Curious about Permission: How Much do You Give Yourself and Others? Do You Ask Others for Permission?

“My son gave me the permission to accept my success.” - Gary Burghoff, American actor

“As we let our light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.” - Marianne Williamson, American author

One of my joys is leading a continuing education workshop called, “How to Discover Your Core Passion.” I always start the first evening with the statement, “I feel that all of you already know your core passion. I am here to give you the permission to pursue it.”

You see, and you will find it supported by all of the great quotations I found, we are often so fearful of success, change, and our direction, that we don’t give ourselves permission to move forward.

Coach, Susan Henderson - one of the readers of my e-newsletter - commented on my recent theme of CONFIDENCE by writing, “Just recently, two separate conversations with different people came up around 'permission'. One emphasized self-permission to move towards success and the other also mentioned that permission from others might hold people back.

"When reading this issue, I had an Aha moment - confidence and permission are so closely tied together that if we move forward with confidence, then we can override some of the old baggage or limiting beliefs around permission.” (Of course, I did ask, and always do, for permission to share this great feedback with others).

One of my many other joys is leading and teaching ten group fitness classes a week. Four to five of them are for seniors, 65-years-young and above. The next quotation is similar to one I tell them (although I do not agree with “very old people”):

“It seems that when you get to a certain age you almost give yourself permission to misbehave and say what you think. People allow it, with very old people.” - Julie Walters, British actress

I urge my students to “let themselves go and be foolish”, because when we reach a mature age others expect it of us. We have a blast!

I especially enjoyed this week’s quotations from the experts:

• “Dream and give yourself permission to envision a You that you choose to be.” - Joy Page, American actress
• “Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.” - Arnold Bennett, English novelist
• “If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.” - Grace Hopper, American scientist
• “Nobody can hurt me without my permission.” - Mohandas Gandhi, Indian leader

And a few more with a different twist:

• “And this is one of the major questions of our lives: how we keep boundaries, what permission we have to cross boundaries, and how we do so.” - A. B. Yehoshua, Israeli novelist
• “I've learned lately that no one is going to hand me a permission slip and tell me to take time out for me.” - Wynonna Judd, American musician
• “Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.” - Madonna Ciccone, American musician
• “Giving yourself permission to lose guarantees a loss.” - Pat Riley, American coach

The next quotation speaks to me and my life as a freelancer:

“I don't have to ask anyone's permission to do anything. It's nice not have to get decisions out of three, sometimes four people, which can be like pulling teeth. So the amount of control that I have over what I'm doing is better for me as a solo artist.” - Graham Nash, British musician

And we come back to the same idea that Marianne Williamson stated, but this one is from Nelson Mandela:

“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” - Nelson Mandela, South African statesman

Give yourself permission to have the best week yet!