I overheard your comments to your friend
about the woman across the room.
She, the woman you are
judging,
critiquing,
debasing,
wasn’t doing anything wrong.
She said nothing wrong.
She is just living her life,
taking up her space
and your insecurity got in the way.
Oh, pardon me,
I don’t mean to offend.
Well, actually, I’m okay if I do.
Everyone has permission
to take up their space
and just because you
aren’t thrilled with her choices,
her outfit,
her boisterous personality
doesn’t mean that you can
take space from her.
Please refrain from expressing
your insecurity this way.
PermissionGranted is for everyone.
Please recognize that if
someone rubs you the wrong way,
has a personality that you
struggle to appreciate,
wears clothing that you would
not or has the
audacity to choose
to pursue her
passion,
possibilities,
and purpose…
she is simply giving herself
permission to do so,
just as you are,
in your own way,
pursing PermissionGranted.
There’s space for all of us.
All of our creativity,
ambitions,
styles,
shapes,
languages,
personalities,
cultures.
There’s enough room for us all.
So each of us have
a choice to make:
take up our space –
without apology, or
spend energy making
ourselves small by
attempting to infringe
on another’s space.
It is kind of a
easy choice,
don’t you think?
