One of the things I noticed when I began healing my relationship with food was that I started to hear myself clearer. When I wasn’t using food to numb, distract, soothe, or escape my real feelings, things that were sitting quietly in the background came into focus. I realised how tired I was, how disconnected I was, how much I was people pleasing, how unfulfilled I was. There were so many parts of my life that didn’t fit anymore, nor did I want to keep on trying to make them work. Yes it was incredibly uncomfortable (to the point I was ready to jump out of my skin sometimes), but also amazingly valuable.

When you go along this path and these feelings crop up, they’re not evidence that something is wrong. They're information and messages from a deeper part of you showing you where you’re not truly happy, where change is needed. What you’ve been trying to numb yourself to is what’s trying to lead you towards a more authentic, fulfilling life. However, the challenge is that many of us have been taught to ignore those messages and look beyond ourselves for answers instead. We wait for someone to tell us what to do. We wait for certainty. We wait for permission. But the more you learn to listen to yourself, the more you realise that much of the guidance you've been searching for has been there all along.

Stop for a second and have a think, have you ever noticed how often we look outside ourselves before making a decision? Sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes it's incredibly subtle. We ask other people what they think, looking for reassurance that we're doing the right thing. We wait for someone to tell us we're ready, capable, qualified, or likely to succeed before we allow ourselves to take action. We tell ourselves we're just being sensible or gathering information, but underneath it all is often silent self-doubt. And not only that, but we want people to be happy with us. Somewhere along the way we learned to trust everyone else's opinion before trusting our own, needing that validation before we move forward.

Another tricky part that keeps us stuck is that the permission we're looking for rarely arrives in the way we imagine it will. Nobody suddenly appears and says, "You're ready now. You can go after what you want and yes, you have my full approval. You won't fail. Everything will work out perfectly and I’ll back you up." But can I tell you something else instead about that permission we’re waiting for, something reassuring? It comes from within. And we don’t need anybody to stand there holding the permission slip, which is perhaps the most freeing realization of all. We don’t need anyone to come and tell us that we’ve finally earned the right to enjoy our lives. That permission has been yours all along. The question is, are you ready to give it to yourself?