Permission

 Holding back, I feel, is pretty universal these days. It's as if we are all too worried about how wrong we will be perceived, therefore, we all put up this front of how we think people should envision us. And there we are, hiding our true selves in the shadow behind the faces of who we’re not.

 I see this happen pretty damn often and it's definitely more obvious to me with the people in my life that I know more than most. I'm not trying to put them on blast, but I see the difference between how they act with me versus how they act with other folks. And I won't say that I'm innocent to doing this because I am also guilty of getting caught up in this phenomenon. And I'm not quite sure why it is that we do this? Why do we feel unsafe to truly be ourselves in every sense? Just drop the chameleonage (not a word but I made it one), and just be the core of who we are, all convictions and no restrictions.

 I guess it's really easy to fall into the cracks of not giving ourselves permission to truly be ourselves. I feel like a big chunk of the reason a lot of us can react or respond this way is due to the age we live in. Yes, the age of social media!! Social media can be damningly influential in our everyday lives, and it goes both ways, negative and positive alike. Everyday, (for most folks) we get up and one of the first things we do is check our phones, get on social media, and then the unending scrolling begins!! And what is it that we see?? We see projections of other people and  what I can only assume are little snippets of what they think we would like to see. It's more of a highlights reel of people's daily lives, the “good parts”, if you will. We hardly ever get the full story unless we see these people all of the time. And due to all of these projections of the society that we live in, we can all get caught up in the “perfectionist” game.

 We all get wrapped up in what society tells us how everything is supposed to look like, which is a lie that we all seem to condone, and ultimately it sets us up for failure. With all of these high expectations of how we all think things are supposed to look like, it can leave us all in a place of thinking that we are all wrong because we're not doing this and we're not doing that. Essentially, we discount all of the things that we are and all of the things that we do. And it really baffles me, all of it, because we are the society that I speak of and we can change all of that. We really are all one and can work on this together to change this false sense of perfection that we think we need to be so that we can fully give, ourselves and in turn each other, permission to be our authentic selves. There is beauty in how we are all different because we add different flavors to the recipe of life. And if we are all the same kind of “perfection” that we think everyone should be, than this life would be so plain and dull.

 As a collective, I feel like we should all give ourselves the permission to truly be ourselves no matter what that looks like. Being different and set apart from each other shouldn't be threatening or even feared, it should be embraced!! Even though it may feel uncomfortable at times, it is far better than masking or watering yourself down from who you really are and fading yourself into everyone else. After all, isn't that what we all seek, honesty from one another?? To need permission from those around you to be yourself seems so absurd, and if that is your reality, then maybe you're in the wrong place. If the people around you don't appreciate you for who you truly are than don’t grace them with your presence. When you give yourself the permission to be yourself around the right people, they help grow you, and in turn, you help grow them. Moving into a space of transparency can be scary. But what is it about that transparency that scares us?? Is it the fear of judgements from others, or is it the fear of our own judgements that we project onto one another?? When was the last time you gave yourself full permission to be yourself, your true self, unashamed and unapologetically?