Hello beautiful people of Expansive Capacity!

It’s time once again for Superpower Sunday! 🙂

As always, this is all about how we can implement wee changes that may turbocharge our *existing* superpowers so that we don’t dim our own lights due to inertia, stress, or any other upper-limit problem that reveals itself along our path.

This month’s Superpower Sunday is about the “Permission Granted” work I did with my buddy Liz Gilbert in Fiji earlier this year.

As before, I am sure to attribute (as is/was Liz sure to do) much of this work to the teachings of Byron Katie and Martha Beck, both of whom you should check out if this stuff calls to you in a major way.

When Liz introduced this work to us in February, she said, “This is SOUL work today. These are practices that saved my life and I do them EVERY day.”

Get out your journal and give yourself some time to connect fully. Do a little soul-shiver breathing (you know, that kind of breath that, eventually, gets that glorious vibration traveling all through your lower chakras and into your nervous system more fully as you learn to let it soar). Be present. Give yourself permission to EXPLORE what’s to come… no judgment. No secondary emotions. You’re not writing to impress yourself with what comes up or how you interpret it. Just allow a visit to the place this permission work will take you. Make it safe to do this. And then dive in.

Make a list of things that bring you joy, enchantment, happiness, peace, a feeling of wholeness that cannot be taken away. These things can be people, places, things, actions, observations, dreams, fantasies, sounds, tastes, feelings, thoughts, memories… you name it.

There’s no particular number of things I want you to list off, nor is there a reality check required for how much of this stuff actually exists in your life right now. When Liz guided me through this work, my list contained things like:

~ the little bits of humor shared easily with the right people
~ music (especially the “feel good” playlist)
~ the freedance at the end of pole class with just the right pole sisters
~ that deep breath, just now
~ LUSH bubble baths with Abraham-Hicks playing, or with silence, or with Keith coming in for us to talk
~ kitties and puppies and authentic friskiness of all kinds
~ a-ha moments (mine, ours, theirs, all of them)
~ the smell of Keith’s chest and neck and how he breathes differently when my head is on his chest at night
~ the life we’ve built and the sacred circle around all it includes

…and so much more!

Do your list and let the emotions flow. If you need a second journal or page on which to write things that are coming up — so you can give audience to them later — that’s fine. But keep going with this enchantment list.

It is, Liz says, our life’s purpose.
That’s it.

Doing more of the things on that list. That’s what we’re meant to do in life. Period.

And most of it costs nothing.
Most of it exists RIGHT NOW.

Collect yourself from the awesomeness that is doing this part of the work.
Breathe.
Hug yourself.
Give yourself a “well done” and whatever else you need right now.
Drink some water.
Do some tapping on any “floaters” that got caught up in there for you.
Breathe again.

(If you can get another set of soul shivers going, that’d be great. And yes, it’s fine to take a break and come back for this next part.)

PERMISSION GRANTED

You’re now going to write a letter from the principal of your school. This is the ultimate authority as you know it and what they say GOES. Write using the format I’ll show you from my letter.

So that’s FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL (and you can name the dude if that feels good to you), today’s date, your FULL NAME, and the words “has permission to” followed by whatever you need permission to do. Get specific. End the letter with the words: THIS IS NON-NEGOTIABLE.

And so it is.

Liz noted the value in the act of giving ourselves permission by saying (and I’ll substitute “creative” for “woman” because Liz and I disagree on the need for gendering these exercises; I feel as though all creatives need more of this work): “Every creative who gives themselves permission to do something they want creates a contact high for other creatives who now know they can be that free.”

That amount of freedom is terrifying. But it’s also addictive. Giving myself permission — daily — to do whatever the fuck I want to do in that moment, in that heartbeat, in that breath has straight up changed my life.

And it has led to more abundance than I ever thought possible. Isn’t it fun that this leads us beautifully into next month’s topic?

Of course, you’ve gotta be ready to put in the work. Give yourself space for this and make it a goal to get just your first permission slip written — on something specific — and then DO THAT THING before our next meeting. Can you do that?

A note about specificity: The more specific we are with this work, the more detailed our words, the more richly descriptive everything is, the better. When we are more general, according to Liz, we are allowing our fear to channel culturalization. Meaning, we’re being general as a means of softballing the truth of how we feel, as a way of protecting those who put us in unhealthy places in our lives, and as protection from doing the work that WILL make us grow.

Your bonus points for this work: Go back to the most GENERAL thing on the list and write about it using more specifics. Lots of them. Don’t judge that you were protecting anyone or anything by having gone general with those words on the first lap; just get specific NOW. And do it again for as many items on the list as you’d like to revisit.

Breathe.
Let it go.

Good work. I’m proud of you!

Reminder: Your August Aligned Hustle Calendar is at the Welcome page if you haven’t already snagged your copy. (And if you’re hungry to go deeper with this, it’s a great time to explore my astro goodies, since you get a free “You in the Stars” report when you join Aligned Advantage.)

All right, lovelies, give yourself a big ol’ self-hug right now. Do it with an exuberance that feels GREAT! You’re doing great work and, again, I’m so proud of you and delighted for where this work will take you.

As always, I’ll see you back in the dojo ’til our new month (Your Relationship with Manifesting) opens up on the 1st. You’re gonna want to get in there early on in the month because I have some daily practices for you that will get the manifestations heading your way as soon as you get consistent and clear with them. *****squeeeeee*****

Thank you for taking on this work with me. It’s an honor to support you in this enoughness journey.

I love you so much,

Enoughness is an inside job… and sometimes you need a guide to find your way there. Let Bonnie Gillespie get you started.