Permission Granted

How I’m viewing myself and my life and everything is changing. Maybe I was confused as to how I should view myself. This is probably a weird time for a human being – the mid-twenties. You’re not in college anymore, but you may not consider yourself a fully-fledged adult. And I think deep down I still have some emotional issues that are draining me and causing me to lack energy and motivation in certain areas of my life, such that I’m not prioritizing effectively.

I think a lot of that had to do with not seeing a future for myself. I look at things too logically. Too step-by-step; what is appropriate; knowing where my place is; respecting boundaries a little too much. A big house with a landscaped yard and more pets wasn’t something I felt was appropriate for me to daydream about, so I never really did. Deep down I vaguely expected to at least try for that one day, but it is just so far in the future, and so irrelevant and inappropriate right now, that I just never allowed myself to think about it.

Then I watched something on tv, and those repressed desires suddenly all came up. Yes, I expect to have all of that - one day. Why don’t I allow myself to think about it? I should. I should know what I want so that when the time comes, I’ll be ready to move swiftly ahead with everything. This permission I granted myself also helped me visualize myself in the future as a “fully-fledged” adult – taking care of a home and other responsibilities. I’ve been telling myself unconsciously that I’m not there yet. I’ve been playing small. I’ve been forcing myself to keep from moving forward, I think. I have some weird notion that I’m at some “level”, and when I hit the next “level” then it is appropriate to do, be or spend time on various things. And I don’t even play video games, so I’m not really sure where all that is coming from.

Anyways, having uncovered all this, I was able to look around and see some issues with how I am thinking and how to fix it. I can’t explain it though. It is just this “knowing”. This new clarity I feel deep in my soul. But I have no idea how to explain it to any of you. It’s sort of like… I’ve been holding myself down, not thinking I deserve a full life, and that’s reflected in everything around me. But in the future I see myself gracefully handling all these things that matter to me. So why not do it now, too? I sort of just gave myself permission to live like the adult I always expected everyone to become, but I think I held myself back based on my perspective of those around me. That probably doesn’t make any sense, but it does to me. That’s not even remotely all of it, or even a good explanation of it, but that’s the best I’ve got. The important thing here is that essentially I just gave myself permission to live the life I want to live, in various (but not all) ways.