Permission Slips

How should we be spending our quarantined days? Some advocate learning new skills, spring cleaning, detoxes and workouts while others lobby satisfaction in the simple act of survival. I find no error in either except that some insinuate one is truer than the other.

I take issue with things that cookie cutter large groups of people into molds meant for a few (or sometimes just one). We use personal experiences to write our own definitions, then project them on others – whether they look like us or not. I believe this underlines many of our failed attempts in effective public systems and even friendships. Our experiences differ, so our definitions differ, so our understanding and our needs differ. While I support black and white in a handful of areas – searching through the gray, or what I sometimes call “the in-between,” is where I find understanding (connection) to myself and others

Gray requires self-awareness. If we are to search, we must know what we are looking for or at the very least know what we want to find. Yet before we can do that, we must consider what brought us to these desires. As we walk without a completely defined path we bump into others doing the same, only to discover though we’ve both found ourselves in the exact same place, we are searching for things completely different - or better yet, the same, but for different reasons. Nevertheless, we decide to walk together for a while because it sure doesn’t hurt to have a companion every now and then. As we walk, we talk, describing the paths that led us here and push us towards wherever next is. It’s in these conversations that we realize our differences and therefore ourselves. We are aware.

Brené Brown provides us with a useful tool in practicing self-awareness that happens to suit these quarantined days quite well. She calls them “permission slips.” Our natural inclination may be to visualize a piece of paper requiring a parent signature for a school field trip, or even just a hall pass. Regardless, it includes a person of authority allowing something to be done.

Personal permission slips acknowledge we are in charge of our own behavior. They are intended to serve as a way to state how we want to behave, especially in difficult situations. In order to do so, we must take the time to assess where we are, where we want to go, and who we want to be along the way. For instance, we may want to become brave so we give ourselves permission to do something we define as brave. However, we can also give ourselves permission to be still growing so sometimes we give ourselves permission to be afraid and walk out of the room to breathe instead of standing up to speak. The point is – it’s not an excuse; it’s permission. Permission to act; permission to grow; permission to be.

There is no fault in taking this time to excel in areas previously left untouched, nor is there fault in recognizing this time is, in fact, quite trying for our mental health, giving survival a place in our definition of victory. The key is recognition – becoming self-aware of what we need, not to excuse ourselves from healthy growth but to allow for it.