Why Permission Was the Hardest Part of My Healing Journey

Hey beautiful people,

If you’d asked me a few years ago what I needed most to heal, I would have said rest. Or boundaries. Or maybe just time. What I wouldn’t have said, because I hadn’t worked it out yet, was permission.

For years I burnt both ends of the candle. I worked hard and played hard. I put everyone else first, without question, without pause. I became a people pleaser, and definitely a perfectionist. Underneath all of that, the one thing I never did was listen to my own body. I don’t think I believed I was allowed to.

There’s been a lot of trauma in my life. Some of it I might share with you one day. Some of it I never will, and that’s okay too. But over the years, all of it mounted up quietly, until I became numb to myself. Disconnected from the person I actually was, underneath the coping and the striving and the constant doing.

Becoming ill with ME/CFS changed everything, but not in a quick or gentle way. It was hard. Teaching my body that it was safe, after years of running on adrenaline and pushing through, was harder still. Unlearning coping mechanisms that had kept me functioning, but were quietly destroying me at the same time, was a slow and often painful process. Being compassionate to myself, reconnecting with my body, mind, soul and spirit, that was hard too, in ways I hadn’t expected.

But out of everything I’ve faced on this journey, the biggest hurdle wasn’t the illness itself, or even the trauma underneath it.

It was giving myself permission.

Permission to grieve my old life, the one I had before everything changed.
Permission to go out, or just as importantly, to stay in.
Permission to not be bothered by being judged.
Permission to actually feel things, instead of pushing them down to keep going.
Permission to be me, whoever that turned out to be underneath it all.
Permission to let go of what wasn’t serving me.
Permission to rise again, in my own time.
Permission to follow my own destiny, not the one I thought I was supposed to want.
Permission to rest when I needed it, without guilt attached.
Permission to check out and escape sometimes, because that’s human too.
Permission to say no to what I wasn’t aligned with.
Permission to say yes to what I was.
Permission to do whatever the heck I wanted, without needing to justify it to anyone.

Why permission is so hard for so many of us

I think a lot of us, especially women who’ve spent years holding everything together for everyone else, are still waiting for someone else to hand us that permission. A partner. A boss. A parent. Sometimes even a diagnosis, something external that finally says “you’re allowed to stop now.”

Here’s what I had to learn the hard way. Nobody is coming to hand it to you. Not because they don’t care, but because permission isn’t really theirs to give in the first place. It’s yours.

A gentle place to start

If this is resonating with you, I’d invite you to sit with the same question I had to ask myself.

When did you last give yourself permission? Not permission once your to do list was finished. Not permission once everyone else was okay. Just permission, freely given, to yourself.

Relearning this is hard. Growth doesn’t happen without it. So be kind to yourself as you find your way there. Have compassion for how long it’s taken. And when you’re ready, give yourself permission.

If you’d like a gentle hand to start with, I’ve created a free 10 minute morning meditation for overwhelm, called Before the World Wakes Up. It’s designed for exactly the mornings when your mind is racing before your feet have even touched the floor. You can find it here:

https://calmaurahealing.co.uk/free-resources/

love Mandy x