I’ll get right to the point.

If you are waiting for permission from your partner, your kids, your parents, your boss, or your best friend to be your truest and most fully expressed self…

It’s not coming.

They’re not going to give it to you.

Let me take it one step further. Even if they lovingly and fervently pleaded with you to show up all in, you know what you’d do. You wouldn’t believe them. You would make excuses that this wouldn’t be fair to the people around you, that you didn’t really want to change how you’re living life in the first place, you have it good enough, who are you to expect more?

The only person who can make this happen is you. No one else is going to swoop in and rescue you from your half-hearted attempts at copying what you think a woman is supposed to be like, or trying to have the life you saw on Pinterest.

You have to rescue yourself. You have to decide that living a life on purpose isn’t just taking a few more mid-day walks or getting a facial from time to time. Living your life on purpose is a daily commitment to exploring who you are and expressing it bolding. Living your life on purpose is you giving yourself the permission slip:

LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE YOU MEAN IT.

But even as I’m writing this I find myself wanting to be given the step-by-step instructions, to make this more actionable, more tangible, more like rules I can follow.

And nobody is going to do that for you, either. Or at least, I’m certainly not (for you).

Nobody but you knows the areas in your life where you feel least fulfilled, the times that you fake it, the hobbies you’ve given up. And it’s not my place to tell you what you should do to uncover that, either.

Trust me, I’m writing this for me just as much as I am for you. As I type, I am trying to unravel this thread in my mind about what it means to live authentically. Is it a radical overhaul, or small daily steps? Either way it starts with a deep knowing of You, which is something many of us women don’t invest any time or energy into. Journaling and introspection is great for this, but how to translate that into the actions that are an expression of You?

Who wrote that book?

Is that what I’m working on now?

Maybe it’s part of it!

But this post is less about telling you how to uncover it and more about reminding you that the onus is on you.

Let’s stop with the excuses, that nobody supports you or your kids wouldn’t be okay with it. And let’s not be confused, ‘I don’t know how I’d even go about it’ or ‘I can’t even remember what Authentic Me is like’.

Let’s just go on an adventure of discovering, okay?

It’s little choices, like deciding that today’s the last day you put away your kids’ laundry for them and instead letting them do it themselves (+ releasing the stress of how poorly they’re going to do it), then rewarding yourself with the gift of those 2 extra hours on the weekend to paint or do crossword puzzles or practice the piano.

Or deciding to try out for a play for the first time since you had kids, because being on stage is a part of your Before Them Self and a major expression of who You are.

This adventure of discovering is life long, and it can be scary, but it’s also liberating. And the only person who can give you the gift of this adventure IS YOU.

That’s the good news and the bad news. Because you have to do it, but you GET to do it. And there’s literally nobody better on earth for this job than you.