Permission to Do What You Want to Do

Even in times like these.

Recently, I was talking with someone about the varying crises and heartbreak pulsing through our world right now, and as our conversation slowed down, she asked, "What do we do?"

What do we do?

When I feel into this question, I imagine it as little lightning bolts shooting off of our bodies all day long as we move through life. Among rising prices at the grocery store, the people we pass by living on the street, the stories of loved ones suffering…the question reverberates in and around us: What do we do?

There is so much to be done but so much in the way of doing it, and those little lightning bolts that rip through us often have nowhere to land. It can feel both activating and draining at the same time.

My very humble assertion today is that what needs to be done is for you to do what you want to do, with as much integrity as possible.

You were born on this Earth at this time for a reason, and you carry a medicine that Life needs in this time of great dying. 

One of the ways you can know what's your Work to do is to consider what you have wanted to do for a long time but haven't had permission to do. Sometimes we don't get this permission because capitalist culture tells us that what we want to do is irresponsible, you can't make money from it, blah blah blah.

But an equally insidious reason why too many people aren't connected to the Work that's theirs is because of narratives that say it's not the answer to this world's problems. It's not explicitly anti-capitalist. Your calling is frivolous. What you want to do isn't about liberation or community organizing, so it's not what you should be doing. These ideas are rooted in a narrow, utilitarian viewpoint that doesn't appreciate the healing wisdom of the soul. 

Empire didn't grow to cover the world in just one way, and its demise won't happen one way, either. Some of us will be called to become hermits, some to protest, others to make food or art; that is all wonderful and needed work. 

What this world needs is more adults who understand that what they are called to do is exactly what will bring healing to these times, even if those callings appear unrelated to the polycrises we're facing.

I believe this because it's what I see the other beings on the land modeling for us. Each being in an ecosystem is bringing some sort of necessary nutrition just by doing what they want or feel called to do. 

A Wolf doesn't force the Deer to migrate because he believes it's what he should do. He makes them move because he wants to satiate his hunger. Bees don't make honey because they feel guilty if they deprive humans of their elixir, they do it because it is what they're meant to do. 

I know things can feel more complicated for us human animals who are complicit in so much harm just by how we're forced to live inside of this system, but I believe the kernel remains the same between us and every organism on this planet: Life is best served when we do what is natural and enlivening to us. 

When you give yourself permission to do what it is you long to do with as much integrity as possible, you help to reweave care and joy and sanity into this world. 

I have never met a student or client who identified their calling as something selfish or harmful. Real, of-the-soul callings are Life attempting to live through you, which means that they carry the diverse and sustainable wisdom of Nature. 

Your callings, whether they are to live in community, write by the Sea, sing to the Mountain, or become a Clown - all of those are Life trying to make medicine through you. 

So when you feel gripped by the question of What do we do? I encourage you to let go of the belief that it's your job to save this world and ask instead, What is mine to do? What thread is mine to weave into this moment, or work, or ecosystem? 

As you stay close to what's most meaningful and enlivening to you, making stitch after courageous stitch from that empowered place, a new tapestry becomes more apparent–one strong enough to hold you and those you make a life with. This is beautiful, and it's enough.