Permission To Be Human

On this episode of Just Call Jenna, host Jenna Williams explores what it truly means to give yourself permission to be human. Jenna unpacks how many of us were conditioned to believe our worth is tied to achievement, perfection, and constant productivity, while suppressing emotions, rest, and authenticity. Drawing from neuroscience, mindfulness, and spiritual teachings, she explains how chronic self-judgment keeps the nervous system stuck in survival mode and why self-compassion is essential for healing and growth. 

Using the Buddhist concept of the “second arrow,” Jenna breaks down how pain is a natural part of life, but shame and self-criticism are the suffering we add to ourselves. She shares practical tools like mindfulness meditation, emotional awareness, mirror affirmations, and daily pauses to help listeners reconnect with their authentic selves and rebuild self-worth from within. 

This episode is a powerful reminder that healing is not about becoming perfect — it’s about becoming present. Jenna encourages listeners to stop performing for validation, release shame-based patterns, and embrace rest, vulnerability, intuition, and emotional honesty. Permission to be Human is an invitation to let go of the need to earn your worth and finally believe that you are already enough exactly as you are.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome back. Today I'm going to talk about permission to be human. What you're going to get out of today is really understanding how to allow yourself some grace and not punish yourself for not being perfect. I think that's really important. Tools and resources will be available on my website, just call Jenna.online. Suggest you go there and look for items. So let's start with talking about what does permission to human mean? So I think somewhere along the way, many of us learned that being human was inconvenient. Don't cry, don't need, don't let them see you sweat, whatever you want to call it. Like only show the best version of yourself and hide the rest. We live in a world where we've been trained to apologize for being human. You were not meant to be perfect. You were simply meant to be you. And sometimes you is messy, and you have to allow that to be. Give yourself permission to be human, permission to feel, permission to fail, permission to rest, permission to not be perfect. You sort of have to give yourself permission to do that. We live in a world that is obsessed with perfection and productivity. Overproduce. From children, we are praised for achieving, producing, performing, pleasing. It's exhausting. And somewhere along the brain of the way, your brain learned something dangerous. It learned my worth is dependent on what I produce. It's produced on it's dependent on what I do. I'm only worthy if I'm perfect. I'm only worthy if I produce, produce, produce, produce, whatever that production may be. It may be perfection, it may be your job, it may be the pressures to be the perfect mom. It may be the pressure to be the perfect worker. It may be the pressure to be the perfect influencer on Instagram. I don't know what that pressure is for you. But your brain has learned the dangerous thing. That is, you are only safe if you're perfect. You have to give yourself permission to be human. Your brain needs permission. Remember, it's designed to keep you safe. It has one job to keep you alive, to keep you safe. And so you have to give yourself permission to not be perfect because along the way, you've learned your brain has been trained little by little over time. It is not safe to not be perfect. It is not safe to not produce. And therefore, your brain is going to fight you. Just give yourself permission to be human. Okay, I didn't produce today. Okay, I did nothing today. Okay, I think there's a big difference in allowing yourself to be human in a moment and allowing yourself to be lazy over time. Those are very big differences. You just need to give yourself permission to rest, to not be perfect, permission to feel. It's okay that you feel. Yes, that person hurts your feelings. Maybe you didn't like that that felt that way. Maybe they didn't mean to hurt your feelings. But you were never meant to be perfect. You were just meant to be you. Neuroscience actually teaches us that growing up in environments where love feels conditional, our nervous system becomes hyper alert. The brain learns that I must be perfect to survive. Remember, it's there for safety. So it actually activates a stress response system in you. Over time, this becomes your default. And if that default is stress, that is your default. I'm gonna back that down for a second. And one of my favorite stories is a Buddhist story about two arrows. Walking through the forest, you get hit by an arrow. Okay, the arrow hurts, you bleed, you patch yourself up, and you go about your business. Most of us shoot a second arrow that hits us, and that becomes other people are better. I always mess up whatever that self-deprecating behavior that you do. That is your second arrow. That second arrow is self-judgment. Giving yourself permission to be human is literally just removing the second arrow. There's a shift in spirituality, in Buddhism, Hinduism, mysticism. There's a shared message. You are not here to prove your worth or earn your worth. You are here to remember it. So let your second arrow be permission to be human. Just remember who you are. You are not meant to be there for everybody else and let all that external stuff come in the way. Most of us think self-criticism motivates growth. It doesn't. I'm here to tell you, it doesn't. Research has actually shown that chronic self-judgment activates the brain regions like a physical threat. Your brain does not know the difference of self-judgment versus being in real physical danger. Your body turns on chemical reactions to respond. It pulls resources in to try to protect you. Your body responds. So as you're judging yourself, that self-criticism, your body is actually responding to that the same way it would in a physical danger. Your body goes into danger mode. You might be saying, I'm not enough, but your body hears danger. Oh, I always mess up. Your body hears danger. You overwork, you shut down, you people please, you disassociate, you numb out. Not because you're lazy, it's because you're overwhelmed. It is exhausting to feel like you're in survival mode, to be in danger. And that's what your brain is doing. So go back. Give yourself permission to be human. Let's remove the second arrow. You don't have to make life harder on yourself. Just give yourself permission. Change the script. I'm growing. I'm allowed to struggle. Oh, I'm allowed to be human. You're allowed to be human. Absolutely, you are. So give yourself permission. If you can't find your own permission today, please take my permission to be human. You're allowed to be messy. You're allowed to not be perfect. You're allowed to not produce at every second of every day. So you might be asking yourself, how do I do this? How do I give myself permission to be human? The key is to observe. Don't pick up the second arrow. Just observe, huh? That thing happened, life kept coming, the storm hit me, and that really hurt. But I don't have to beat myself up about it. That person said something that really hurt my feelings. Just observe. That hurt my feelings. I don't have to do anything about it. I can just give myself permission to have my feelings be hurt. And maybe that hurts. Maybe it made me cry. Maybe I said something back in retaliation that I didn't want to say. Now, if you're saying something nasty back to everybody, maybe you need to do a little internal work. That's a whole different matter. But I think you just meditation, like just observe how you feel. You don't have to pick up the second arrow and beat yourself up with it. You don't have to shoot another arrow at yourself. A common practice is to notice your breath, then your body. Start with, like, okay, that's how my feet feel. Are they heavy? You know, do I feel like they're touching something? Are my shoes comfortable? Are my socks warm? Notice your feet. Then you move to your legs, then to your back, then to your shoulders, then to your jaw. Soften each section with a breath. Just let it relax. Don't try to change it. Just notice it. How does it feel when thoughts arise? Don't fight them. Just go, okay, that's how I feel. That's permission to be human. It's basically what people say is like a body scan. You're almost going to do the same thing. And as you breathe, let your body relax and let your thoughts just be. Your reaction is a different story. We're not going to go that far. Just acknowledge how you feel. You do not need to have your body respond in danger. This was a really hard one for me. I have a problem where sometimes I think things in my head and they don't come out my mouth the way that I think them. My brain is working over time to do that. The best I can describe it is it's sort of like when you're drinking and you think you're saying things right and they come out all backwards. That's how my brain works a lot of the time. There's a lot of self-judgment. It is very hard not to pick up that second arrow and shoot myself with it. Oh, I'm dumb. Oh, I'm this. Oh, I'm not perfect. I couldn't get those words out. Instead, it's just, okay, that was hard. I realize what came out of my mouth was not what I meant to say. And I just correct myself in the moment. Permission to be human is not picking up the second arrow, not beating myself up, going, Jenna, you're dumb. You did something wrong. Just, okay, I said that I made a mistake. I'm human. That's okay. Now, if I'm making the same mistake eight, 10, 12 times in a row, maybe I need to go do something about that. And that's my choice. But permission to be human is not beating myself up and shooting the second arrow because something came out wrong. That's a normal human function beyond people who've lived through a stroke. We all sometimes just react, or, you know, the distance between our brain and our mouths is pretty far. Just correct yourself. Permission to be human is that. You might look at yourself in a mirror and say, I give you permission to be human. I forgive you for just surviving and making mistakes. Don't be shocked if you try that one and you cry or have very emotional reactions to it. I recommend doing that alone in the bathroom mirror a couple of times before you get comfortable talking to yourself. Try it for 30 days. The second week I started actually really crying when I did that. I was rebuilding myself. That's healing. Just looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, I give you permission to be human. I forgive you for surviving. I love you with no conditions. Imagine saying that to yourself. All of us deeply want to hear that, I believe. Inside of us, we're de we're desperately waiting for other people to say that to us. Just imagine if you're the person that can give that to yourself every day. You don't need that from other people. You can do that yourself. That's putting down the second arrow. That's just allowing yourself to be human. It's allowing yourself room to make a big mistake. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I forgive myself for them and just go, okay, I'm gonna learn from that and do better. I'm not the kind of person that will make the same mistake 15 times in a row. I'm gonna learn something from it. Just name your emotions when they come up. Huh, my feelings are hurt. That made me angry. Okay, I'm angry. That made me feel insecure. That triggered me. Whatever name you want to give it. But name the emotions. Instead of saying I'm a mess, say I'm feeling anxious or embarrassed. Naming emotions actually restores your personal power to you. Permission to be human. Imagine that just saying, I feel embarrassed. Instead of letting that embarrassment be a second arrow that now you're bad because you were embarrassed, just I'm embarrassed. It actually strengthens your personal power. It will allow you to be human. It will give yourself permission to be human. I think about that a lot when you go back to that idea of standing in the mirror and saying, I give you permission to be human. I forgive you for just being in survival. I love you with no conditions. You're giving yourself that permission. What does it look like to live with that permission? You may be wondering. It starts by showing up as resting without guilt. Imagine that. You can just rest and say, I'm overwhelmed, and you rest and you don't feel guilty about it. Your personal power has been restored. It's saying no without an apology. It's not saying sorry, I can't just, no, can't do it. And you're okay with it. You don't feel the need to make the other person feel comfortable. You're okay with your boundaries. It looks like crying without shame. Oh, that made me cry. Sometimes tears of joy, sometimes tears of sadness, sometimes tears of overwhelm, or just you got stuck in your feelings. But it looks like crying without feeling shameful. For me, a big one as a control freak, asking for help without feeling weak. I don't feel weak to ask people for help anymore. I used to. It looks like starting again without self-hatred, without beating yourself up. I'm a failure. I'm always bad. No, it just means you stop, you just get back up. It means you stop trying to earn your worth. You accept that you're worthy just because you are. Just because you are. You are worthy just as you are. Again, you were not meant to be perfect. You were here to be just you, authentically you, and you are enough just as you are. I'm not gonna beat myself up and be like, oh, you're stupid because you felt shame. Listen, we all do it. Maybe not every day, but we all do it. If you wouldn't talk to someone you love, your family member, your child, your brother, your sister, if you wouldn't talk to someone you love like that, don't talk to yourself like that. You don't deserve to beat yourself up and shoot a second arrow. You're gonna create daily pauses. It's gonna normalize imperfection. That's not your worth. Growth isn't linear. You don't have to go step by step up a stair ladder. Healing is not pretty. It's not. Trust me, it's not. Um, and that's okay. You are who you are, and it's okay to just be who you are as you are. Now, if there's things you don't like about yourself, yes, you are responsible for growing, changing them, and doing something about that. Studies actually show that compassion lowers your cortisol and increases resilience. It's literally rewiring your brain. Let's say that again. Self-compassion, treating yourself with care, actually lowers your cortisol and increases your resilience. It actually rewires your brain to be more resilient. So while today it may feel a little uncomfortable, giving yourself some grace, give yourself some permission, allow yourself to not be perfect. You're actually going to make your brain stop being in survival mode. And that's gonna reset your nervous system, which is going to make your body stop responding that your negative thoughts are danger. Here's the truth that doesn't get said enough. The places that we don't talk about. You don't need to become a better version of yourself to be worthy of your own life. You are okay just as you are. Most of us are living in a constant pressure. I'll relax when, I'll be happy when, I'll be enough when, when I lose weight, when I make more money, when I get that new house or car, when my relationship is perfect, when my podcast grows, name your when. But what that actually creates in life where you are always almost allowed to be worthy. So you are never enough. You are always chasing enough. That's a second arrow. Your nervous system feels that. It's the second arrow you shoot at yourself. I'll be enough when. No, you are enough right now. Permission to be human is that you are allowed to be exactly where you are. Now, granted, you can absolutely should go for a growth mindset, learn your lessons, and move forward. You can be a better version of yourself, but that doesn't mean that you're not okay now. The neuroscience of the brain is that when you give yourself that permission and you allow yourself to be worthy, you take your brain out of the place where it's constantly scanning to become safe. Remember, the brain's job is to keep you alive, keep you safe. Most of us have been in survival mode for so long we don't even know what relax feels like. It's so uncomfortable we can't settle into it. That gap that you've created with the when, it enforces that internal answer of, I'm not safe until when happens. I'm not safe. You you create an identity from lack and your body stays in a stress state. It's not necessarily a state of panic, like it's not a life or death, but you're in stress survival because you're literally rejecting yourself. So, how about just I'm okay as I am? Being human includes things that are uncomfortable. It includes messy. It includes things like feeling unmotivated, getting overwhelmed, wanting to check out, being reactive, having messy thoughts. It's not failure, but it is your baseline when you get to that place of feeling unmotivated and all that. So when you're constantly rejecting yourself, that becomes your baseline. That becomes your normal. For many of us, that is where normal is. So we've created a society and personally reinforced it where the highest functioning version of you is acceptable and you're rejecting all the parts of you that aren't perfect. You're literally rejecting yourself. And society reinforces that for you. So just allow yourself to relax. It's okay. Now, there's a big difference between it's okay to have a messy instance. Again, then having multiple messy instances. I am not condoning that you make a ton of mistakes. I'm just saying give yourself permission to be human. Take yourself out of survival mode. Stop rejecting yourself. So let's say you wake up and you feel off. You feel low energy, you feel irritated, you're not inspired. Oh, um, I don't want to do this day. Most of us immediately jump to, what's wrong with me? I don't have time for this. I got places to go. So you feel off. Your energy is a mess. You don't want to go to work, whatever it is. You just want to go back to bed, stay in your home. You don't want to do anything that's on your calendar today. I think we've all been there. It's okay to say, I feel off today. I feel unmotivated. I'm really not looking forward to going to work. I don't want to deal with so-and-so. It's okay. Just say, I'm human. This is a normal response. And your nervous system will switch off. Your brain will switch into safety. You will literally stop rejecting yourself. That negative self-talk is one of the worst things you can do to yourself. And we don't talk about that enough. I think permission to be human is to say, I feel off. I feel tired today, I feel unmotivated. Instead of beating yourself up that you're not good enough and telling you to reject yourself, why not just let yourself go, huh? I'm human. This happens. Now again, if you feel off and that way for maybe 10 days in a row, it might be time to get some help. Because if you can't get yourself out of it by just giving yourself permission to say, I feel this way, and okay, I'm I feel off. I don't want to see that person. I'm still gonna go to work. Oh my God, there's so much traffic, and there was an accident today. The drive to work is gonna be brutal. Okay, but I'm still gonna get to work. Permission to be human is telling yourself, stop making your current state a problem. It's okay to have an off day. Again, an off week is very different from an off day. In real life, what might that look like? It might look like recording a podcast when you don't feel on. It might look like resting without negotiation. My body feels tired. I'm just gonna go take a nap. Most of us feel like, oh, I'm not supposed to do that. What if you need to? What if your body does? It's letting yourself feel disappointed without rushing to reframe it. Huh, that person said that thing to me and that hurt my feelings. I was really looking forward to hanging out with so-and-so, and they canceled the plans. Instead of just reframing it to whatever else, just go, huh, I'm disappointed. Really wish we could have got together. Most of life is actually lived in that messy middle, in the mundane spaces. Most of life is not at a breakthrough or rock bottom. It's the in-between. And when you're not allowing yourself to be human, you're gonna miss your life in those day to days. You're gonna miss it because you're so busy rejecting yourself. Conditioning is that at some point you learn that certain parts of you were more acceptable than others. Oh, people like me when I'm being funny and sarcastic. Therefore, I won't tell them that I'm human. And I have pain. For someone like me, that's the control freak that I don't want anybody to perceive me as weak, so I won't ask for help. In the quiet spaces, I'm suffering because there's too much on my plate. I'm overwhelmed. Certain parts of me were not met with support. And then I turned around and rejected myself. Oh, so-and-so said this bad thing about me. Now I'm going to overjudge myself. They said they didn't like what I said. Well, now nobody likes anything I say. It's so all or nothing. So you were conditioned to feel the way that you feel. You learned that certain parts of you are more acceptable than others. You conditioned yourself by beating yourself up even more. And your brain learned these parts of me are not safe. Danger. You built that as an identity. Giving yourself permission to be human is allowing all those parts to exist. It is allowing both sides of the coin, like a yin-yang, right? There's light in every dark, dark in every light. You're going to have good and bad parts of you. The brain is neutral, it doesn't know the difference. But if you rejected those parts of yourself, you basically told your brain those parts are danger. Hide them, hide them. The body keeps the score, though. Somewhere in there, they're buried. Your body has some trauma in it somewhere from you rejecting yourself. You've literally hurt yourself. And now it's time to give yourself permission to be human and allow that. You don't need to earn the right to exist. You just don't. You have the right to exist in your own life because you're alive, because you're breathing, because you exist. You don't need to fix yourself to be worthy. It's not an I'll be worthy when. You are worthy right now. And if there's something that you want to be better, you want to become the best version of yourself, you can become future you and make those changes. But trying to be future you and the better version of yourself does not negate the value of the you that exists today. That is permission to be human. It is you have value just as you are. So let me give you permission while you learn to give it to yourself. Borrow my permission. You have my permission to be human, to not be perfect, to just exist and that you are okay just exactly how you are. So until you can get the strength in yourself and sort of reprogram yourself to accept that you're worthy, borrow my permission. You have my permission to just be, to just be human, to make a big mistake. You were never meant to be perfect. You are meant to be present, you are meant to be alive, you are meant to feel, you are meant to evolve. Your sensitivity is actually sacred. Your emotions are actually intelligent. Your struggles are your teachers. Your heart is absolutely resilient. It will recover. You don't need to become someone else to be worthy. You are okay just as you are. It is amazing just how okay you are. You can give yourself permission to breathe, rest, feel, heal, and be human. Shame is not truth. It's actually a neural pattern that you've learned. You've learned to reject parts of yourself that you now need to welcome back into you. There's a neuroscience Rick Hansen, and he explained that the brain is like Velcro for bad experiences and like Teflon for good ones. Think about that. It's the negativity bias in the brain. In ancient times, noticing danger meant survival. And today that shows up as overthinking, self-judgment, anxiety, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, give it a name. It is actually rejecting the parts of you because somewhere along the way you learn those are shameful. Don't show those parts. Remember, there's a neuroscientist that said the brain is like Velcro for bad experiences and Teflon for good ones. It literally clings to the bad ones and like bounces off the good ones. That is the negativity of bias in the brain. The brain actually works that way. So if you understand that, just know that it is easier for you to hold on to things that hurt your feelings and ruminate them, ruminate on them, than it is to actually feel good ones and allow that to resonate. So when you feel like you're not enough, it's really not a weakness. It's actually biology. You are not broken. You are simply wired for survival. Let me say that again for the cheapse. When you feel not enough, it's literally not a weakness. It's biology. You are wired for your brain to say, this hurt and now I'm gonna ruminate on. That is actually how the brain works. Shame says there's something wrong with me. You were told, stop crying, be strong, suck it up, don't be dramatic, get over it. You learned that that's the way it was supposed to be. You learned that if I judge myself first, no one can hurt me. You literally have a survival mechanism. You learned pieces of yourself were not accepted, and that shame made you reject pieces of yourself. Permission to be human. It's going to change how you live. You'll stop overworking to prove your worth because you're gonna realize you're worthy just as you are. You're gonna stop staying in unhealthy relationships and hiding your emotions, chasing approval. You're gonna stop resting without guilt. You're gonna speak your truth, you're gonna choose peace, and you're gonna trust your intuition. Now, you're not gonna do all that today, so please don't go so dramatic that you do that. Let's start with what you can do. If we talk about that in a spirituality way, it's alignment. In neuroscience, it's coherence in your brain, heart, and body synchronizing. Same thing, different language. It's you becoming regulated, whole, and present. So I think if you think about it as what can I do today, I you don't have to take on the world. I mean, if you want to, by all means, I'm not stopping you, I'm not telling you to not do that. But I think it's overwhelming. Your brain's gonna fight you. Give yourself a little grace, giving yourself permission to feel, think, and not be perfect. You are not only accepted as the best version of you, you are accepted as you, just you, just as you are. Thanks for joining today. Remember, karma is real, energy is contagious. Check your vibes.