3 Reasons The Only Permission You Need Is Your Own

A lot of times, people (myself once included), look outside themselves for others to give them permission to: do/say what they want, pursue their dreams, create a life that matters to them, and on the list goes.

Thing is, you’ve got to be the one to give yourself permission if you ever want to be whole. Here’s why:

1. You must give yourself permission to befriend yourself

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: you are the closest and best friend you’ll ever have.

When you refuse to befriend yourself, you don’t:

• defend your own decisions
• listen to your own intuition
• make choices that are in your best interests
• treat yourself with compassion
• and the negative list goes on.

When you look to others to guide you by asking for their permission/approval to do what you want to do with your life, you turn your back on yourself and give the power over your life to someone else. You don’t want to do that. Trust me on this: powerless is never a position you want to choose for yourself.

So choose to befriend yourself and have your own back always.

2. You must give yourself permission to trust yourself

You’ll never come to trust yourself if you don’t befriend yourself first (see number 1). And when you don’t trust yourself, you get stuck, waiting for others to validate and/or give you the go-ahead to live the life that you want.

You’ve lived with yourself all these years. You know yourself better than anyone else. You know what you want. You know what you need to do to get it. Yes, you do.

When you look outside yourself for permission, you chip away at your self-trust because you consciously (& subconsciously too) believe that someone else knows your wants and needs better than you do. And since you always (always, always) live out what you believe that leads to you:

• ignoring your own intuition
• waiting for others to tell you who you are and/or what you want
• doubting yourself
• being frustrated, angry, resentful, feeling stuck, and the like
• and the negative list goes on.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: Self-trust is the first secret of success. That’s true. You won’t find yourself succeeding in what you most want to have/be/do/say if you don’t trust yourself to know what those things are and also to act on them.

So choose to trust yourself so you can realize the success that you want.

3. You must give yourself permission to be the authority in your own life

If you don’t trust yourself and so ask others for permission, you let someone else dictate your decisions. That person (or people) then becomes the authority over your life in that particular area. Do that enough times in different areas of your life and you’ll come to feel like you have no power at all to decide the direction of your own life.

That’s how people (and you may be one of them) wind up weeks/years/decades down the road, feeling lost, wondering what happened to their life and how they got to be where they are, stuck on how to fix what’s wrong, and confused about how to get themselves where they want to be.

The truth is this: you already are the authority in your own life.

But when you refuse to treat yourself as the authority in your own life, that leads to you:

• allowing all kinds of bad behaviors from both others and from yourself
• not defending your own boundaries
• feeling small, insignificant, and like you/your wants/your needs are irrelevant
• treating yourself as if you are powerless and you don’t matter
• and the negative list goes on.

When you refuse to be the authority in your own life, that’s a self-betrayal. And if you think being betrayed by someone else is painful and debilitating, it pales in comparison to being betrayed by yourself. Why? Because, since you’re with you wherever you go, you can never get away from that hurt.

So choose to be the authority in your own life so you can thrive and become the person you want and are meant to be.

Get off the diet-go-round. Get on with your life.^®

Stop wishing, start doing.
Create your own weight loss before and after success story.

My weight loss transformation & how it can help you give yourself permission

You absolutely can break the diet cycle. I got free. Your life can be that way too.

I made my own path because I needed to get myself out of the crazy-making behavior I was having around food. I needed:

• no more dieting.
• no more restrictive eating.
• no weighing and measuring food.
• no off-limit foods.
• no more judgment around food.
• no more trying to figure out healthy eating or just what healthy foods to eat.
• no more judging my self-worth based on the scale.
• no more you’re-not-doing-it-perfectly diet rules that were only fueling my constant thinking about and obsession with food.

I needed to stop: searching for weight loss tips, wondering how to lose belly fat fast or how to lose weight fast, worrying about how to eat healthy or finding healthy snacks for weight loss, coming up with yet another healthy eating plan, trying to have quick weight loss, or forcing myself onto yet another weight loss diet. What I needed instead was to find, out of all the weight loss programs out there, the best weight loss program for me. Turns out, the best way to lose weight was to find out what works for me and do that.

• I’ve lost 160+ pounds naturally by simply trusting myself and listening to my intuition (mindful eating and eating intuitively).
• I have maintained that weight loss for 9 years and counting by trusting myself and listening to my intuition (mindful eating and intuitive eating).
• I no longer have any eating disorders, including bulimia (bulimia nervosa) and binge eating disorder (compulsive overeating).
• I no longer have a fear of food.

Just imagine what you could be doing with your life if you’d just commit to having your own before and after weight loss success story. You could be: following your own dreams and reaching your own goals, cultivating your own passions, and making both your inner and outer worlds a more blissful and peaceful place.

I got that for my life. I want it for yours. I will teach you how.

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Let today be the day you make peace with your body and with food.

For more information, check out the Start Where You Are Weight Loss^® page.