I have heard an excess of people talking about what they should be doing, what they shouldn’t be doing, how so and so is doing this and not doing that. This kind of talk seems to be everywhere right now. I don’t really like it…
This kind of talk is not good– for you, for me, for anybody. It encourages comparisons that crush and judgments that deflate. We get plenty of that.
What we need is permission. Permission to be who we are. Permission to be human. Permission to not be perfect. We need permission to think positively about ourselves, no matter how we’ve been told by society that we don’t measure up.
We don’t give a lot of permission to ourselves, but I think it’s time we start!
In honor of permission, here are 50 good places to start!
- You are allowed to be fabulous.
- You can eat what you want.
- Your body is lovely just the way it is.
- You can say no.
- You can get angry at your kids and still be a great mom.
- You can blow a presentation and still rock your job.
- You are allowed to be unique.
- You are allowed to feel important.
- You get to rest when you need to.
- You are allowed to do things you aren’t great at just because you enjoy them.
- You don’t have to be like anyone else.
- You get to be bold.
- You don’t have to be brave all the time.
- You don’t have to be toned or fit or whatever to be valuable.
- You can say what you need to say.
- You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.
- You can back out of something at the last minute and not be a horrible person.
- You don’t have to like playing with legos or barbies or watching YouTube videos with your kids who are watching YouTube videos of other kids playing video games.
- You can post as many pictures of your pet as you want.
- You can ask for support when you need it.
- You don’t have to be productive every minute of the day to have a productive day.
- You don’t have to be productive when you just can’t be.
- You can binge on Netflix and call it good self-care instead of calling yourself lazy.
- You can change your mind.
- You can change it back again.
- You can disagree with people.
- You can stop dieting if you want.
- You don’t have to do exercise you hate.
- You don’t have to respond to every text or answer every call.
- You can set healthy boundaries for yourself.
- You can have a messy house.
- You don’t have to apologize for having a messy house.
- You can have dessert whenever you want.
- You get to believe what you believe.
- You don’t have to compare yourself to see if you are good enough.
- You can stop judging yourself all the time.
- You can hate green smoothies.
- You can sit and do nothing.
- You can leave bad relationships.
- You can limit your time with people who pull you down.
- You can sleep in.
- You can tell your Inner Superwoman to shut-it.
- You are allowed to believe in yourself.
- You can own your strengths.
- You can own your imperfections.
- You can push through when it gets hard.
- You are allowed to cut yourself some slack.
- You get to forgive yourself as often as you need to.
- You get to throw whatever else you feel you need permission for on the list…
I just want to say– you got this, girlie. You are capable. You are doing great things just by living your life. You are strong. You are way stronger than you think.
