I’ve known in my heart for a while that my word for 2021 is permission. When I first attempted to describe my word choice, I didn’t feel like I was really getting at the reason why this word surfaced for me. I even had written an entire alternate post, but I never shared it because my instinct knew this word choice was coming from someplace deeper and I needed to make sense of it.
2020 was a hard year for me. And a deeply impactful one too. Both/And.
I realize saying 2020 was hard is a pretty cliché thing to say at this point. The disorienting COVID pandemic…systemic racism and inequitable police brutality raging into the necessary forefront of national consciousness…a suffocatingly intense and toxic election season in our troublingly divided and polarized nation—all contributing to a consequential year with much to grieve and reflect on. “Because…2020” has become a fairly universal disclaimer we can throw on anything that went wrong—whether a natural disaster or running out of clean socks. Of course, these underlying issues have not disappeared just because we enter a new year. Even as these same collective challenges continue, we’ve already been confronted with the disturbing reality of the insurrection at the US Capitol.
Though I could hide behind all the general, communal hard - 2020 was a hard for me in more individual ways too as I’ve grappled deeply with some personal betrayal. And though I’ve found beautiful healing and support and can now see and honor the strength I’ve gained, I also spent some of last year intentionally putting on my “emotional armor”, deliberately careful to trust only those very closest to me in my circle.
The world—and my world—changed in ways I didn’t expect in 2020. And both the collective and individual change gave me much to wrestle with and make sense of.
Obviously change isn’t unique to 2020. Life is always changing. I am always changing. Though I am a person constantly drawn to deep personal reflection and intention — this feels different. The world is demanding something different. That is clear. And I’m at a place where I feel myself breaking open too. Though I’ve been producing plenty and juggling more than enough responsibilities recently, I’ve also felt a nagging sense that there’s something more. I’m making sense of what next steps to take.
In my writing group the other day, my teacher shared a poem from the poet David Whyte called Start Close In. I adore David Whyte’s work—his book Consolations sits on my end table and I refer to it often—so I was immediately hooked.
The poem reads like great advice.
Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first thing
close in,
the step you don’t want to take
…
…
Start with your own question,
give up on other people’s questions,
don’t let them smother something simple.
…
…
When I typed “Start Close In” into my browser to look up the words to the poem—it brought up a three-week workshop—Shaping a Creative Life Equal to the Challenge of Our Times—that David Whyte was offering. I did a double-take—certainly this had to be something from the past or something in a different country. But no—it was here and now, virtual, and starting the next day. I signed up immediately. Though somewhat unexpected, this came at a perfect time for me when I feel myself diving into new and deeper levels of self-understanding Being able to hear directly from David (can I call call him David?! :-) three weeks in a row feels like an immense privilege.
In the workshop this morning, David—using his always eloquent style of word imagery—shared a powerful analogy of childbirth. As a newborn comes into this world, their first urgent cry is the sound of trauma — their being forced into a world for which they are not yet prepared. And like a newborn, when we as adults stand in our own trauma (either collective or individual), we too share the same reluctance for that first or next step — because we don’t always know what it is and we also feel a certain reluctance to enter a new or evolving world that we don’t feel fully prepared for.
I feel that. The world has changed. How we talk and listen to each other has changed. Trauma—collective and personal—has impacted and changed me. Changed us. And in a way, I too feel like I’m stepping into an unknown world and I don’t always know who I am in it or how to show up. And yet being a part of this ongoing conversation—both within myself and within the collective—is the work of being alive.
In times of shift or change, I know sometimes I make the next step more complex than it needs to be because I pick something too large or far off. I try to make a plan for the whole thing instead of just doing one thing. But I’ve learned (through much trial-and-error) that if I focus on the immediate that my intuition is nudging me towards—the next step can become incredibly close. And the process of moving towards something creates its own clarity and transformation.
Defining and taking steps forward is one thing. But I also realized recently how much I needed a reminder that I have permission to take them. I’ve been committed (overcommitted?) to a number of responsibilities for the past few years. And though I’ve invested much of myself—I also felt like I was responding to an external permission by fulfilling responsibilities I was asked to take on. And at times, an external expectation of who and how I was supposed to be as I did so. As I’ve transitioned out of some responsibilities and said “no” to some others, it’s opened up a new attentiveness in me as to what’s next. And the next steps emerging for me—even the close-up ones—are emerging from a different kind of permission—an internal one. And as a coach reminded me recently: You are your own permission.
One area of my life where I’ve always felt a deeply internal permission is running. I’ve run 19 marathons mostly because I love (and learn through) the process. It’s an arena where my permission comes fully and only from myself. What anyone else needs or wants from me is suspended. The only person I need to train and take care of is me. I can’t know in advance the outcome or even how I will feel at the end. I only can keep taking the next step. And no matter how prepared (or un-prepared) I feel or how things unfold, I both can only bring who I am on that day and also need to bring all of who I am on that day. All of which is good practice for life.
Lindsay Crouse (also a runner) is an amazing writer/story-teller for the New York Times. She’s been an absolute powerhouse in bringing to light some amazing women’s stories—often professional women athletes sharing their stories that expose the personal consequences of systemic sexism. Lindsay’s storytelling has connected with me deeply and made me feel more empowered to live out my own story—as the best stories do.
Last year, Lindsay shared a story about herself —which may have been my favorite. She shared her journey as a runner over the age of 35 (when most everyone will tell you your best running days are behind you) and instead running faster than ever and pursuing the ambitious goal of trying to quality for the US Olympic Marathon Trials—which involves running 6:17 minute/mile pace for the marathon distance (26.2 miles). It’s an incredibly challenging threshold to meet—only 511 women in the entire US met the qualification time to be included in the most recent trials leading up to the (now 2021) Tokyo Olympics—up from only 198 women that qualified for the trials in 2016.
Though Lindsay fell just short of her goal, the process transformed her—as goals tend to do when we pursue the things that really light us up. She shared the story of her transformation—which I just re-read today. And though I remember being totally absorbed in her story when I read it the first time and loving this quote — upon re-reading, the fact that it contains the word “permission” seemed even more powerful:
“I had always thought that, at some point in life, most people become ‘who we are.’ Our lives are built around whatever that is, and no matter what we might actually be capable of, this idea keeps us fixed in place…
I had to dismantle that.
There are a lot of things we can’t control right now—especially for women. Perhaps we choose running because we don’t need permission to do it—we can do it whenever and however we want. The roads are open. And behind those 511 women who qualified are hundreds of others, like me, who transformed ourselves trying.”
There’s so much that feels out of my control right now (always?). So much that has changed and so much I don’t know about how the future looks. But, in life as in running, I can only be the person I am today —not who I was last year or 20 years ago. I can’t control external factors or be assured of the outcome. I can only show up using all I am now for the circumstances I am in today. And find transformation in the process
This morning, to end the workshop, David Whyte acknowledged the challenges of today and proposed a question: “What’s the new language you need to learn in order to live fully in this new world? Starting close in, what would you say and how would you live from this place?”
I don’t know exactly. And I won’t do it perfectly. But I know I have permission.
xo,
Amy
//you are your permission//