The Only Permission You Need Is Yours
Releasing the need to be validated before living your truth
There’s a particular kind of urgency that often lives inside pain—the need to understand it, explain it, fix it, and then move on. I’ve felt it too many times to count. That impulse to skip to the part where it all makes sense. To move past the discomfort. To wrap the pain in a story that ends with: I’m better now.
But urgency, I’ve learned, is often fear in disguise. Fear that if I slow down, I’ll get stuck. Fear that if I don’t explain myself quickly enough, I’ll lose the right to be heard. Fear that if I don’t present my pain in a way that others can digest, it will be dismissed—or worse, ignored.
So I over-explained. I rushed clarity. I shared stories that weren’t fully formed. Not because I was seeking attention, but because I was seeking permission—to be messy, to still be hurting, to not have it all figured out.
But permission never came from the outside. Not in the way I needed it to.
Whose Timeline Are You On?
There’s a quiet pressure that builds when you feel like you’re falling behind. Not behind your own expectations—but someone else’s. It might be your family’s timeline, your industry’s, your peers’, or even the unspoken rules of your culture. Often, no one says it outright. It’s just there—in how we praise productivity, applaud speed, and reward those who bounce back quickly.
After my young son died, I remember trying to return to some kind of normal. I went back to work. I showed up at social events. I responded to messages when I had no capacity. I kept smiling when what I really needed was stillness. I moved through routines, carrying the weight of a timeline I never chose.
No one pushed me. But no one stopped me either. That’s how these timelines work—they’re invisible, but heavy.
And at the heart of it was a belief I hadn’t questioned: that healing has a deadline. That there’s a moment when grief expires and you’re expected to emerge stronger, wiser, articulate. That you will finally, get back to your old self . Also, that If you can’t find that moment, you’re doing something wrong.
But that’s not how life works. Especially not when you’ve been altered by loss. Real healing doesn’t run on a schedule. And no external voice is better qualified to determine your pace than your own.
When I forced myself to keep up, I didn’t heal faster. I just performed harder, and got better at faking “progress”. I started a new business from scratch, up-skilled, networked, made appearances—anything that looked like forward motion. I ticked boxes that said I was functioning, even while I felt disconnected inside. I kept up with everyone else's expectations, hoping that if I looked okay on the outside, I would start to believe it on the inside.
But performing healing isn't healing. It's postponing it. And every time I silenced my discomfort to meet someone else's timeline, I was handing away permission that was always mine to give (I’ll talk more about this on my Podcast in July).
You Don’t Need Permission to Drive Yourself
During that season, I kept thinking back to a question a mentor, whom I respected deeply, once asked me. After a tough professional moment, he said: “Are you driving? Or are you being driven?” At the time, I didn’t fully get it. But he continued, “If you’re driving, you know your direction—you trust yourself. If you’re being driven, you’re letting someone else’s agenda steer you, and their approval will determine your worth.”
I still get goosebumps when I think back on that moment.
The question stuck with me. And eventually, I started applying it beyond work. I began asking: Whose pace am I keeping? Who am I trying to please? What would it look like to take the wheel of my own healing?
When I gave myself the space to pause, I realized my truth moved slower than I was letting it. And that wasn’t a problem. That was a return to alignment.
I needed more time. I needed rest. I needed to stop performing okay-ness and start listening inward. Even if no one else understood it. Even if it made people uncomfortable.
Letting go of urgency didn’t dull my ambition. It grounded it. It gave me clarity about what I value and how I want to show up—not just in public, but with myself. I still care deeply about the work I do. But I no longer measure my worth by my output or my pace. Slowing down wasn’t weakness—it was wisdom.
The world will always offer scripts for how we should live, grieve, heal, move on. But you get to ask the most important question: What do I actually need right now?
And if your answer is, “I don’t know yet,” that’s okay too. You’re not behind. You’re human.
Give Yourself the Last Word
Releasing the need to be validated doesn’t mean you stop caring what people think. It means you stop handing them the authority to decide if your feelings are legitimate. It means you stop waiting for your truth to make sense to someone else before you let it matter to you.
Validation is nice, but it’s not required. And urgency? Well, speaking for myself, that was never my true rhythm. That was fear, dressed up like progress.
So what if the bravest thing you could do this week is to slow down?
Not because you’re giving up. But because you’re listening.
Not because you’re lost. But because you’re ready to lead yourself home.
You don’t need to race your way to healing. You don’t need to prove your resilience by how quickly you recover. You don’t need to be fixed.
You just need to be honest.
You already know what’s true.
You already know what you need.
Let that be enough.
No permission necessary.
PS: Next week, I’ll share how learning to trust myself became a turning point—one that reshaped how I move through pain, make decisions, and reclaim my voice. It’s the kind of intelligence I was never taught, but had to live my way into.