Here's Your Permission: Do What You LOVE
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground” -Rumi
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt this inner tension between doing what I truly wanted to do and what I thought I was “supposed to do.”
I wanted to lie in the sun, but I was supposed to study.
I wanted to study psychology, but I was told that nursing was more practical.
I wanted to be in love, but I was supposed to choose a mate with certain traits.
I wanted to leave my marriage, but I was supposed to keep the family together.
I wanted to travel, but I was supposed to save money.
I wanted to read and write, but I was supposed to be responsible and get a real job.
There has always been a part of me that has rebelled against the “supposed to”. I always knew that I could never make myself stay in a place that felt wrong to me for very long. Yet the voices, both inside of me and outside of me, were telling me that it was bad, wrong, lazy to do what I WANTED to do. So more often than not, I obeyed. I was a good girl. I made myself finish nursing school, even though I hated sick people. I made myself walk down the aisle in a state of numbness, believing the whole time I was making an excellent choice.. I made myself try to make everyone happy but myself. I tried to ignore the little voice telling me that there was something I was meant to do.
Over the years, I sought out numerous books that I hoped would help me find my “calling.” What I see now is I really just wanted confirmation that it was ok to do what I really wanted to do. And I would get the confirmation I needed, and sometimes I’d go for what I truly desired. Until… the guilt, the shame, the not-good-enough voices kicked in. I would become so uncomfortable that I would go back to “good little girl” mode again.
Gradually, over the years, I have been able to shed much of the “supposed to”. I left my marriage and entered a relationship based solely on love. I started traveling again. I began working as a coach. Today, I spend the bulk of my time on what I truly love most: reading, meditating, exercising, being with friends, and now, finally… I’m beginning to write.
But this never would have happened if I hadn’t changed my beliefs. We simply cannot act in ways that go against our own beliefs. It creates too much internal conflict. What I had to do first was to change my belief from “it’s bad to do what I desire” to “it’s right and good to do what I desire.” I did this through a combination of consciously choosing to believe differently and through deep subconscious work using RTT (Rapid Transformational Therapy).
The truth is, we can hear “follow your heart!” a million times, yet if we still believe the voices around us, and even worse, inside of us, telling us that we are bad, lazy, selfish people, then we will never be able to do the things that our intuition is guiding us to do.
We all have gifts that we are meant to share with the world. The way we discover those gifts is simply by paying attention to what we love, and then by courageously experimenting. Trying things on to see what feels best. We are meant to do what we truly desire, deep down. That’s how we will find fulfillment: by doing what we love and then using that in a way to benefit others. To let the beauty that we love be what we do means we must give ourselves the permission to do just that. It is right and good to do what we love.
