Permission to be You 101

I am excited about today's topic because the most important person in the world is you. 

When you give yourself permission to be you, everything changes. 

We feel negative emotions less, and we really see our true potential show up. 

We have to get down to the nitty-gritty. We need to know that we are doing everything possible to be our best selves. 

Sometimes, we just need someone to permit us to do that. 

My intention here is to permit you to be yourself 100%. We'll do it with three basic ideas.

Let me preface this by saying it sounds ridiculous to say I just need to be me because you can't be anybody else.

But, oh my goodness, the noise out there, the noise of the conditioning of what was acceptable and unacceptable in our homes, what we were allowed to do and unallowed to do. 

Growing up in my home, it was not okay to be angry or express anger. 

You had to be quiet and invisible to be good. That was my conditioning. 

If you can imagine somebody who is actually a helper, I am very much that person who likes to go out and help people and show them their potential; the helper in me was relegated to only helping if it made the other person happy. 

Sometimes, my helping was to disappear, not to be me, and not to have needs. 

There was a lot of gaslighting and stuff in my childhood that led me to believe that I needed to remove my footprint from the earth. That I didn't really have a right to be here. 

When it comes down to growing up, being an adult, and raising a family, it's like, who am I?

I don't even know because I was taught to shut my needs down my entire childhood. 

There's trauma in our past, even my husband, who says he had a perfect childhood. That was his perception, and it's his way of protecting his family because he's a protector. 

But stuff happens in our childhood; it doesn't have to be wrong. 

He grew up in a loving home, while mine was much more chaotic. 

How we perceive ourselves is really relegated to how we were treated, what values were instilled in us, and how healthy the people around us were. 

When we look at our lives and our past stories, we have to remove the noise, the chitter chatter, the false stories that we have believed were true. 

When you remove that, then you're just, well, looking at what's left. 

One of the things that I feel has been extremely helpful for me in unraveling the old stories, taking the conditioning out of my true self, and understanding who I am was to make a list. 

Who am I? That is, who are you when you're at your best, and who are you when you're at your worst?

I suggest that you make a list. 

There were things about me that no one on the planet knew. Nobody really took the time to know me. 

When you're unseen as a child, someone has to see you, or you go into a state of depression as life goes on. 

We just feel like we don't matter, and what's the point?

I had to be consciously aware of what I had to know, and by writing it down, I could be consciously aware. There are the words, and do I believe them? Yes or no? 

When I work with clients, I also ask them to make “I am” lists. 

Often, at the beginning of a self-journey, the “I am” lists contain things like I am happy or I am positive; sometimes, I am a nuisance, sometimes I am indecisive, or I am frustrated, those kinds of things. 

The “I am” list is literally a positive thing. We need to make it positive. 

When you're making a list, I prefer that you start with your best qualities, things that you truly are. 

For me, it was, I am generous, I am kind, I am helpful, I am interesting, I am curious, I am funny, I am witty, I am, and I had a lot of things to list.

I really did some soul-searching there because if you say something and there's some little hint of self-derision, self-loathing, or self-dislike, if there is an element to the things you're writing down that I am that you don't believe are actually true, don't put them down yet. 

They probably are true, but you haven't resolved it yet. 

Negative emotion tells you that you have differing opinions between your brain and your heart. 

When you can write things down, like one of the things that I knew about myself that nobody ever really knew about me is that I had limitless possibilities.

I just knew that about myself. It was something that was given to me to understand. 

I know you have been given things to know, but you may or may not have dismissed them as not true because somebody else doesn't see them in you. 

It's really the most important thing for you to see them in yourself. 

One of the other things is that I was a true enthusiast.

I listened to Tom Perry say that when he searched his heart for his true talents, he couldn't come up with anything other than his only talent: enthusiasm. I heard that I was like, yes, I resonate with that. 

That sounds familiar to me because I truly felt that about me, too. 

You may have heard other people talk about themselves in some way that you went; yes, that is in me as well. 

Write that down. Write down what that element is. 

For me, optimism, enthusiasm, energy, light, wittiness, and intelligence are important. I didn't graduate from college, so I'm not saying I'm book-smart. 

Although I have read many books, I am self-taught but intelligent. I have a powerful intuition that allows me to think clearly.

With all my heart, I can agree that I am intelligent, intuitive, and empathic; those are things that I know are true.

When there's part two, here's number two: when you align yourself with the things on your list that you know to be true and have resolved to believe for yourself, you've got to align yourself with them. 

What would an enthusiastic person do? Would they look around to see who's better than them? Would they try to compare themselves? What keeps you lined up? 

I'm just going to keep using enthusiasm as an example. 

What lines me up with enthusiasm? 

When I was raising five kids, the oldest was 13, and the youngest was three, I stood in front of a mirror trying on bigger pants while my kids played in the clothing racks right outside the dressing room door. 

I could hear them getting all crazy up in their game, knowing they would explode on me.

I was trying to get these pants on and off quickly to decide if I would buy them so we could leave the store, and I had a moment. 

I wasn't trying to have a moment; I was actually in a hurry, but I had a moment. 

I looked in the mirror. I was like, I don't know what's happening on the outside of my body because I don't even recognize it. It's big, unhealthy, and way older than it should look. 

I had that just-a-knowing feeling. It's like you are young, enthusiastic, and fun. 

What is happening? You don't match anymore. 

As soon as I had that thought, I was like, I'm going to do something about it now. 

What would enthusiasm do? 

Enthusiasm would be a lot of fun. It would find things she likes to do. Enthusiasm would have a lot of allowance to it. There's no prison, right? 

Allowances would be free to do the things that are fun and interesting to you, especially creativity. 

When I put the pants back on the rack, the bigger pants that I needed because they fit better, because mine were too tight, I decided I would just do it. 

I was just going to go be me. I didn't know what that looked like, but being me was not stuffing my face with potato chips. It just wasn't; it didn't ever feel good. I did it, but it didn't feel good. 

It was like there was a voice in the back of my head like, you know what, you could do better. You need to get up and do something with yourself. 

I would just sit there and eat and eat and eat, and I would clean my kids' plates, too. I would eat all their lunch plus mine. I was a bit of a human garbage disposal because of that. It just never felt good. 

It was me stalling out, procrastinating about what I knew I really wanted to do, which was get my body back in shape now that all my kids were here. 

It was like, my youngest was three. I can do that now. But I was stalling because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. 

I was thinking about doing it, and so I was doing all the dieting things, standing on the scale, deciding if I had worth that day, and it was just water weight that I was looking at on the scale anyway, but I was doing it because I wanted to be loved. 

I would not eat, not eat, not eat, everything. I would not eat anything that was nail-down. 

Your willpower only has, it's a muscle, and it only has so much strength. 

When the strength is gone, the muscle gives out. Then you just end up doing the opposite of what you said you wanted to do. 

You're in failure mode. 

If you're exercising a muscle and you reach failure, you literally can't do one more rep with that dumbbell. Your willpower is the same thing mode all the time, which didn't do a thing for my self-esteem.

I was not in alignment with myself because being enthusiastic feels good. 

When I was not in alignment with myself, I wasn't feeling good because I wasn't actually doing things that would align with enthusiasm. 

When I went home, I wasn't in fitness. I was a stay-at-home mom raising five kids, and I just decided to take my running and workout clothes out and put them at the end of my bed. 

I was not a runner and still am not, but occasionally, it is a means to get the job done. I don't mean distance; I mean short, short runs. At five o'clock, I got my clothes out and put them on. 

The other decision I made was enthusiasm would be excited to get up and get it going. 

I decided I would get up when my alarm went off at five and not hit snooze anymore because I was literally hitting the snooze button on my life, which was not in alignment with enthusiasm. 

I was like, okay, then when my alarm goes off, I'm going to be so excited that my alarm went off because now I can finally get up and get going and do my thing. 

I had my thing scheduled from five to six because the rest of my day was dedicated to my family. 

My time was five a.m. to six a.m., and I threw off the covers, put on my clothes, and grabbed my headphones and my Walkman; that's how long ago it was. 

I headed outdoors into the freezing cold air with my hat on and my heavy clothes, and I just started to sprint. 

I was lumbering; it was hard, and my thighs were rubbing together, almost starting a fire with all the friction. I was like, oh, I can sprint. That's one thing I know how to do. 

The sprinting didn't go well, but I also realized that I could either drag my little knuckles all the way home, sad that I was too heavy to sprint, or I could just accept where I was, which was more in alignment with enthusiasm. 

Quitting is not enthusiastic. 

Hanging in there until it could get easier one day at a time, one sprint at a time, it would get better.

That aligned more with excitement to get out of bed and start my day. 

Here's what really got me excited. 

I was very enthusiastic about being ahead of my kids. It was awful for my kids to be up and wander the house and do mind-numbing things for an hour before I dragged myself out of bed. 

That's really what was eating at me; I wasn't on top of it.

I was coming from behind. That's like getting out of bed an hour late and expecting to get to work on time, prepared, and on top of your game. 

It's no fun coming from behind. It's tough to win a race when you're last in line or the last one off the line, right? 

I was like, okay, enthusiasm? I didn't talk myself through this back then.

 I didn't understand the concept of aligning with my identity, but enthusiasm was a factor back then. Looking back, I aligned myself with it, and that's why it worked. 

In six months, I had lost eight dress sizes. I was enthusiastic about what I was doing. 

I was lined up with a personality trait that was in me to do what I really wanted to do without questioning it. It was a non-negotiable. I was like, I'm just going to be enthusiastic. 

Now what? What would enthusiasm do? 

Well, enthusiasm would get her out of bed in the morning because she wanted to because it was fun and because this was her time to listen to her favorite music, go for sprints, rate up, and notice that she was alive. That was exciting to me. 

When you line up with who you are, magic happens. 

When I say magic, I got fit, but I didn't because I was standing on the scale and counting calories, and I hated every minute of being hungry because I was never hungry. 

I was eating, but I ate foods that mattered to my body. I ate purposefully. I was enthusiastic about it. 

Losing weight and changing dress sizes was not hard for me because I was living in alignment with what felt good. 

This kept me very enthusiastic and engaged in what I was doing. 

You have a lineup with your list. 

Every single item that you write down, and let's hope it's more than five, I know you can come up with more than five on your list about who you are when you're at your best.

Then, you will find ways to just let yourself be that. 

Resistance against enthusiasm would look like what? 

It would look like eating a bag of potato chips. It would go against my values. It would be a waste of my day watching TV when being effective and efficient are my key values. 

You have to check and see how am I working against myself? Who am I pointing the finger at for the reason why I am working against myself? 

I was overweight because I was pointing my finger at my first husband because he didn't love me. I wasn't lovable enough. 

From childhood, I was told my mom would never love me. 

I would never be good enough, smart enough, quiet enough, or invisible enough for her even to notice that I was lovable. 

Here, I was perpetuating a false story. It was not a true story. 

The reasons I felt the way I did were not my husband's fault—mine. However, taking personal responsibility aligns with all those good elements of who you are. 

It's nobody else's fault—the way you feel about yourself. 

Indeed, as adults, we have to parent ourselves just enough to pull ourselves out of those moods, feelings, sadness, and victimhood that come over us. 

We have to move beyond that to align with who we really and truly are. 

You're the one that needs to give yourself permission to be you. 

For many years, I held my mother responsible for not being lovable. 

I entered the world without knowing how to be me or navigate life. Everybody in the world knew things I didn't know. I was like, oh my gosh, how did you know that? 

I felt like I was always 20 years behind everybody else. But that was nobody else's fault but my own. 

Heaven knows there were enough books back then and enough internet now that there's no excuse not to find better ways to take responsibility for how you feel about yourself so you can line up with all of your glorious attributes, values, characteristics, and personality traits. 

You're an amazing person, but you have to own that. 

You have to grab every element of that and the ones you like. Well, I would say it's true, but I don't know if anybody would agree with me, so that is not a reason not to write it down. 

If you believe and know it, you need to write it down. 

The third most important thing you can do to stay aligned with your personality list and all your good qualities is to check your mood. 

What is causing you to feel anything but positive and excited about life? What is that negative emotion that's holding you back? 

Because it's not true. Whatever it is. 

When we have a hard heart, if you will, we have a negative mindset. 

We meditate about other people arguing for our limitations or justifying our actions or decisions. 

When we're negative, we are not aligned with ourselves, and we have to care more about who we are when we're with ourselves than what anybody else thinks of us. 

We can't go out our front doors, put on a happy face, and make everybody think we are a certain person because that is self-abandonment. 

We will not line up with ourselves being out there all bright and shiny for the sake of other people, for the sake of the show. 

We've got to be the same person behind the scenes as we are out there in public. 

If we're out in public bright and shiny, we darn well better be bright and shiny at home. Bright and shiny for our family members. 

Sometimes, we save our worst selves for our families and our best selves for people we don't even know. This is true authenticity. 

When you align with your true self, you will become the person you know you can be. 

Usually, you personify the person out in public, but you don't follow through and stay behind closed doors. 

Just make a mental note. 

If I'm feeling negative, it's because you're arguing between your mind and heart.

Your heart is always bright and shiny. Your heart always knows how awesome you are. 

But your brain will find reasons why somebody else isn't giving you the validation you need. 

Your validation comes from you. 

Permission to be you come from you—nobody else's fault. 

If you're in a mood, check why. 

Why are you in a mood? Was it a conversation you had with somebody else where they didn't see your true worth, value, cuteness, lovability, or intelligence? Who is it that you are saying is the reason why you can't line up with yourself? 

Because enthusiasm doesn't go anywhere. 

Enthusiasm is what it is all the time. It's you who goes somewhere. It's me who goes somewhere. 

If I'm upset that I did something and I tell somebody, and they have zero response, I'm like, dude, that's rude. 

Why aren't you saying something? How come we always have to talk about you, and we're not talking about me? 

Then my head goes to all these places: I guess I'm unimportant, I guess I am talking to the wrong person, and I guess I need better friends.

Those kinds of thoughts put us in a mood that is in stark contrast to your true self. 

We cannot go around having arguments with that. 

We're not really talking; it's just happening in our heads, and we're self-talking our way through self-abandonment or protecting ourselves by justifying to combat judgment. 

Usually, that judgment comes from ourselves as much as anybody else. 

We have to be on our team and align ourselves. You know what? I don't need a negative mood. 

Negativity means you are going further away from proper alignment. 

Positivity is going towards proper alignment. 

When you're feeling down, when you're feeling frustrated, when you're feeling uninterested or unmotivated, stop for just a second. 

Pull out your list. If I were in line with, let's say, optimism, what would I do right now? 

Optimism doesn't have to always be on top of the world. It can be still for a minute, quiet for a minute, or neutral for a minute.

Optimism is like, I'm not optimistic now, but I can be hopeful when the time is right. 

You're going to find some relief from the negative mood that you've been focusing on, which is causing you to stay in a negative space. 

You don't have to be feeling those negative emotions all the time. 

When you line up with yourself, you'll find relief from negative emotions.

When you line up with your true personality traits, that negative emotion gets less. 

The energy of negativity lessens, and the energy of positivity increases. It's up to you. It is all in your head. 

Your head is this: lookout tower watching out for danger, and someone's judgment of you feels dangerous. 

It feels like an attack, an assault on your true being. 

Suddenly you're the one that takes away your permission slip to be you. It's like, well, I need to be something that they will approve of. 

I need to be more like them or remove all these terrible people from my life, which can put you in a bad mood if you're defending yourself from bad people. 

Bad people—it's all relative, right? It's people who may not see things your way. 

The mood is your indicator that you are out of alignment with your true self. 

When you improve your mood, you feel like doing things that feel good to you. 

You are doing things that would come naturally to you, like offering a compliment or sitting happily reading your book without all the judgment about what you should be doing. 

But when you permit yourself to be you, 100%, you're not worried about what other people think of you. 

You're not even factoring in other people. You're checking in with you. You have to care more about how you feel about yourself. 

That's when you get in alignment. 

You're not doing everything for the wrong reasons. 

You're doing them for the only reason: Does it make me feel good about being me? That's the question. 

Check your moods and make sure they align with your list. 

When your moods are positive, you align with maybe something you haven't even written down yet. Let your list grow. 

But just know that you're being your best self when you align with the things on your list and act according to how they would behave. 

Take stock, check in, see how you're doing, do this little assignment, and see if you can think of ways to rework your life and re-examine your choices to align with who you truly are so you can fulfill the measure of your creation. 

That's why you're here. 

You're here to learn all the lessons about what you don't want so you can go towards what you want, and I guarantee you want to feel like you. 

It'll be the best feeling in the world to look in the mirror and go, Oh man, I love being the person who I am today. 

Okay, if you have questions, if it gets confusing, or if it's kind of gray in the middle, you can always email me at teresafordcoaching@gmail.com.

I am happy to answer your questions and clarify so you can get straight with yourself. 

Being you is the most important thing. 

Fully truly align with you because the world can't live without you, and neither can you. 

Okay, so let's get up and get going. 

Note: You can access the full blog content in audio versions on Spotify and YouTube. Happy listening! 🎧 

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