is because well, I'd already learnt to hide generally, who I was how I was feeling. But also because I didn't feel like I had any obvious thing to be depressed about, right. So I didn't think I had permission to feel bad about my life to feel bad about myself. And in fact, I thought it was my fault that I felt so bad, my fault that I was feeling socially excluded and struggling, my fault that I was having those experiences. And I was also disassociating. From how I felt right, I was trying to shut down and ignore how I was feeling. And all of that was also causing havoc with my ability to be at ease in my body to be present to connect. I was hiding myself and hiding my depression. And so it came to one day when I was age 16 in the art room, in an art lesson, my safe haven when it came to me that even art was no longer something I felt compelled to do. I no longer had the energy to even do art. I'd lost all interest or energy to generate in every single aspect of my life. It was like the last domino fell. And I had a breakdown right there in an art lesson. And it was just before lunch and my art teachers took me into their office. I had amazing art teachers they really, in those art lessons gave me a lot of self trust, a lot of confidence to do my own thing to lead my own practice to make massive things. Anyway, so they took me into the art room and sat me down. And I told them how I felt that I needed help. And I was struggling. And that was the beginning of everything changing for me in that moment, I became someone who gives themselves permission to be struggling, to feel bad, to ask for help, to not know how to do this. And I'd waited too many years, right. But I eventually had given it to myself, I'd reached the breaking point, I'm allowed to be having a shit time. So there, I was asking for help. And it kicked off a series of supportive influences, including meeting with the school counsellor for several weeks. And my very first session, I said, I don't know how to be myself, I don't know who I am. And she gave me permission to know that you have been being yourself, just in very harsh conditions. And she gave me permission to look at the school social environment that I was in. It was a Kent grammar school, and girls only. And to experience it as negative, right? She talked about the environment as being competitive, as focused on achievement and as toxic. And I don't know if she said any of those words, but that's what I received. That's what I remember. That essentially, it was not my fault, right? She allowed me she gave me permission to see that who had been being was in reaction to that. And that, being myself and being popular, were not the same thing. I had been looking at my peers who were popular, who were being themselves out loud, who seemed confident. And I assumed that I needed to be like them. In order to be being myself in order to be liked. At the time, just going back to astrology I look back years later, the time I'd had satin going through my 12th house, and then my first house right, so Saturn is the teacher, it brings restriction, it brings heaviness, it brings weight brings responsibility. So that you learn lessons, right brings you lessons, it's probably the planet of the tunnel of art, if I was to say that there is a planet for it. So my lesson was self permission, after those meetings with my counsellor, and visits with my mom to a doctor visits to alternative medicine practitioners, and really where I came to, in myself was that in the end, no one could really help me. I googled depression, I learned about astrology. And what I got from Google was that I was depressed because I had unprocessed pain. Now, I'm just going to disclaimer, I'm just gonna talk about my own story. Please don't use any of this as advice, right? This is just my story. This is just the thoughts, the logic that I went through at the time. And this, of course, won't be true of all forms of depression. However, that was a piece of information that helped me I was also deep in self pity. And I came to this realisation that no one was coming to save me that if I was going to feel better, that I had to take the reins, right. And that together with having had the space to work through the ways I was thinking with the counsellor, all of what this looked like for me, and what the lesson that satin, was offering me with this moment in my life was offering me this tunnel of art was to allow all of what I'd shoved down to come up bit by bit. And all of what I had shoved down was a lot of pain, but it was also self hatred. It was also ideas about myself. It was also experiences of rejection, it was bullying, it was covert exclusion judgement, being called shy or weird. Not being able to speak at times and not knowing why not being invited to stuff. So stuff like that. And I was using all of that to then judge myself judge other people. And so it was full of hate and Full of resentment, and full of self pity, in learning about astrology, I was also learning what I didn't know at the time, a mode of astrology that was influenced by Carl Jung. And that spoke to things like shadow work. So I googled that I decided that shadow work was a thing I needed to do. So then every night in bed, I spent an hour or so diving into my own shadows, allowing all of the nasty thoughts and feelings and self pity and self hatred, and self admonishment and self blame. And also hatred in judgement of other people. To come into my awareness, I let it all up with the idea that self acceptance comes when you accept all of that into your awareness. Not just the good stuff, not just your personality traits, but the experiences that you're actually having. And here's where I want to get to. What that did was, it made me no longer afraid of the experience of rejection or embarrassment. So I became someone who was willing to be embarrassed, willing to be judged, and willing to be rejected, because I was no longer avoiding and afraid of those experiences. So from then, and it took about a year of this. From then in that last year of school, I had my own back. And it was a completely different experience, I walked in, knowing that I didn't need to fit in knowing that I didn't need everyone in anyone to like me, I rearranged all of the friendships that I had been focused on trying to maintain or keep or make, and instead found people that I actually fit with that I felt good around. But also knew that I, I had me right. Now, I don't recommend doing this work alone.

12:13
Because I didn't fully do it right. I'd learned to process emotions, I'd learned to give myself permission to be having a bad time to be struggling to feel through the bad. But later on, I had to then work through the ways in which my fear of depression in my early 20s became a kind of hyper independence and self seeking self reliance, and a focus on excitement and adrenaline and risk taking as a kind of proof that I wasn't depressed, that came out of a lack of boundaries, a lack of a sense of safety. And that lack of self safety and boundaries got me in a lot of trouble, relationship trouble. I tried to travel, people who didn't care who wanted to take advantage. And that was another set of lessons. But the self directed Shadow Work the permission I was given from my counsellor, right? The the permission not to blame myself anymore. The recognition and the allowing, into my awareness of all that inner self judgement, that self blame that self pity, gave me the lesson of self permission, right to know that I could handle it if I felt embarrassed if I looked like a fool, if I fail in public, if I am rejected, and that has stood me even until now, in the position that I can take those risks without risking my own self rejection in the process. And I thought of this story when it came to me the other day, which is this question of where in your life are you waiting for permission? That was one particular area right that I needed to give myself permission to have the experiences that I was actually having, which was being socially excluded, which was not fitting in, which was having a bad time. But there are other areas of my life where I have also needed to recognise that I'm, I'm waiting for permission. One of the hardwired beliefs that siblings come into the solar system with The most of them have to work on the most, even if it shows up in very different ways, is the belief that on some level, that they are not acceptable exactly as they are, right that they need to negotiate acceptance or convince people, or that they are too much or that they are not enough. Or that if they do things, the ways that the way that come naturally to them, that other people will take issue with it. And that that is a reason not to do it. And that in order to do something to be something, they need to wait for approval first, right, they need to wait for permission. So you might think that you aren't waiting for approval. But notice if the reasons that you give for why you aren't doing the things that you want to do, or you aren't getting the results that you want, if those reasons are about other people, or it's about what they might think, or what they say, or that in order to do it the way I want to do it, I need to ask permission. Notice where you're doing that. And it might be in areas where it's just you with you, like how do you manage your evenings? Or what do you do on the way to when you're travelling? Like, how do you get dressed. So think about areas where you don't feel like you are fully in yourself permission. And notice that what's stopping you really is your own mindset and your own thinking. It's not permission from anyone else that you actually need. But permission from yourself, when you haven't given yourself permission to choose what works for you to have the sensory and emotional experiences that you're actually having, and have that be real, right have that be acknowledged, have that be your truth. Or when you haven't given yourself permission to desire and love in a certain way or to do things in a certain way or to structure your life around how your body mind work, where you are holding back. If that's what you're doing, know that your energy will also be apologetic or rebellious or antagonistic. So it will be people pleasing, or it will be finding ways to be alternative in a way that is a response to the mainstream, right? That is a judgement. And you may not yet see this about yourself. But people smell energy, right? And not actually smell with their nose. But people sense it right. It's like an invisible knowing. When you show up apologetically. Even if you're doing the actions and saying the words, it won't land because your energy is not aligned with what you're doing and what you're saying. So people smell or sense that you're out of alignment, right? That something is off. And they might not be conscious of exactly why. But it's there. Right? When I first started telling people, I'm an artist is years ago. And I didn't have any shows I didn't have any stuff on the internet to show anybody. In other words, I didn't have the things to convince myself and to give myself permission to own that title, right to own that identity. So when I tell people, I'm an artist, I did it in a kind of apologetic way. Well, you know, I'm sort of an artist and right and so the feedback and the way that the universe then responds back to you, is going to be the same as the energy that you're you're putting out right? So it's going to be a response to that it's going to be a response to your energy, and not necessarily what you're doing what you're saying. So if you're being apologetic, then people's responses to you will be to respond to the fact that well, you don't believe it. So why should i? So then they don't affirm that you have that permission, or position you as someone who has a reason to hide it or apologise, or they sense that you need approval, which says, that is then a power that they have. And they might patronise you like are that so lovely? What kind of things do you paint in your spare time? Do you see what I'm saying? So when you aren't owning all of who you are, all of your genius brilliant and magnificence, but also all the ways that you might need help, or are struggling with something, or need interdependent structures, or relationships. Which by the way, is also you being in your brilliance when you need something that's also you being in your truth is you being you is you bring in your brilliance, then people take your words, but they believe your energy, they don't buy what you're saying something's off. It's like a salesperson who doesn't believe in what they're selling. So they come off all salesy and trying to convince you, because they're trying to convince you something that they don't believe, right, you smell it feels yucky. It's the same with permission. When you haven't given yourself permission, no one else will give it to you, because they can't mirror back and affirm what you aren't even believing yourself. Right? And you're trying to convince them, but you aren't even convinced. To give an example that makes it obvious. Imagine there's a doctor, and they don't know we're on a plane, and someone needs help. And they're asking for a doctor. Imagine the doctor who's waiting for permission to be a doctor, even though they're fully qualified, even though they're fully practising that well, I'm sort of a doctor. Right? How confident Would you feel to hand over the reins to that doctor? You wouldn't, or salesperson who's timid, you probably won't want to see these new lip balms. So you know, I don't know if it's what you want. So I've had them at the back. When you need permission, and you approach other people, and relationships from a subconscious base, if I need to get something, right, I need something from you. In order for you to make me feel like I'm allowed to be here, then you come to those relationships from a place of what you need to get, right, I need to get something from you. So you come to them in the energy of lack.

22:08
But when you're believing that you don't need to prove anything, right, when you've given yourself permission, then you're entities that you don't need anything from them. And you're able to come to those relationships. From a space of giving, of serving, being present instead of worrying about what you're getting. If you're saying the right thing, if you're doing the right thing to convince them. And sometimes people will think that they need permission to tell people what they deep down, believe. But then they worried that people will think that you're showing off, or you're taking up too much space. But people will only think that you're showing off, you're taking up too much space. When you are in the energy of asking for permission. Please like me, please think I'm cool. Please give me approval. Please give me likes, please look at me, I need your approval, we can smell it. I think smelling is not the analogy for people who perhaps have a heightened sense of smell, you know what I mean? We can sense it. So when you see people who are showing off, it's because you can sense in the energy that they're needing something from you. Whereas when you see people taking up space, from the energy of, I have everything I need, and I'm giving, it's a completely different experience. So if you don't need permission, to be something, you get to just be it. And if you believe in You are what you do. Then all you're doing when you show people when you tell people, when you be with people, when you be out in the world, when you do your thing, when you make your work when you put your work out there, what you're doing is being of service is being present, is not hiding is allowing them to think whatever they're going to think, because you don't need them to think anything specifically. Right? Because you know, what you think, and you're in there, and you've given yourself permission. And your relationship to yourself is in alignment. And you are the only one whose opinion really counts. Your words and your energy, your actions and your energy all match up. And it's your energy that people respond to. So you don't need permission. When you give it to yourself. I approve of me. I like me. There's a quote from Maya Angelou. I've probably said it before on the podcast. In an interview with Bill Moyers in 1973 Maya Angelou says you are only free when you realise you belong no place. You belong every place no place at all. The price is High, the reward is great. And Bill Moyers says do you belong anywhere? And Maya Angelou says I haven't yet. And then Bill Moyers says, Do you belong to anyone? In Maya Angelou says, more and more, I belong to myself. I'm very proud of that. I'm very concerned about how I look at maya. I like Maya, very much. So notice how it's about her relationship to herself. How she looks at herself, right? That question of belonging is about belonging to oneself itself permission. And notice also that she says the price is high, the reward is great, right? The price is you got to be able to feel anything that you want to feel any of the feelings that might be involved, right, in putting yourself out there in risking being exposed to potential harm. Right, but the reward is great, because the harm is never harm that you are doing to yourself as a response to other people's rejection, or judgement or thoughts. Right, you are good with you. So I wanted to finish that, really, because this is going to be a series it's gonna be a series about belonging. And I wanted to start with belonging as permission. As I said, we're going to get into scripting, rejection sensitivity, dysphoria, all of the convincing that we think we need to do, how we conflate inherent value, which is infinite, with created value, which is ability, which is things that we make, which has things that we offer out, and which is recognised in terms of its value only in terms of in only in the eyes of those who want or need what you offer, we often conflate the two. So this is what this series is going to be about. But to finish, I want to invite you to recognise that permission is universe given, right? You've got life, you're alive, your heart is beating, you have permission. So imagine what you would do if you had the golden ticket of lifetime permission. And no one could take issue with you anything you're doing. No one could say that you're wrong. No one could disapprove. Right? That you'd never fail, that everything would work out. What would you try? And do? What would you do? Right? Consider what would you do? If other people's judgement of your choices was something that you never had to deal with? Okay, and now turn it back round? Why aren't you doing that now?

27:52
So list all the reasons or the reasons why you aren't backing yourself? Why are you waiting for the stick of approval? The Go ahead, to go and be and do you? Right, the being of you, starts inside your own thinking, and starts in your relationship to yourself, where you give yourself permission. When you find all of those reasons, I invite you to get them out on paper or voice notes, question them, look at them, and see them as stories, right? They're just made up stories, what maybe they're not true. Maybe these are not reasons why you don't have permission. Right? Maybe you can start to give yourself permission instead, the freedom to step into to be yourself, no matter what, because you already have given yourself the permission. And you don't need it from anyone is the freedom to make decisions that you like to therefore create your life as one that you like, right to be the person that you are, and like who you are being because you're actually being in your truth. So it's not arrogant or selfish or self centred to be so sufficient in your self esteem, that you aren't going out there and seeking it in the social esteem that you receive from others. It's actually the key to you being in the highest level of presence and which is you being yourself, right we can only be the self that is present in the moment right now, whoever that is. And also you being in service, which is you creating what you're here to create. So my offer to you is bloom, where you're planted, be the plant that you are, nurture and pay attention to and grow yourself permission to know that you can structure your time use your energy, organise your space, organise how you Do relationships, choose your relationships, choose your vocation, choose how you do communication in ways that suit you to give yourself permission to need to want things in the way that you genuinely need and want them. I used to feel like when I was at home working, that there was some authority, and this is working for myself, right? This is before lock downs and etc. Right? When I was freelancing, and working at home, I felt like I had some authority, some boss who's looking over me and checking, are you doing your work? Are you sitting down? Are you doing it in the way that you would be expected to? In the way that you might do in an office? Full of people? No, be your own authority? Do your work in a way that works for you? Does the tree ask permission to grow? No, it doesn't. Does the see us permission to exist? Now? Does the moon ask permission to change it shapes? No. The reason for why not? Right? Why you don't have permission. Those reasons. Those stories about why not? Are the thing between you in the results that you want right are between you and you being the fully grown bloomed plant that you are. Now if you want some conducive soil, if you want some siblings if you want some sunlight, some clarity, right, if you want some awareness and coaching and understanding of all of your unconscious reasons and ways that you have handed over your power, and a waiting for permission, if you're wanting to do that work to dig through all of the mark of false authorities that taught you that you don't have permission to find what is seated in you, that is calling you to love it, nurture it, give it permission to exist. You know where to go, the Solar System Plus siblings is designed for exactly this work, I see siblings taking up space in their relationships, no longer asking for permission, but sharing who they are sharing their why owning and communicating who they are, and why they like to do things in a certain way, being present with and facing the challenges that are in their lives. And then overcoming the things that they can change, which is how you are thinking about those challenges. And coming out of the thinking that is the same thinking that created the problem. And zooming out, taking the perspective of you giving yourself permission to solve it right to need what you need to be having the experience that you're actually having. And to want the things that you want. Your thoughts, your feelings, those are the energy, right, the electricity of your neural connections. And the emotion is the magnetic pole. So this is the vibration of the models of reality that you're living from, are being emitted. And that is then what the world corresponds with. And so the degree of permission that you have given yourself in your own thoughts is part of that. So visibility, you having permission starts with you. Seeing yourself allowing yourself belonging to yourself, the quality of the relationships that you have in your life cannot be greater than the quality of that one that you have with yourself. And when you give yourself permission, guess what? You also give it to everyone around you to the same degree. So people feel that, hey, this person's being themself, and being themselves in ways that I can sense that they don't need me to approve of them. Why they can sense that power that you have given yourself to decide, yeah, I am enough. I'm not too much. There is no right or wrong way to be there is only are you being yourself. They sense that they feel that they want to be around that. My current permission journey is a new level of ownership over my expertise, my personality and my self expression as it come when it comes to showing up in arenas where I am meeting people who don't know me yet, when I am showing up in arenas that are related to profession or vocation. So what I'm lining up in my vision, the tunnel of and that I'm stepping into is a next level of visibility, impact and owning that this way It works, right? Owning that being loud on social media, meeting people in person who don't know me yet, who I don't know yet, and who perhaps have access to spaces that I don't, who maybe aren't people for whom my work is directly for, but might be able to help me grow. So this is the journey that I'm on next. This is my next big tunnel on. So I'll report as I go along. But I love it, when I spot my next tunnel of an right I run towards the growth, knowing full well, that it's going to be some emotions and discomfort, the uncomfortable unknowns, I don't know how it's gonna work out, I'm gonna have to try new things, and put myself out of the comfort of staying where I'm at, in order to go where I want to go. And that spark in the dark of the tunnel, write it grows, the more I'm willing to dig deep, and get the lesson and be uncomfortable. And go through it and be in it. The more that that spark grows into the clarity of who I then become, and what I then get to learn. So somewhere along the line, someone told you somewhere in your life, that you don't have permission, and you believed them. And so now you're thinking in lack, I don't have I need to get permission. I'm not yet enough. I'm too much. I need to do it right, I need to be right I need to fit in. I need to wait until someone says yes. But you can't be given what you don't already give yourself right you can't give when you're in the mindset of thinking that there is something that you need to get first, when there is a condition on belonging to yourself. You can't give of yourself share of yourself, when you believe that you lack something and need to get it first. You don't have it. Because you believed it. When someone told you that you need permission. That's all that happened. So to get out of that, recognise where can you give yourself permission? And then give it to yourself? So take a look at your life. Do an inventory inside yourself check in where is it that I'm holding back? That I'm waiting? That I'm believing that I need someone else to approve or give permission? Where am I being timid? Where am I conforming to an invisible authority? Or where am I letting other people's voices determine my life and give yourself permission instead? All right, I'm going to talk to you soon. Love you so much. Take care bye.