Quarantine Permission Slips

I’m struggling this week.

I’m not sure why, but this has been a tough one. 

I had a completely different topic planned for this week’s post but it didn’t feel right. I tried several other topics, but they weren’t right either. So here I sit on a Thursday night and the only word that keeps coming to mind is GRACE.

So many people are struggling through this quarantine. There’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of emotions. 

I hear clients struggling to maintain goals and routines that were established in a different time.

I hear clients trying to maintain expectations for themselves without knowing why.

I hear diet-culture thoughts that are only leading to shame and disappointment. 

So the only thing I can think to write today is grace. 

Give yourself some grace. Know that this is hard. And not normal. And no one really knows how to get through it. 

As I’ve been thinking of self-compassion, I’m reminded of an exercise I learned from Brené Brown a.k.a. my ultimate woman crush. (If you don’t know Brené yet, please read this, this, and this. Watch this. And subscribe to this. Then proceed to fall in love with every word she says.)

One of her tricks for navigating emotion is to write a permission slip for herself. The idea is that by giving herself permission to feel her emotions and act in authentic ways, she allows her to be present in the experience. 

The first time she wrote herself a permission slip was when she met Oprah. She wrote, “permission to be excited, have fun, and be goofy” on a piece of paper and stuck it in her pocket. It was a simple reminder that she was allowed to geek out and be “uncool” on a very exciting day. 

With this quarantine, there are a lot of emotions that we need permission to feel. Brené says, “We’re not going to recognize emotion if we don’t feel like we have permission to feel emotion.” By writing a permission slip, you “give [yourself] the opportunity to be your most authentic self” (Rising Strong, p 69). 

We need connection and authenticity right now. We need to know that it’s ok to feel all the feels; because there certainly are a lot of them. 

So here are some permission slips that I’d like to offer to you:

I give myself permission to... take time for myself. 

I give myself permission to... feel all of my emotions. 

I give myself permission to... slow down.

I give myself permission to… eat the cookies. 

I give myself permission to... delay my goal setting. 

I give myself permission to... ask for help.

I give myself permission to... cry and laugh in the same moment.

I give myself permission to... do the dishes tomorrow. 

I give myself permission to... tell my kids I need some space. 

I give myself permission to... spend time on something just for fun. 

What other permission slips will you give yourself this week?