Permission to own your story

The hardest part of telling your story is often letting yourself tell it

I know it can feel like the biggest barrier to owning your story isn't finding the right words. It's in giving yourself permission to tell it at all. To own it with confidence and zero hesitation that your story has a place in the world. 

This isn’t about the strategic part of of storytelling. It’s about creating the conditions for permission.

So much of what I do in storytelling work is about helping people give themselves permission — and a trusting space — to pay attention to parts of themselves they've been trained to minimize.

Where the Resistance Comes From

I know this firsthand. I grew up actively discouraged from being the protagonist in my own life.

And I'm not alone in that. Many of us — particularly women — absorbed the same conditioning: that sharing your story is "cringey." That claiming authorship of your life is pompous. That it's better to wait for someone else to tell your story than to tell it yourself.

These are limiting beliefs. And they don't just hold us back personally — they hold us back as leaders, as founders, as people trying to live in alignment with our deeper purpose.

When people connect with their stories, they gain clarity. They gain the empowerment to make new moves. They stop waiting to be invited to share what they're about and start actively offering their story — their intentions, their values, their vision — to the world.

Right now, we need exactly that. We need the people who lead without force, who aren't pushing their way to the top, to step forward. But that won't happen if we keep containing our stories, waiting for permission that was always ours to give.

The Permission Practice

This is one of the simplest personal narrative work exercises I use — and one of the most revealing.

Write this at the top of a blank page:

"If I gave myself full permission to let my [network, community, world] know what I was all about, my story would include..."

Set a timer for five minutes. Write without stopping. Don't edit. Don't filter.

Just notice what surfaces when you give yourself permission to go there.

What comes up is almost always more honest — and more powerful — than what you'd say if you were "preparing" to share your story. That unedited version is where your narrative identity lives. That's the story worth telling. And that telling begins with you. Honor that story. 

Consider this the permission slip you've been waiting for. 

What would you include if you let yourself go there?

With you, 

Laura