Am I allowed?

I’ve been sitting with many women over the past few years and common themes have emerged, one of which is the question Am I allowed to…? The question takes many forms depending on our unique circumstances and temperament, but at the core lies two deeply vulnerable and spiritual questions: Is it okay for me to live the life that I want? and Do I have a right to exist as myself?

In the quiet hours, after the kids are in bed, or lying awake in the middle of the night – our thoughts swirling, we feel a familiar mix of shame, despair and fear as the thoughts rise to consciousness:

• Is it okay to say that I love my children, but don’t love being a mom?

• Am I crazy to start a business at my age, at 25, 50 or 75?

• What will they think if I honor my calling and intuition instead of doing what seems to work for everyone else?

• Can I trust my embodied experience over what I was taught to believe about God?

• What will my friends and family think if I slow down and create a life away from the fast-, partner-, c-suite track?

• If I say no or change in any way, will they be angry?

• Or, if I say no or change in any way, will they still love me?

Carrying these questions and asking them aloud, requires courage and compassion – the courage to be honest with ourselves and compassion to hold what we discover.

The courage to be honest

Being honest is one of the most deeply tender places to meet ourselves. It’s a place of love, compassion and curiosity. But it can also be a place of deep pain, rage and grief. Being honest has the potential to rearrange our entire life, so most of us spend enormous amounts of energy avoiding any thoughts or emotions that seem “too big” or difficult to contain and process. We need to go slowly, tending carefully to ourselves and our emotions as they arise.

I love long walks for this, or long drives. Somatic practices like hugging yourself* can bring safety and calm to our over-stimulated nervous systems. Journaling or making art – working with colors to represent emotions can help us visualize and move with them. Reading memoir and being among other truth-tellers (especially the literary ones) can help ease the loneliness of this time.

Depending on our lived experience, honesty asks us to name what happened to us, name what we want or name how we’ve been shaped by relational patterns. Honesty is one of the first steps in creating a life that reflects who we really area. It’s also the hardest because it’s the most terrifying, so go slow and be compassionate.

Compassion as a posture and practice

Compassion is the container that allows us to move into honesty. I think of compassion as both a posture – how we relate to ourselves – and a practice – the things we do to care for ourselves. Compassion as a posture means relating to ourselves with love, dignity, hope and with deep recognition of our humanity. Compassion as a posture respects the parts of us trying to be perfect, people-pleasing and hypervigilant to the needs of others.

Cultivating a compassionate relationship with ourselves means that we no longer berate ourselves for anything less than perfection as we learn to speak to ourselves with warmth and love. Compassion doesn’t turn a blind eye to difficulties, nor does it mean we “let ourselves off the hook,” – it means that we no longer re-enact patterns of harm and betray ourselves in any way. Compassion says I’m here and I will stay. I am your friend.

As a practice, compassion is the ground from which we create change and take action. We set boundaries and change them, if needed. We take time to make decisions and learn to trust our own judgement through practice. Compassion as a practice allows us to tolerate the possibility of misunderstanding and making repairs. It gives us the space to see patterns of people-pleasing and perfection.

Often times, we’re afraid of compassion thinking that it means that we go easy on ourselves or, as I said earlier, let ourselves off the hook. Perhaps, we do actually need to go easy on ourselves! Beyond that, though, compassion asks that we recognize our own humanity, a deeply uncomfortable thing to do in a culture with widespread spiritual sickness.

Inhabiting our lives with full permission, power and presence is a beautiful journey of courageous becoming. It asks us to take responsibility for the truth of our own lives and to compassionately act on our own behalf. As we do, we find power and love infusing our lives – the power to be, take action and move in the world as an embodied, dignified, creative, curious force.

* Hug yourself. To do this, cross your right arm over your chest, placing your hand near your heart. Then, cross your left arm, placing your left hand on your right shoulder. According to somatic therapy, this practice supports a feeling of containment, which may help you feel safe and supported. Hold the hug for as long as you need.