Permission Slip

This is about giving permission.

I seem to have been harboring a need to give myself permission for a lot of things lately.

It seems so odd to me, to have given myself permission to have what I want and desire in my life. It just sounds bizarre.

One of the hugest battles for me in healing from my being molested as a child is feeling worthy and believing I deserve the things I dream about and desire in my life. As a traumatized child, teen, and adult I always felt like I was carrying some mark of sin, some kind of defect, and that I was guilty and disgusting – and therefore I did not deserve to have the kind of life I wanted.

I always carried this belief that I didn’t deserve to have what other people had – a job that I enjoyed, total financial independence, money to travel and do things I wanted. I didn’t deserve the happiness I saw in my friends and family who found their life partners and got married, enjoyed strong, fulfilling relationships.

Hell, I didn’t deserve my own love, let alone the love of a good man. I mean, time after time I allowed myself to get sucked in to unhealthy dating dynamics where I was co-dependent, needy, and looking for someone else to love me so that I could feel like I belonged, so I could feel wanted and desired.

Through the years I’ve come to heal so many of my wounds, have integrated buried and lost pieces of my best self back into who I am now, and I’ve begun to truly love and trust myself. But it seems that cloud of unworthiness and that pervasive feeling of I-can’t-have-that or that’s-not-meant-for-me has never left, regardless of how much love I’ve started giving myself, regardless of how much more confidence and power I have inside, regardless of how much healing I’ve done on my past.

I’ve been stuck in the same job for almost 12 years. I’ve known for years that this job was not right for me, that I am meant for more and desire more in my career or work life, and at various times over those 12 years I’ve temporarily hurled myself into trying to find something else. But I would always stop looking and stop sending out resumes after a few weeks. And while some if it was fear – fear of success, fear of failure, fear of being happy, fear of the unknown – the real issue was worthiness.

I didn’t feel, didn’t KNOW in the core of my being, that I really DESERVE to have a job I enjoy and that uses my talents and abilities.

Same thing with dating. Of course, the first thing I had to do before finding love with someone else was to find love for myself as previously mentioned. But even when I did become more loving, accepting, and confident in myself I still didn’t believe and KNOW inside myself that I really DESERVED the kind of relationship I desired, the kind of relationship I’ve wanted deep in my heart for as long as I can remember. Since childhood. I was trapped in this endless thought cycle of how I wasn’t worthy of it, since I’d let someone violate me. I mean, who wants damaged goods, right? Who wants traumatized sloppy seconds?

I know how cruel those words sound. Trust me, I felt every barb, every blade in them inside me for DECADES.

And a few weeks ago I actually came to a point where I gave myself permission to have the relationship I always dreamed of, the one I long for, the one that pulls at me no matter how happy I am being single. It was a release – I cried a little, and it cleared out something that felt sort of like … smoke inside me. A dark, heavy, clinging smoke. As soon as I gave myself permission to have what I desired, the smoke wafted away. It coursed through and out of me. And hasn’t returned.

Regarding the job situation – I actually came to a sticking point, a point of no return several weeks ago. Something happened that was frustrating and a part of me that wasn’t even involved emotionally said – that’s it. It’s time. Like FOR REAL this time.

I was just done. It was just time for me to go.

That feeling hasn’t gone away, and I immediately started looking at job boards, sending out applications and resumes, receiving some rejections. It didn’t matter. There was a sense of determination this time, a no-going-back that has never been there before. But I kept coming back to this place of doubt. I kept asking myself if I was doing the right thing, was I looking at the right kinds of jobs for me, was this my life purpose, was I doing this the right way. It all started feeling really hard, it started feeling negative and stuck. I knew that this couldn’t possibly be as hard and onerous as I perceived it to be.

So I started thinking – what if I needed permission to leave my current job and find a new one? Like I needed permission to date and fall in love and get married?

This morning I actually sat in the silence of my car on the way to work and I gave myself explicit permission to leave the position I’m in now, to find something that really makes me feel fulfilled and satisfied, that pays me on a level that allows me to reach the other goals I have for my life. And again, there was an emotional release, and then it felt like some kind of … greasy filmy residue left my body. I felt calm, empowered, strong. I felt that knowingness, I felt … certainty in my gut that I will eventually find a new job. It’s already on its way, I just am not sure what it is or when it’s coming. But it’s coming.

I needed my own permission, even though I’d already begun to love myself and trust myself, even though I’d opened my heart and have never been so ME before. I still needed permission to have what I want, to go after what I desire, to finally shake off those dogged beliefs of unworthiness and being undeserving.

It’s like I needed my own blessing. As validation, as a gift, as … encouragement…. I don’t know. I just needed to give myself permission to take my healing one tiny yet significant step further.

Maybe it was the final call in accepting and stepping into my own power, the final shouldering of complete and total responsibility for my life being as I make it to be.

I don’t know if that makes sense. I just know that something inside me needed that permission, that leave-taking, that … absolution?