Permission-giving

...another kind of offering

Photo Cliff Scholz

Everything we are and everything we do becomes an offering of permission for others to be and do likewise. We might not think that when we laugh we’re giving permission for others to laugh, or that when we take a deep breath we’re giving permission for others to do the same, but we are. We might not think that when we engage in judgment and shaming and fear we’re also saying: Hey, it’s okay, join me here in judgment and shaming. But we are. The simple fact is, we’re social creatures and to a very large extent we look to others to figure out what’s okay and what’s not okay to do in a given moment. This has its upsides and it has its downsides. The question I ponder is: How to be on the upside?

The classic thing is the first person or couple out on the dance floor. That’s “permission-giving.” They “break the ice,” and others follow. Or the first person to say goodbye at a dinner party — next thing you know others are saying their goodbyes. Or another classic is when one person in the room yawns and the next thing you know someone else does and then we might find ourselves yawning or trying to suppress a yawn that we feel coming on. That’s an example of how powerful permission-giving is as an offering to others: It can happen subconsciously. I suspect that this is also probably a big part of the reason why so many TV comedies are filmed in front of live audiences. When we hear others laughing, even if they are off-camera, it’s a subtle but very effective permission-giving for us to laugh along.

I contend that permission-giving is one of the most powerful forces in a society. It affects us developmentally. If we grow up with people who read books and talk about their reading and so on, that young child experiences that as a permission to read. It might even be a kind of encouragement to read. Likewise if we grow up seeing people fixing things, or writing poetry or exploring new cuisines, or following their dreams, as children and later, we are more likely to do the same. Flipside is, if we grow up with people whose patterns include drinking, complaining, or shouting insults at one another, that modeling also becomes permission to do so ourselves. Everything we do is essentially permission-giving for others — including our children — to do likewise.

For parents, one takeaway from all this is that we’re frequently advised that if we want our children to succeed in school, the most important thing we can do is to read to them when they’re little. And that’s good. The piece that’s often missing from this advice is that it’ll also be helpful for parents to engage in their own reading. That’s the actual modeling that translates into permission-giving: children seeing us reading in our spare time, talking about what we’re reading with others, going to the library, etcetera, versus for example staring at a cell phone all the time. Bottom line, the child who grows up in a culture of reading is much more likely to engage in reading. Not every child has much reading going on at home, however, so successful teachers who understand this will do what they can to create a culture of reading in their classrooms. The same pattern holds, both at home and at school, for things like playing music, gardening if you’re lucky, and even subtler kinds of permission-giving like being curious and exploring one’s world, or expressing original ideas.

And as the dance floor and other examples show, adults have very powerful permission-giving effects on one another as well. I’ve seen time and again how the people who are most accepting of themselves as emotional creatures will find that others open up to them on that level. I have a friend like this who, almost invariably in my experience, will go into a party or other gathering and next thing I’ll see someone in deep conversation with her, or even literally crying on her shoulder. Standing in a place of emotional openness, acceptance and authenticity is a powerful permission-giving for others to do likewise. Conversely, being emotionally callous gives others permission to do that. And again, like the contagious yawns or laughter, or even the subtler qualities of being such as comfort, trust, courage or vitality, a lot of this is picked up on subconsciously. But we can become more conscious. In fact, staying conscious is just another quality of being we can broadcast into the pool of our permission-giving. And the effects can be noticeable.

And naturally, there’s a shadow side to all of this. When we tune into the news and we hear serious tones of voice and people expressing anxiety, concern, judgment, fear, outrage or shock, it’s an invitation — permission is granted, if we choose to act on it — for us to stand in these places along with the talking heads on TV. If we act on or embody such permissions, this of course has consequences, too. Once we’re standing in a place of fear, anxiety, judgment, and so on, we become live broadcast stations giving permission for others to do the same. In this way, sometimes, anxiety spreads, just as surely as yawns, laughter, compassion, kindness and curiosity can. Wherever we stand, whatever we do, and however we are, we give permission for others to do likewise.

So why am I calling this phenomenon “permission-giving”? I understand that sometimes it’s hard not to take one person’s living permission as a suggestion, an encouragement, or even a thinly veiled requirement to be that way, too. When a crowd starts stampeding, the idea that one is “permitted” to join in the stampede and its hazards and struggles might seem a bit quaint. And I grant that there are all kinds of stampedes: stampedes of emotion, belief, or collective expectations, for starters. Not that every such sweeping trend is negative, but for those trends that don’t feel good or right or productive, we must negotiate these social forces as best we can.

Still, the reason I use the word permission is that even though I know it can sometimes be difficult not to take the permissions that others offer us as suggestions or even mandates to act and feel the same as they do, in the long run it really is up to us to decide which permissions those around us are broadcasting that we will receive, act on, embody, and rebroadcast into our shared world. We really do have some choice in the matter.

So, the holiday season is upon us. If we choose to align with the spirit of it, it’s a season of generous giving and grateful receiving. I want to suggest here that permission-giving is one of the bigger gifts to be exchanged, often unnoticed, but it’s happening anyhow.

Next questions are: What shall we give? And how shall we better receive what’s offered?

And right after that comes 2025, and the offering of gifts continues. So what’s it going to be: Pretense and posturing, or authenticity? Reactivity, or patience? Mental distractedness, or conscious physical embodiment and presence? Do we want robotic, frenetic, machine-driven hurry? Or on the other hand are we looking for something a bit more alive, responsive and full of feeling?

If the latter, consider permission granted. And thank you for yours.