Mindset Monday: Permission

For much of my life, I’ve had an inner gatekeeper. She’s a mean little gremlin who tells me I don’t deserve the thing I want. She withholds permission.

Permission to rest. Permission to fail. Permission to take up space. Permission to walk away, to say no.

She started policing me at a young age. I was eleven years old, standing in the wreckage of my father’s death, when a well-meaning adult told me I was now responsible for my mother.

I took it in like a commandment, but it was more than a commandment. It became a core belief that would run my life for decades: you don’t have permission to claim anything for yourself until everyone else is okay.

Psychologists call it parentification. I call it the origin story of every high-achieving woman I have ever met.

It produces women who are extraordinary by every external measure — accomplished, dependable, tireless — and who wake up at 3AM wondering if they forgot to send a birthday card.

Women who carry the weight of everyone around them and secretly sprint toward any available escape hatch.

Women who need a reason — a good enough reason, a selfless enough reason — to do anything just for themselves.

I am walking a portion of the Camino de Santiago in a few weeks. I’ve done mental gymnastics to make it okay to step away from my responsibilities. It’s a fundraiser, so not purely selfish.

See? Still waiting for permission.

Are you?

Sit with that question this week.

What story are you carrying right now, that was handed to you before you were old enough to consent to carrying it?

And: what would you do, or feel, or let go of if you finally gave yourself permission?

You don’t need anyone to hand it to you.

You never did.