S01E15 Permission is a Ghost

Why are you still waiting for permission to be yourself? In this episode, we explore how the approval-seeking patterns we learned as children become cages in adulthood and why the gatekeeper you're looking for doesn't actually exist.

Laura breaks down how authority structures are designed for stability, not
originality. When you wait for the system to approve your uniqueness, you'll be
waiting forever. Learn the difference between permission (giving your power
away) and collaboration (keeping it intact), plus practical micro-declarations
you can start today to build internal authority.

Transcript

0:08

Hello and welcome back to a Life and Color. Before we jump into today's episode, which I'm really excited about, I do want to acknowledge something and that is that life feels pretty intense right now Maybe in every direction. It feels like things are changing. Things are in question. It's hard to feel like you have control over anything. There's a lot of shifting sands, And it can be very easy to get mired down in all of that and start to feel upset and anxious and start to make decisions based on fear or because you're looking for a sense of safety. All of that is. Completely understandable, and I think we are all feeling some sense of that right now. But I also want to remind you that now is also a really incredibly exciting time to be alive. I don't want you to forget that and lose sight of what's happening beyond just the top headlines in the news, the innovations that are happening right now. In spite of funding cuts or, I don't know, changes in opinion about whether they should or shouldn't be happening, things that are happening in healthcare. The advancements, I just read an article earlier today about how they are testing a vaccine for Alzheimer's. There are new treatments that are super effective in early cases. That in and of itself is exciting. They're using AI to detect new uses for existing medications. Everybody's on these GLP one drugs. Those were diabetes drugs for a long time. They have just recently discovered that they can also be used to fight obesity and you don't have to be diabetic to take them and see benefits from them. Think about all of the different medications that are out there that may also have some similar alternative application the possibilities explode When you think about that. I just think these next few years are going to be very tumultuous. Yes. But the result is going to be a completely transformed landscape of possibility. The advancements in quantum computing alone are literally on the verge of changing everything, and I know that sounds scary and it is impossible. For any of us to have full control over anything that's happening right now. Change is scary. Change is hard, and I am not at all suggesting that all of the things happening right now are positive. They're not. There are some very negative things happening right now, and as always, The results of these changes are very much gonna depend on who's in charge, who stands to profit from these things. But I think that this time period that we are, this decade that we're in right now is going to be looked back on for many, many, many, many years as a time that changed everything, hopefully for the better. I do tend to think things change for the better. What is the quote? The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Martin Luther King Jr. Said that, and I believe that some of these changes are gonna be scary and harmful in the short term, I do think in the long run we are doing things right now that are going to turn this world into a better place, and that to me is exciting. Okay. Today's episode is about something that many of us are waiting for without even realizing it, and that is permission. Last week we talked about the epidemic of apathy, That kind. Beige colorless fog that settles over us. When we stop allowing ourselves to want more. We talked about how wanting more is the fuel for creation and innovation. But once that fire is lit, many of us hit a wall. We have the desire, we've acknowledged the desire, but we're standing at the gate looking around for someone to tell us it's okay to open it. So today we're talking about the gatekeeper. And spoiler alert that gatekeeper is a ghost. It doesn't exist. So today is about why you need to stop asking permission to be yourself. But let's start by naming the pattern, and I'm gonna do this without a shred of blame for you. this is nobody's fault. From the time we are small, we're taught that good means compliant. We look to our parents for a nod of approval. We look to teachers for a gold star on our paper, we want our bosses to give us a positive performance review. We look to our social circles for nods and likes on our posts and other subtle signals that we're doing everything right. It is like an internalized board of directors that we carry around with us.'cause we stop asking our actual parents or our bosses for permission as adults, but we carry a mental board of their voices into our thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond. But the person that we're asking for permission from is often a ghost or a memory. They're not currently a voice of authority in our lives. looking outside of ourselves for permission as a child was a way that we adapted to life. It was intelligent. It kept us safe. It made us feel like we were included. But as adults, that survival mechanism becomes a cage. Think about it. How much energy do you spend over preparing for something that you wanna suggest or. How often have you over explained a choice that you're about to make? That's yours to make. If you are constantly reading the room to see how much of yourself you're allowed to bring into it, you've lost the ability to read yourself. You've become an expert on other people's expectations, but you're kind of a stranger to your own expectations. When I say permission, it doesn't usually look like a child asking, can I go outside? May I do this? When we're adults, it's much more subtle than that. It might look like hesitating, like waiting until a thought or an idea is perfect before you share it with someone else or needing three friends to agree with your career move or your new haircut before you feel sure about it, right? The trap of consensus. It might literally just look like staying quiet in a room full of people at a dinner party, in a meeting or whatever until somebody else speaks first, just to make sure the vibe is safe. And it sounds like self editing or delaying or justifying what you're saying or what you're doing. I call it the explanatory comma. So you're stating a boundary, but then you immediately follow it with a long list of reasons of why you're allowed to have that boundary. I have a dear friend who does this. She is not comfortable with setting boundaries at all. At all. And I've watched her say yes to things she didn't wanna do for years. She literally just doesn't say no. So I try to remind her all the time that she doesn't have to do that. so then she'll finally work up the courage to say no. Usually to me, because I've given her permission to do so, which is great, and I love that. But then she'll immediately break into a speech about i'm allowed to say no to this because you said that I should prioritize my rest. And my feelings matter too, when really I wish that she would just say, no, I'm not available that day. Or even, no, I don't wanna do that. That would be so much better. So here's the thesis of today's episode, and I want you to really hear this. You don't need permission, you need self-trust. Most authority structures, whether they're corporate or cultural, or even within your own family, are not designed to approve your originality. Originality by definition cannot be authorized by the status quo. They're designed for stability. If you wait for that system to give you a green light to be different, somehow you're gonna be waiting forever. Think about at work, they always say we value innovation, but what they really mean is innovate, but don't disrupt anything important. New ideas are welcome as long as they fit inside the existing org chart Don't challenge leadership styles. Don't challenge the culture. Don't challenge timelines. Don't make anyone uncomfortable. So the moment an idea actually does something new, maybe it challenges a process or questions, a longstanding rule, or maybe it suggests a different way of working entirely. The system reacts with friction, right? It's not welcoming with creativity, and suddenly you're being asked for more information, more justification. You need to get more buy-in from people. It has nothing to do with the idea itself. It's just the system doing exactly what it was designed to do, which is preserve stability. And if you wait for that system to enthusiastically approve your new idea that's trying to change things, it's not gonna happen. And families work the same way. Every family has an unspoken structure. You know this, you have a role that you've been playing in your family forever. and so does everybody else, and it keeps things predictable. You know, when you go home for a Sunday night dinner, you know that you are gonna be maybe the peacekeeper or the reliable one. You know that maybe your brother is going to be the wild card, you know that your mother is gonna be doing the same thing and your dad is gonna be doing the same. you know what to expect. And that's because they're set up for that level of predictability, keeps the family stable. But the moment you try to step out of that role, maybe you're changing careers or you're setting a new boundary or just showing up differently. Somehow the whole system pushes back, It doesn't mean you're wrong in any way. It has nothing to do with what you're trying to do. It's just that you changing, destabilizes the balance, and everyone else has to adapt. And they resist that. So if you wait ahead of time for your family to give you permission to become someone new, that's gonna force them to have to change and adapt around you. You'll be waiting forever. I've seen this dynamic very clearly in my past. Work with government agencies. I did some work with agencies related to space technology, and when people talk about the early days of the space program, they often call it the wild West, There were tiny budgets, there were aggressive timelines. There was no room to ask permission at every turn. There was no way you were gonna make progress. People acted, they tested, they failed, they learned, and then they moved again. And failure wasn't treated as. moral flaw or a career ending event. It was just information. And what's interesting is that we revere that era. Now we tell stories about how innovative and courageous those teams were, but today we've layered on so many checks and approvals and there are eyes watching every move It makes the cost of failure feel enormous. So instead of learning quickly, we freeze. And the irony is that that system was designed to prevent failure and it prevents progress instead. This isn't just true in the government or in the world of technology. It's true in our personal lives when everything requires permission, nothing. Truly new can actually begin. And I wanna be really clear about this because I know some of you might be thinking. I don't wanna destabilize my family. I don't wanna blow up my job. I don't want any kind of chaos. I don't wanna make people adapt around me, and that makes sense. But there's a really important distinction here because when I say a system is set up to maintain stability, stability is not the same thing as stagnation. Healthy systems can adapt. Yeah, they can breathe. They can evolve. They might resist it. They might have some words to say as they go, but they can, they will adapt. You're not upsetting the whole system, and that kind of stability is fine, but the kind of stability that requires that you silence yourself is not stability. That's containment. That's a cage. And over time, containment doesn't protect the system at all. It actually weakens it. So you're not destabilizing the system by telling the truth or trying to do something that resonates with your truth. You're revealing where it was already weak. So this isn't about being reckless and having a giant ego, it's just about internal authority. As you grow older, maturing is not about finally having all the answers. As you step into your own internal sovereignty. And that starts to mature with you. You'll find that you trust yourself enough to move even when you don't have all the answers, and even when you don't have the external validation to give you permission to make that move. That's what we're talking about. And just a quick note here, there is a difference between permission and collaboration. Permission is, am I allowed to do this? And you're giving your power away. Collaboration is, I'm doing this. How can we work together that keeps your power intact. I am not saying, don't ever invite other people into your ideas. I'm saying don't give away your power when you do so. When we live in a state of pending permission. We're exhausted, right when we're always waiting for whatever last thing needs to happen to make you feel like, okay, I'm allowed to do this now. That's exhausting. It's fragmenting your energy and your focus. You're not just living your life. You're managing the perception that everyone else has of your life, and this creates a chronic sense of self doubt. So we've talked about this before. You might live a life that technically works. You have the job, you have the house, you have the relationships, you make the money you wanna make. Everything looks like exactly what anybody would want, but it doesn't feel like you and you don't feel alive within it. There's a sense of disappearance that happens when you're always waiting for a yes from someone else. You've disappeared within your own life, your own wants and needs, and that leads to resentment and eventually fatigue, like bone deep weary fatigue, and you're tired because you're carrying the weight of everyone else's potential disapproval and criticism. But asking for permission doesn't actually prevent criticism. It just ensures that if you are criticized, you're being criticized for a version of yourself that isn't even real, and that is a much lonelier kind of discomfort and pain than just pure criticism. I. So let's talk about what happens when permission is no longer the gate that you're waiting at. I don't think the world gets easier. There's nothing that's gonna make it easier. But you work better. Your internal world makes more sense. Decisions are faster because you are the only one at the table with the voice that matters, your confidence becomes sturdier. cause it's rooted in your own values and it's not fluctuating based on. Whatever opinions are around you or voices are in your head from the people that you know you love and value, of course, and you've stopped contorting yourself to fit in any room. Instead you start choosing rooms that have enough space for your full spectrum of color. What does this look like? I'll give you an example. This is from my recent past when I decided to start this business. There were plenty of times when people would ask questions like, are you sure about this? How will it work? What is the actual plan? And these were well-meaning people who know the old me and love me and want great things for me, but they sensed that this direction that I was moving in was a big shift from what I had always done in the past. and so I had to learn to resist the urge to say things like, well, I've done a lot of research and I have this big spreadsheet I can show you. And I'm not saying it's definitely gonna work, but I thought, you know, the timing feels like it might be right. And I'm still keeping my options open, obviously. I just thought I would try it. Does that sound totally crazy? Because when I did that, which I did many times before I learned this lesson, when I said those things, I left that conversation feeling more unsure than when I arrived. cause not only did I not convince them, because that's not possible, they're not in my head, they can't see the full vision. I started convincing myself that I wasn't ready, that I needed to do more before I took any steps. But now, when these questions arise, and like I said, they still do. I sit back in my chair and I give their questions space. I wait a few seconds when they're done talking before I even start to answer, and then I just simply say, I know it looks like risk from the outside, but I've decided this is the direction I'm moving in. And if they continue to try to poke holes in anything, I just tell them I'm comfortable with the uncertainty. I imagine it as if it's a door locking from the inside. This is what I want and I'm not open to entertaining other people's doubts. let me tell you, something happens once you adopt that St. Sturdiness in real time. The people around you feel more comfortable and confident too. So they stopped trying to poke holes and everything. You're literally influencing the system from within it. The possibilities that open up once you let go of the need for other people's permission are full of color. Think about your life in gray scale. We've called it that before, right? A life that is focused on living by permission feels muted and beige. It's safe, it's predictable, but it blends into the background. Once you make the decision to trust yourself. Your life becomes high contrast. It's vivid, it has edges. It's not always neat or easy, but it's like fully saturated. I. So you don't need to make dramatic leaps today. When you think about this, I just want you to start practicing micro declaration, micro sovereignty. Okay. Try saying, this doesn't work for me without adding a single, because just stop right there. Choose a restaurant or a movie without saying, I don't care. What do you want? Try a new hobby. Do it quietly. Don't tell anybody for a month. Don't post about it. Don't ask anyone if they think it's a good idea. Just try it on your own. Take a class, whatever it is, let yourself want something. Maybe you want a rest, a change, a new path, a new relationship. Want that without needing to justify why you deserve it. The fact that you want it is justification enough. Okay. I wanna leave you with an invitation to take a moment to just ask yourself, where am I still waiting for a knot of approval before I move? Whose voice is the loudest on my internal board of directors? What would I do differently this month if I decided right now that I'm already allowed? As we wrap up today, remember this, the permission that you're looking for is not coming. This is freedom. It's not a bad thing. It means that the board of directors has been adjourned. You are the only one who has to live your life. You are the only one who knows the specific vibrant colors that you alone were meant to bring into this world. Go live in color. I'll see you next week. If this work resonates with you, this is what we do at a life in color. I hope you'll join us for future podcast episodes and come check us out at a life in color.co. That's where you'll find our journals and our rituals soon to be color maps and other really exciting. Exercises and products we're putting together. You can also find fine art prints of my paintings and other merch, all creations designed to bring more color and courage into your everyday life. Thank you for supporting this work and for supporting yourself. And as always, I would love to hear from you. Please send me emails at Laura L-A-U-R-A Life and color.co. Also, if this podcast means something to you, it would mean a lot if you would follow and leave a rating or review. It's one of the simplest ways to help this work. Reach more people who might need it. Thank you for being here.