The Push & the Permission

First, thank you, thank you, thank you for your kindness and grace and encouragement. It happens every time: when I take a deep breath and tell the truth about myself--the scary-wild-unruly truth--what I find along the way is that I’m not alone at all, and that I’m not the only one who’s aching to rest and stop and find a new way, not the only one who’s been pushing too hard for too long. 

One of the words that keeps coming up in this conversation is permission.

I am, for better and worse, someone who depends quite heavily on my personal board of directors—a little group that acts as compass and guide, that reflects back to me my next steps and ragged edges. I’m not a just-me-and-my-journal person—I like to feel connected and surrounded by a little tribe that weighs in on the way I’m living in each season.

For many years, what I needed from those most important voices in my life was a push—you can do this! Your voice matters! You have something to say! Don’t be afraid! My husband, my best friends, my mentors, my family have been such constant and necessary cheerleaders—do this! Try it! Write it! Say it! 

I would never have become a writer without those voices. Some people have that deep-in-the-belly, against-all-odds, though-none-go-with-me confidence and ambition about their calling or their dream. I am not one of them. 

But Aaron wouldn’t let me stop. He pushed me and encouraged me. He’s my number one biggest supporter and cheerleader. He totally affirms my writing and traveling and working. And my parents and extended family and close friends have been pushing me in the best possible way, too. I’m so thankful for that. 

In this season, though, it’s a different kind of support that I’ve needed. I’ve needed the permission to slow down, to say no, to admit my fragility and exhaustion. This fall there were four very important conversations that gave me the permission I needed.

Aaron saw firsthand the stress cracks as they bloomed across our life and family and home. When I started to say things like, “babe, I’m too tired, I can’t catch up. Something’s wrong,” he was right there, ready to make a new way together. When I asked to reshuffle my workload and commitments so that I’d travel a lot less in 2013, he didn’t skip a beat. 

When I asked for grace in a thousand areas—leaving things undone that I’ve always been on top of, needing space and time to untangle all this, asking for help and partnership in new ways--Aaron has responded with mountains of grace, a gift I couldn’t have imagined. He gave me the first push, and also the first avalanche of permission in this season, and I’m so thankful for him and his voice in my life.

My dear friend and long-time mentor, Nancy, lives in the Bay Area, and she invited me to an event she knew we’d both love. I’d come stay with her for the week. It would be so fun…except that when the email came, I felt paralyzed and overwhelmed by the travel I’d already committed to, and the childcare logistics that go with it. With anyone else, I would have said no. Or yes, because I was scared to say no, scared to miss out on something. But because it was her, instead of a yes or a no, I sent a wild, rambling, “How do I get out of this mess?” email. And she replied right back. 

She said: STOP. Say no. Remake your life in a way that works for you, and remake it now.  And I literally cried with relief. 

My dad stopped over one night and on his way out, we were alone in the kitchen for a minute. I said, Hey, by the way, I think I need next year to be really different. I’m kind of too tired. I’m kind of scared. 

I was trying to keep it light, tiptoe in. My dad is one of my closest friends, and one of my biggest supporters, but at the same time, he’s literally the hardest-working, highest capacity person I know. It’s hard to say you’re tired to someone who does more in a day than most people do in a month. 

I was trying to keep it light, but he saw underneath my words. He put his hands on my shoulders in our kitchen and he said, I’m so glad to hear this. I’ve been worried about you, and I love that you’re going to slow things down.  Again, such deep relief. 

One night at our small group, after a trip that put me over the bad edge this fall, I babbled inarticulately about how something needed to change. I can’t do it, I said. Maybe this would work for a stronger person, but I’m done trying to pretend I can run like this. 

It was silent for a minute, a long cavernous minute that felt like an hour. And then across the circle, Matt said, We don’t care if you go to Dallas or LA, or if you don’t. We don’t care what you do or don’t do. We’re actually not impressed by you. We love you, and that’s a different thing. 

What a gift. Those four voices cut through the screaming noise in my head and heart and spoke the words I desperately needed. They gave me the permission I needed, in my dear friend Nancy’s words, to remake my life from the inside out. I’m working on it, and I invite you to join me. 

I'm not going to stop working--I don't want to. I love my job. I'm not going to stop traveling, even. But it's going to look really different this year. I'm going to remake it all from the inside out, built on love, on trust, on calling, and not on fear or the endless hamster wheel of doing.

Maybe you need a push—to get out there, risk something, try something, start something. And maybe you need permission to let something go, to walk away, to put down something you’ve been carrying for way too long. 

So this is what I want to know: what do you need right now? In this season, do you need the push, or do you need the permission?