Permission to Change Your Perception

And how getting older really lowers the mind friction

When was the last time you realized you were on the wrong course, and felt no shame changing your mind? Your perception of how you wanted to proceed in an area of your life shifted and you decide to take action.

Let me re-phrase, when was the last time you changed your mind and didn’t overthink it for a week?

We pay a high price for our intuitive knowledge, openness and fluidity. It actually causes us anxiety to know something inherently and contemplate taking action. When we try to take a new direction, the terror of not knowing the outcome is the cost we pay even when we feel in our hearts it’s the way to go. Our innate knowing makes us feel bad when in fact it's a super power.

We read books about people who do what they like and want and we are like, woah. That’s epic. When in fact, that could easily be us. And yes, it could. You trying to argue with me it isn’t you isn’t going to help. In fact it will take you farther away from being able to give yourself permission to have a new perception. Thinking differently costs us nothing, and we gain value in our life when we no longer think shameful thoughts about our decisions. Why isn’t because we want to enough to take action? How come there is so much justification involved with permission?

The need to get it right all the time exhausted me to the point where I finally stopped. I don’t even think about anything long enough to get upset with myself. I used to chew and chew and chew on an idea, create scenarios with people who were not even in the room, and cause myself emotional pain about what was going to happen to me when I make a new choice. Now I can identify a super unintentional thought, which gains me no benefit, and let it go until it does me in. I live my life now in permission to not have to overthink anything I do.

If I have a thought that starts with “You should be more conscious of…”

Or

“You should be concerned that…”

Or

“You are completely out of touch for not doing…”

I pause and re-direct my thinking because I suffer from acute panic disorder, and I will do anything, I mean anything to not have to work through a panic attack. They are the worst. If my brain is not calm and at peace with where I am at, panic is looming and waiting. I am forced to change my perception about thoughts that are so minor because they are like cracks in my serenity.

I never thought I could live on Venice Beach and write books, but here I am. I changed my perception even though my mind tried to tell me it was reckless, or dangerous, when in fact it is completely life affirming and lovely. My mind’s reasoning makes no sense. Why my mind thinks I will lose money or success sitting in a place a radical happiness doing what I love to do makes no sense. I can see that very clearly, but not so long ago, I didn’t see that as clearly. I gave myself permission to change my perception of how my mind thinks and since then I have been living an awesomely quiet life.

Why do we not believe all good that we want that we are destined to do which is a dream in our hearts cannot come to us quickly and easily once we set our minds to it?

Setting our minds to something and wanting an outcome does require action, and work. But what kind of work? What is your perception of work? Can it be a lovely relaxing flow or is it a stress filled hot spot of anxiety and driving towards external ideals that may not even be your own. Chances are if you are reading my column you are not some hyper materialistic self absorbed jerk off. Or maybe you are and you don’t want to be anymore, but typically people who want permission are not heading in the direction of amassing great material wealth (although I am three cheers for that if you can stay true to yourself). They want their minds to give them a fucking break.

My words and ideas about permission may be radically profound for you as a reader or I just confused the fuck out of everyone but I know I am on to something with this mindset… because I found a place in my life at 55 where I am completely and absolutely satisfied with everything I have and need. And if I start to feel uncomfortable about being somewhere, I breathe, and connect with God, and I make sure that I have enough stamina to emotionally make it to the end of what I am enduring, and then I take a rest and recover my brain so I don’t start getting all emotionally twisted into a bunch. I have a girlfriend in Nashville who I call at the most triggered moments… she is like this soft landing because she too has shared with me irritations and confusions, as a woman, a wife and an artist, and we fundamentally get each other. When I call her, I know she is like shaking her head thinking, oh yeah, that was me last week.

We give each other permission to explore our perception with no shame if we sound a little off balance and batty.

When I think I am going to pay some radical price for the life I have lived through some deed I am not doing that I should know better to do instead I focus on what I love and like, and where I want to put in my time. I always wanted more time on the beach, and more time to write, and now I am writing on the beach and enjoying spending my time doing it. Yes, I could fall into an old story that writers who live on beaches don’t get paid, but what if they did?

Permission to be in a confident where you know what you want comes with practice, trial and error. My 30’s and 40’s readers, I can assure you, the troubles you are having in these decades, how you walk through them open, curious, aware, and okay to be in pain, will bring you to mid life so bullshit and noise free you will be like, okay the shit show that was my 40’s was worth it. God the 40’s sucked. I am saying that out loud. You are youngish and definitely not old, and you could be doing stuff twenty-somethings do, but you are on the borderline. You also are with little kids, or no kids, and with partners you can’t stand, or no partners. It’s all a confusing mess. Now that I am 55, and I am on the old side of life versus the young side, I can choose to be young if I want and feel great doing so, like dancing on the beach, making love in a car, running around Tokyo and Paris with high octane energy, but I am wise. I am fucking wise. I am finally wise. And here is the great part, I could be wiser but I have to wait until like 65 to get there so I can be in this new version of old and wise now.

In my new wise self, I can change my mind to have what makes me happy from a place of self assurance and love, then it doesn’t really matter to me if someone else makes a decision that affects me. If you agreed to talk something over with your partner in a few months, and in a month you decide it’s important to talk about it now, then no one should shame moving up the time. Our heart knows the pace when it comes to expansion and perception, and also timing should be honored from the heart.

But we swallow our needs, our opinion, and stick to the plan because we are afraid we are being impetuous, scattered and needy. I made a lot of effort last year to fly to NYC to attend a publishing tennis day and meet some very nice publishers and agents. What came from that event was connections of an agent and an editor at a Big publishing house who liked my book. They really resonated with it. And for a while, I loved hearing the suggestions of, if you perhaps try this we can consider it. Or I would consider this direction. Or call this woman as she may be able to help you with your platform as it is not big enough. Since then, I have spent more time trying to figure out how to prove to these folks my book is sales-worthy, than editing my book. Now mind you, I got valuable feedback, and I also have spent the last year writing for 52 weeks on Permission in my column. So I have a lot more to say about Permission for a book in an even more confident way.

So it makes sense that when I finally realized my dream to move to the beach with my partner, it clicked that I have to focus now on this book. No more messing around with getting articles published because that makes me note-worthy to buyers, or twisting myself up to have Permission panels that 20 people come to in LA (all friends and family), or even being on Instagram taking about a concept that doesn’t have a book behind it. I have to take what I say to people who inquire about my book coaching services to my own self-write the damn book. Publish the damn book, then you finally have something to talk about.

You see my prior book (and you can read about it in the header bar on the home page of my Substack) was on sexual abuse. The title screamed sexual abuse, and while I wanted desperately to save every person who was stuck in a life that was lacking joy or freedom because of what happened to them, it was a hard platform to talk about universally (even though 2 out of 4 women have been abused.) So I decided that I would write a book that was more of an umbrella topic for anyone, and by giving themselves permission, they could dive into any past history, like I did, and then if they want buy my book.

You see, I do have a plan, but what keeps me from believing in that plan is that society tells me this is not how self help books are popular, and that I have to have lofty people liking me, and no lines will be around Barnes and Noble for me if I don’t follow the right path with my book by being on Tik Tok every single day if that kind of activity is super hard for me to remember to do. Why? Because it keeps me from writing, and if you want to do a second edit to a book, at some point, all you should be doing is writing, writing and more writing.

What I know was the siren call for me to dive into the second draft of this book, versus putting all the time into building a platform, is that is who I am. A writer. And my perception of me as a writer. I am not a promoter. In fact, if I had my way, I would be in a cabin right now on a lake songwriting for absolutely no profit or purpose but just because I used to love it so much and haven’t done it in close to seven years. I hope this dive into writing, this trust in the process, this call to write and write some more, shows me the path to that line around the Barnes and Noble on 5th Avenue in Manhattan.

Here is how I know this is possible in ways that are beyond my comprehension right now. When I have waited and waited and waited for something in my life, whether it is buying a house solo or falling in love, when it was GO time, I was ready. I was there putting down the dollars and moving into the neighborhood that was foreign to me. I was committing to being vulnerable and open and available to connect and grow a life with a partner. I heard the GO of this book and I know that my perception of me as a writer is finally a healthy one. So I have to act on that place and tune out all the voices that question whether that is how I should be spending my time.

My mind is at peace. I have no friction. I am overjoyed of this fact. And I am appreciating every minute of it.

Where is your mind chatter these days and what happens to you when you adjust your perception? Do you give yourself Permission to believe it is real or do you anxiously downplay yourself?

I love you, my readers! I am doing this column twice a week now, because telling people about permission more than less is a calling for me. I want to shout it to the rooftops and live it in every bone in my body. If you feel compelled to sign up for a paid subscription, I would be so thrilled and honored and happy. It’s only $30 but truly, it means the world to me.

Build it and they will come (and a little factoid, the actor who actually comes, Kevin Costner’s dad, at the end of the movie Field of Dreams starred in the only movie I wrote that was produced.