Seasons of Patterns and Permission
It is March Break in many local school districts this week, and I am struck by how I still hold that as an invitation to do things differently, to do that writing/cooking/reading/crafting I’ve been meaning to do all winter.
My youngest graduated from high school three years ago and my oldest, in fact, is on March Break but as a teacher (and he was far more excited about his break this week than he ever was as a student!)
Yet for me, the pattern of kids’ school schedules is ingrained. This past winter, at the sound of snow on the windows and snowplows on the road, I’d grab my phone and gleefully read those beloved words from the radio website: School Cancelled. I mean, seriously, I work from home and set my own hours … I can always get to ‘the office’ , and I can have my own snow day anytime I want. But still, I crave that notification from ‘out there.’ Curious …
Snow Day and March Break: in a house with three children in three schools, those patterns ruled the lives of everyone living there, especially me as mom coordinating it all. Now that I live alone, that pattern no longer serves, yet I keep running it. Why?
The other ‘P’ word: Permission.
Something in an institution declaring ‘this is a day off’ giving me permission to ‘have fun’, to ‘take time for me’, to be on ‘vacation.’
To hold and do things ‘the way I want.’
A choice I always have, and was choosing to give it over to an ‘authority’, like the school board, rather than claim it for myself. Huh.
The joy and the challenge of living from our divinity is the constant invitation to learn, explore, choose and create each moment we are in. Metaphors are a massive clue to patterns we run unseen, or choose not to see. A snow day is not about a snow day. It is about me continuing to rely on an external institution to give me permission to do things differently, or hold things in joy rather than in obligation.
Permission is mine to give myself, to live fully in the moment from my divine self, my impulse. Do I allow myself that choice? Do I give myself that permission? A small thing like a nap, a large thing like a trip, it doesn’t matter the content. What matters is claiming the choice, and choosing from authentic self, rather than from habits, obligations, beliefs, or external forces seeking something from rather than for me.
How often do we deny ourselves permission to feel, to know, to express our truth? We push back tears when we hear of something that breaks our hearts, so we don’t make others uncomfortable. We grit our teeth and endure the presence of someone whose opinions violate our own, because we want to ‘keep the peace.’ We formulate our day by the calendar and clock when we long to just breathe and be, unstructured. Life is a series of moments created with a higher intention leading to our ultimate purpose. Sometimes those moments require us to schedule our time, complete tasks not to our liking, put some desires on pause. When these tasks all map to our intention and our purpose, however, energy flows, life flows, we as our authentic divine selves are in flow.
When these tasks map to external expectations, or beliefs and patterns that run separate from or counter to our intention and purpose, flow is constricted or blocked. Over time there may be irritation, exhaustion, or worse, no sensation at all because we have ceased to notice. And when we cease to notice, to remember who we are, we become a vessel serving past patterns and/or the interests of others, rather than living from and for our divine purpose.
So what does that look like?
For me it’s not highly dramatic. In this moment it is me at my desk. I once called it work, some moments it is 🙂, increasingly it is simply a part of my life that I choose to engage fuelled by curiosity and joy in what I will discover and create. It is an ease that was always available to me, and only when I gave myself permission would I allow it. And I could only give permission when I noticed my pattern of giving that choice away.
It can be as easy as that 30-second pause and deep, slow breath.
Have a great week, whatever that means for you,
- Jennifer
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