the door of yes 🙂

“I’ve had enough of this life of waiting for someone’s permission.” 

 Frank Lee

Over the six weeks of running my first online course, I learned many things. Some I hoped to learn, some I needed to learn, and some I never imagined would be part of the process.

The thing I want to talk about right now though is what I discovered underneath everything.

And that is, that it’s all about permission.

It’s so very simple.

When we were little tiddly peeps, we mostly had to get permission to do the things we wanted to do. Now that we’re all grown up {ahem}, we forget that we don’t need to have someone else’s thumbs up to go ahead with things that call to us.

Of course as adults we have a better grasp of consequences, both for ourselves and for others, than when we were small, and that’s a very good method of guidance when deciding whether or not to do things.

What I’m talking about specifically here is doing the things our hearts dream of; as much as I am sick of the phrase ‘speak your truth’, we can be sure that when people hear it, they recognise it, and they accept it. It might inconvenience them temporarily but I’ve spent most of my life endeavouring to be convenient,  and let me tell you, it’s extremely painful and damaging.

But essentially, although we might not choose to, given our values and understanding of consequences, we’re allowed to do anything we want. {Yeah, let that one soak in for a minute!}

And we’re the grown ups now so there’s no one who needs to be asked, except ourselves.

What I’ve noticed is that the reason why we are not doing the thing{s} we so very much want to do, {in this particular case expressing ourselves creatively but you can insert any topic here}, is because we aren’t giving ourselves permission to just do it.

I do this frequently in my own life; wait for someone else to let me know it’s ok to do what I want to do, whether by doing it first and being an example, or by actually talking it through with me until I feel ok about saying yes to myself. It’s not necessarily about literally asking someone ‘please may I do this?’; usually it’s more that we find ‘reasons’ to not do whatever it is.

This isn’t something {else} to judge ourselves for; it’s part of the human condition. Most of us do it in one area or another, as far as I can tell.

I saw it in the classroom. As soon as I said; try this, experiment, play, see what happens, it’s ok to make a mess,  it’s ok to make something you don’t like, it’s ok not to keep it, it’s ok not to share it, it’s ok if you find it hard to get going ~ there would regularly be this collective sigh of relief. Followed, somewhat counter-intuitively, by forward motion!

Permission was granted not to be perfect or nail everything first time round, and with that in place it felt safe to move forward.

permission portal 🙂

In an ideal world none of us would need permission to do what our hearts call us to do. We wouldn’t have fears about looking stupid, or failing, or wasting time or materials, or letting ourselves or others down.

There will ALWAYS be reasons not to do something; and the more important it is to you the larger and more valid-seeming they will be.

You can listen to those reasonable explanations of why it’s not possible, or you can gain permission to try anyway. And if you’re not in the place yet where you can do that for yourself, it’s perfectly ok to seek it out from someone else. {That’s permission in itself!}

Better to start imperfectly than not to start at all.

And this is what I do, I realised. I give you permission to have a go.

I do it because I know what a powerful force it is for me when I seek it for myself. And yes of course the ideal is to just give it to ourselves, but while we’re learning about that, it’s ok to ask for it.

Perhaps you want to explore your creative side and have a whole fortress springing up around you of reasons why it’s not the right time {money, busy-ness, other commitments, fear of being crap at it, whatever they may be}. If you suspect that any or all of those are just fear disguised as reasonable arguments, put yourself in a place where it’s ok to try anyway.

You’re allowed to do what you want to do, and if what you want to do is make art, come and play in my classroom where permission is free at the door. 🙂

What’s the one thing you would do if you stopped waiting for someone else to say it was a good idea? Anything at all. What would it be like if you decided to let yourself have/be/do it? {Even if now truly isn’t the right time, it’s delicious to contemplate!}

*********************************

The Creative Spark ecourse is available with instant access right now, inside the Happy Artist Studio! To learn more about it and sign up, click here.