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Day 9 of lock-down, you don'y need anyone's permission.

And you sure as hell don't need anyone's approval

By Angie Craig Published 4 years ago 6 min read
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Photo by Martin Castro on Unsplash

Day 9 of lock-down, I’ve been reflecting a lot over these past week, looking through my old journals and online posts, for the first time in years I have had the time to look over my writing and see how its changed over the years. It’s crazy to think that most of the country is sitting at home in lock-down, while people are still working in the NHS, the police are still on the streets and lorry drivers and shop workers are still going about their daily lives.

Reading though some of my old posts I come across the one I posted on her last year. “I don’t need your permission”, I remember writing this one, I was sitting in my normal place in café Nero, by the big bay windows overlooking my little town. Nero is my happy place but along with everything else in the country it’s now also closed. So now I’m sitting on my bed with a flat white trying to make the best if it.

What I’ve learned in the 8 months since writing, (“I don’t need your permission,”) Is that our time here is limited, no matter what you believe weather that be the afterlife or coming back in your next life, this is all you have right now, the here and now. The UK like the rest of the world is in lock-down and there are people at home struggling with the time they have on their own. There are people all over the world suffering and dying, which is just proving that today is all we really have. Spending so much time on my own has given me more time to be invested into own thoughts and has given me the opportunity to heal just that little bit more.

Ove the past week I have been reflecting on my life digging deeper than ever before, It was last August that I noticed that I appeared to apologize a lot, I would apologize for everything, even if it wasn’t my fault, if someone bumped into me in the street it would me who apologized to them. Looking back, I think that’s a trait of someone who had suffered from some-kind of abuse in one way or another, we have got so used to saying sorry that it’s become a natural response. Almost like over time we have been conditioned to believe that everything is our fault. It’s much harder to break the conditioning. But most people find that they apologize a lot anyway because more people just want a quiet life, and it’s something we learn as children, saying sorry to our parents makes everything okay again.

It’s been months since I caught myself apologizing for something that wasn’t my fault, I made a conscious decision to stop apologizing for things that was out of my control and it differently not the easiest thing I’ve ever done and it took time for it to become less natural to me.

I was late for a meeting and usually I would go boosting into the room and apologize to everyone, I’m sorry I’m late, the bus broke down, it’s been one of those mornings, however on this one morning I made the decision not to apologize, it wasn’t my fault the bus broke down, so instead of apologizing I simple said thank you for waiting for me, the bus broke down and it took a little longer for the bus company to send out another bus. I didn’t apologize and it felt good.

The reason why we wait to be ourselves

Parents, our parents already know who we are meant to become, they have plans and it’s hard to break the plans of our parents because naturally we don’t want to let them down. Our parents choose our names, our religion, schools, trust funds in some cases, the collages, university and where we are going to work.

Once we leave school, we just get so busy, there just isn’t any time to learn who we truly are. Our whole childhoods and young adult hood are taken up with studies, learning how to behave in our local communities, in society at large.

Then once we get to that age were, we could start looking into ourselves and start finding the person within these things start happening.

We get scared, yes, we do! We get scared because we just can’t anticipate the outcome, so because we can’t see into the future, we fear the outcome. What if it doesn’t happen the way we want it, what if it all goes tits up and I lose everything, but what if it doesn’t?

We get insecure, we don’t know our own abilities, but we rarely test ourselves, rarely push ourselves to our limits, because we don’t know what limits are.

We think we are going to fail, what if you do, what if you do fail, so what? Failing is just another part of learning, sometimes we must learn what doesn’t work to understand what will work.

We’re good at making excuses, we so good at making excuses, it’s a lesson we learn as children and get better as adults.

We’re missing out on the life we are meant to be living, until we make the choice to be ourselves.

Yes, it’s scary, but be brave, be bold. No one is going to give you the keys to open that door, the door isn’t even locked, its only closed, all you need to do is turn the handle and walk though, this is your life, no one can live it for you.

Of course, we are going to make mistakes, bad decisions, but that’s apart of learning

You have the final say on how we are going to explore our world around us, if you don’t like your job then get out, your relationship toxic get out, we all have things in our lives we wish we could change, but nothing is going to change unless we take that first step, it reminds me of the story of a man praying to god, “please god, make me win the lottery”, he prayed and prayed but he never won, until one day he asked god one last time, please god make me win the lottery but this time god spoke back, please by a ticket. You must be in the game, to win it! no one can do these things for you, only you have the power to do that, be brave, be bold and buy the ticket.

This lock-down isn’t going to last forever, it may feel like it right now, but it will be lifted and everyone is going to re-join the world, but its never going to be the same, the world has change, we have changed and if you are still reading this than you also want to make changes, don’t waste this time, start making the changes.

self help
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About the Creator

Angie Craig

40 something and I think I have finally found myself. In the past few years I have gone through a crazy of experiences. getting married too young, divorced, solo hiking, the pennine way, learning to live with PTSD, I have stories to tell.

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