By Dina Aldabbagh

Permission slip permission slip permission slip. Two little words and they’re somehow at the root of our entire lives.

We essentially live our lives looking to the world to give us permission to live our truth. We want to dress a certain way, but we allow the event we’re attending to be our permission slip. “Because I’m going to a fancy dinner, I can wear my nice skirt! Yay!” We want to live at a certain level of class, but we wait for the high income paycheck to come in, the designer clothes to be bought, and the six-figure car to be leased in order to say, “Yeah, I’m a classy person.” We want to be interesting, but we wait for other people to be interested in us. We wait for them to ask us questions about ourselves in order for us to feel like we have permission to assume we’re interesting enough to be talked about. 

The paradox is that in waiting for the permission slip, you are actually assuming the position of not being that exact thing that you already know you are or want to be. Instead, when you know something as your truth, and live from there, you assume the type of beliefs that someone would have if those things were already true for you. On the “being interesting” example — when you already know you’re an interesting person, you show up in conversations assuming people want to listen to you. You’re not trying to become something or convince anyone that you are, you’re just living life like, of course you are.

You’re not performing so the world can finally give you your wings and say, “Yup you can fly now.” The wings are already on your back. You can stop working to convince yourself through other people’s approval that it’s okay for you to take off. You believe you’re a classy person? Well, no level of performance of class will make it true for you. You could be dirt poor, but if you act with class — in your speech, mannerisms, conduct — then the world will look at you like a class act. You are the manifestation of class — not the paycheck, cars, and clothes. A classy person would recognize you as class even dressed in what you think is the opposite of luxury. 

We look for permission slips for things because we deeply fear being frauds. We are so afraid that if we show up like that first, without the evidence, then people will recognize us as fakes, laugh at us, and tell us to get off the stage. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t be doing that?” So we grow slowly in order to gain enough evidence to the point that we finally believe, without a doubt, that “This is who I am,” and “No matter what anybody says now, they can’t convince me I’m not.” So we stack evidence in pursuit of building confidence. 

We think if we go to enough fancy dinners, then we would’ve worn the nice outfit enough times that we believe that this is us. But it’s a bit backwards in understanding. We try to seek out the fancy dinners in order to show up as someone who dresses nice or lives in luxury…but in reality, the fancy dinners are a side effect of already being that person. They don’t make you someone who dresses nice, they just allow you to show up that way and feel like you’re in place. If you’re always eating at the neighborhood Apple Bees, you may not feel comfortable dressing that way — but you could. Eating at Apple Bees means nothing. It’s just a place you eat. You can dress however you want simply because that’s the honest representation of you.

As long as you wait for the world to tell you it’s okay to be a certain way — to act, think, believe a certain way — then you will never stop waiting. This is everyone’s first time on earth — everyone is looking to the next person to gauge what’s okay, what’s allowed. You think you’re looking to them to give you the thumbs up to be who you truly are, but the whole world is actually looking to you to know how they are supposed to receive, view, and treat you. 

The world is not your permission slip, you are the world’s permission slip.

When you are the first one to go ahead and say, “This is what’s real. This is the truth,” you make the way for everyone else to agree. When you recognize something as real, and show up in form, you allow the world to recognize its form too. But the key is that they can’t recognize what they can’t see. 

You could say, “I’m an athletic person,” but you never work out. Even though you may know you are meant to be athletic, you’re waiting for the world to say, “Yeah, you’re athletic. You’re allowed to show up as athletic now and start doing things athletes do.” That’s never going to happen, because the world is actually looking to you to know if you’re athletic or not. “Oh you workout? Yeah, you’re athletic.” When we’re waiting for a permission slip to be who we truly are, we’re essentially playing a game of cat and mouse with the world. They’re waiting for us to claim we’re athletic and we’re waiting on them to claim we’re athletic. And in the meantime, no athletic activity is being done. 

It’s like if you were to say, “I’m a funny person,” but you won’t crack a joke around people. Sure, you may know you’re funny, but no one else does. When you’re around them, you’re silent or serious. So to them, you’re not funny — because they’ve never witnessed you as being funny. Meanwhile, you’re waiting for them to recognize you as funny in order to feel comfortable enough to joke around. So while you’re waiting for them to identify you as a funny person, they’re only receiving the not funny version of you. And then, duh, of course, they won’t think you’re funny. At least not with them. “Oh, I don’t know…maybe he’s funny, but he doesn’t joke around with me so I wouldn’t know.” They wouldn’t. Because you don’t allow it. 

The way you show up is what you’re telling people you are. You can claim with your words all day that you’re stylish — because you know you and you know that you have good taste — but if the world only ever sees you in XL t-shirts and running shorts…they won’t think you’re stylish. That’s the paradox we live in with the permission slip. We’re waiting for the world to say “This is who you are,” in order for us to feel safe enough to be that thing, but they’re all waiting for us. 

Vienna waits for you — a song by Billy Joel. Obviously the song implies the meaning that you’re rushing off to your dream life, but your dream life is not going anywhere without you — it’s waiting for you, for when you’re ready. I’ll offer another perspective on the interpretation. Vienna isn’t just not going anywhere without you, but it’s actually waiting for you. If you want to experience yourself in Italy, for example, Italy is waiting for you to come. Once you get there, you get to be the “Italy Version” of yourself, but you have to go to Italy. No one is going to buy the ticket for you. No one’s kidnapping you and taking you there. The rule is that you must make the move — of your own free will. Italy isn’t going to come to you and say, “You’re meant to be here,” rather it is you that must say, “This is the place for me.” Then you just go to Italy. Then the whole world sees the Italian version of you.

You can be the version of you in Italy as soon as you say, “I get to be here” — as soon as you give yourself permission to be there. Last year, I moved to Spain. Nearly two years ago, I had the idea to go. Part of me said, “This is insane. Are you derailing your life just because you want to live there? Don’t you need a good enough reason? A job in your field?” But I didn’t find that, and I decided not to wait. I found any job just to get me there, simply because I wanted to live there. At first, I was debating, because of course I was afraid. I feared that perhaps I was wasting my time, not progressing soon enough in life towards what I actually want for my career. I also feared that those close to me would look at me and say, “Dina, you’re crazy.” Well, lucky for me, I got to the point where I just realized I didn’t care. I didn’t care if this year of my life was somehow a total waste because in the grand scheme of my life, what’s a year? I didn’t care if my family and friends thought I was insane, because they’re not the ones who have to live with the consequences of my actions, I am. So I finally said to myself, “Yes, I am doing this.” 

I gave myself that permission slip and decided I was willing to live with whatever consequences came with living the life that felt true for me. Well, I have now moved to Spain, lived there, and moved back. And I can tell you that all my fears never manifested. The people around me have overwhelmingly admired that I did such a move and I actually ended up getting my life more on track than before I went. But even if those fears did happen, I still got to live in Spain for a year. 

Imagine if I waited. Imagine if I didn’t move until I got all my inner circle to agree before deciding that that was the right move for me. Surely, they would say “No, it’s not.” But why? Because now they would support me to go anywhere in the world that I choose. So…what changed? I gave them the permission to support a move like that from me, because my actions showed them, “This is who I am.” And now they’ve witnessed me acting like that — and actually only coming out the other side better. 

If I waited for my fears to be soothed before going, I would’ve never gone. If I waited for the world to tell me, “You’re allowed to do this. This is who you are,” it simply wouldn’t have happened. So what strengthened me to make a move unlike anything I’ve ever done? It was the voice inside of me that said, “This is right for you.”

You can wait your whole life to get permission to dress the way you want to dress, joke the way you want to joke, and move to the place you want to move — because the world is waiting for your permission to recognize you like that. You can wait on the world, or you can realize that you already have permission. That voice inside of me that said, “This is right for you”? That was God giving me permission. 

You know who is your permission slip? God. Every pull you feel in your soul to do something — that even though you have no reason to believe you can, you just feel like it’s right for you — that’s God guiding you. The mere fact that you have that pull means that’s already who you are. 

You know how you know you’re funny? You find yourself funny. You know how you know you’re beautiful? You find yourself beautiful. You know how you know you’re kind? You know your heart. You don’t need someone to come along and say, “You’re funny, beautiful and kind!” in order for that to now be true about you. The key is: you’re not doing what you’re doing to convince anyone of anything so that it can then be true. You’re showing up in the way you are because that’s what’s already true for you. People may recognize it after the fact, but their validation doesn’t make it true.

I think of marriage in this context. If you meet someone, you fall in love, and you believe you’re meant to be with them forever, then you’re the only one who can make that decision and commitment. There’s not going to be anyone coming to you and saying, “Yup, this is the person you’ll die with.” Even if they did say it, they don’t know. No one can make that commitment but you, because you are the one who knows what you need in a relationship, what you want in a person, and what the intimacy of that relationship looks like. You won’t have any person coming to you with a permission slip to be with the person you’ll marry. They may support you, but they can’t see the future. They can’t say, “No pain in the future if you marry this person.” You don’t even know. You just have to decide. You have to get to the point where you say: “I know me. I know what’s right for me. And while I can’t predict the future, I know this is currently the right move for me.”

The other aspect of being your own permission slip is that you make sense of the entire world from that stance. When you’re so rooted in something as your truth, it doesn’t even matter what things look like on the outside. People could say or treat you like the exact opposite is true, but you don’t care. When you know you’re a lovable person, even if someone treats you badly, you don’t assume that has anything to do with you. Instead, you actually recognize that there must be something else they’re going through that would make them treat you like that. When you live from the truth that is in your heart, you don’t take things personally — because you’re not constantly looking for evidence from the outside world on who you are. You’re not scanning for contradictions of your truth and asking the world who you’re allowed to be. You’re not asking what your place in the world is or what your real personality is. It’s the difference between “believing in the story” the world is telling you, and knowing that you are the story. You are the world’s permission slip to reflect back to you the way they do. 

The most revolutionary people in the world were the ones who knew something was right, even though everyone else said they were crazy. Regardless, they acted anyways. The approval of the world came later. People are just scared and unsure and they don’t have the energy to believe in the vision of a maybe rather than the reality of what’s current. It’s not personal. 

Most people live off the philosophy of “I’ll believe it when I see it.” What changes your life, though, is the stance of, “Because I believe, I will see.” You don’t have to see it to know it’s true. You don’t need confirmation to give you permission to act from that place. This is what feels right to you, so you know it’s right. The sense of what’s right for you is already in your soul. You feel it. You just have to be willing to trust it.

Let me tell you a secret…the consequences of trusting yourself are never as bad as you think they could be. Things aren’t as fatal as our fears claim. That is all to say: it’s not that deep. It’s not that severe. Most of our fears never leave our mind. You can always change whatever doesn’t work for you, but if it feels right in this moment, that’s all the permission you need.