Ch 4: Giving Myself Permission – My Story, Part 2

In this chapter, I share how I began to put the Permission Journey™ into practice in my own life. After years of people-pleasing and self-doubt, I chose to take my power back, one small, scary step at a time. It wasn’t always graceful, but it was deeply real. I hope that by hearing my story, you’ll feel less alone in yours. If I can do it, you can too.

Listen on, and we will navigate the seven seas to freedom together.

Ch 4: Giving Myself Permission – My Story, Part 2: 'Give Yourself Permission to Live Your Life', written and read by Priya Rana Kapoor (Balboa Press), ©2014/2025 Priya Rana Kapoor

Transcript

Chapter 4 Giving Myself Permission My Story,

Part 2 When we have begun to take charge of our lives,

To own ourselves,

There is no longer any need to ask permission of someone.

George O'Neill Taking Back My Life Oddly,

Or fortunately,

The MS diagnosis gave me permission to start taking care of myself and honouring what I did and did not want to be or do.

However,

It took me a long time to get to a place where I was really able to listen to myself,

Honour my needs,

And live a whole life.

Quite quickly,

I was able to say,

I need to take things easy today because tomorrow is important and I have to be healthy and well.

It became easier for me to say no than it had ever been before I became ill because I felt I had an excuse to take care of myself.

I still worried that I was being selfish or unkind,

But it was alright to think of myself and my physical and psychological needs as I could hide behind my illness.

I had to create boundaries,

But before that,

I had to understand what would and would not work for me.

I also had to come to terms with the realisation that I couldn't make everyone happy all the time.

I needed to learn to choose my battles.

I had to learn to make hard choices and be willing to change.

This was all in an effort just to survive.

I went back to work part-time after the honeymoon and it was difficult.

After about a year,

I left my position.

In hindsight,

I should have stayed.

I loved my job and it would have kept me engaged with others.

Instead,

I started my own graphic design business and got heavily involved with a women's service organisation doing charity work in the Los Angeles area.

Slowly,

I sought complementary therapies to Western medicine.

I pursued relaxation techniques,

Guided imagery,

Aromatherapy,

Exercise and nutrition,

And I saw a psychotherapist.

In an attempt to eliminate all the stress from my life,

I withdrew a little from my mother.

However,

I still felt incredibly guilty about not doing what I thought was as much as she would have wanted or liked.

Whilst I was trying to nurture myself and my health,

I was only really addressing the surface issues and was hiding from everything else.

A year after I was diagnosed,

My eyesight started to go south.

My eyes are my weak link.

I had developed nerve damage from the first bouts of optic neuritis,

Six nerve palsy and nystagmus.

It was getting more and more difficult to see the computer screen,

So I could no longer do any graphic design work.

After years of working relatively successfully with a combination of traditional and complementary medicines,

I decided I wanted to start a holistic wellness centre for people with chronic illness.

I realised that I would need some letters behind my name to legitimise myself to any donors.

After a little research,

I settled on the master's programme in marriage and family therapy at my undergraduate alma mater,

USC.

I had been seeing a therapist and had been helping,

But I by no means thought that that line of work was going to be part of my life's purpose.

As I looked at the application for admission,

I realised to my horror that I had to take the graduate record exam,

Which had a maths component.

I hadn't seen a maths problem for over 15 years!

I worked diligently with a tutor to learn algebra,

Calculus and even division all over again.

I had an additional problem.

The test had to be taken on a computer,

And no paper version was available.

The screens they made us use at the testing centre were very,

Very old and difficult to read,

But I battled through.

As the test progressed,

Candidates were given more difficult questions if they were doing well.

Halfway through one of the maths components,

I got a tricky question,

And I knew I was doing well.

I looked up at the heavens,

And I thanked God for his help.

This was the second time in my life I recognised and knew without a doubt that I was not alone.

On completion,

I was automatically given my score.

I got the exact score I needed to be admitted into the programme,

Not a point higher or lower.

I took this as a sign that I was supposed to do this course,

And that I was on the right path.

However,

I could barely focus for hours after the exam.

All I could see was a kaleidoscope of amazing colours,

Shapes and sparkles.

Although it was quite pretty,

It was slightly unnerving.

The programme I attended was academically rigorous,

And there was a lot of reading.

Because of my eyes,

This was slow going for me.

I also started some very strong MS progression slowing medication,

Essentially low-grade chemotherapy,

And I got quite good at giving myself the injections,

But the side effects were really debilitating.

I had flu-like symptoms for at least a day after each dose.

I could barely get out of bed.

However,

I did not have one MS relapse for the 10 years I was on it.

As part of my degree,

I was invited to do research with one of the leaders in the field of clinical psychology and ageing.

Her lab was one of the most selective and sought-after for doctoral candidates worldwide,

And it was a huge honour to be included as a master's student.

I collaborated with one of her best PhD students on an Alzheimer's project.

I worked hard and learnt so much.

I will always be grateful to Pawnee because she believed in me,

Trusted me,

And fought for me to be listed as one of the authors on the published study.

I remember feeling very humbled because I was the lowest person on the rung in the research team,

And everyone else was so brilliant.

I had been told that I was quite an average performer,

So I felt almost as though I had tricked someone to get into the lab.

What was I doing there?

I felt like a fraud,

But I now know that this thinking was purely self-sabotage.

I loved the program and the therapy work I did.

I had great supervisors,

Learnt a lot,

And was doing well.

All of a sudden,

I realized that this was what I was meant to do in life,

And it felt natural and great.

When I graduated,

I interned at a neurology clinic,

Providing therapy to patients with neurological impairment such as Parkinson's,

Epilepsy,

And stroke.

In a funny way,

Working in a neurology clinic was the best place for me.

Going into the records room,

Where there were hundreds and hundreds of patient files,

I started to think that everyone in the world had a neurological disorder,

And that I was lucky to have MS.

I felt that it was probably the best of a difficult lot.

I was grateful that I didn't have dystonia,

Tourette's,

Or Alzheimer's.

I also realized that I had so far escaped relatively easily,

Because most of the people I worked with were suffering from worse symptoms than I.

However,

People with MS or any chronic illness live with varying degrees of severity.

Our conditions are all relative,

And we all have different burdens and trials to bear.

It is a very individual process.

I just considered myself lucky given the situation I was in at the time.

In a very odd way,

Being a therapist suited me extremely well,

Because it was all about the other person.

For better or worse,

This was something I knew well.

I had made my life all about other people,

And had completely negated myself along the way.

Whilst I was working very well with clients,

I still didn't feel like I was worthy of giving myself permission to live the life I felt I needed to live.

I had become my own worst enemy,

Never prioritizing my own needs and interests,

And assuming chores and responsibilities that weren't really mine.

I began to develop and strengthen my intuition.

Not only did I recognize it,

But I also started to act upon it.

At first,

My intuition would give me insight into what a client needed.

I was tentative at first,

And sometimes did nothing with the information.

I doubted myself.

But in time,

I started to listen to it and act upon it.

My husband was very supportive of me,

And I of him.

We had a good life and a lovely house in a beach community near Los Angeles.

It was different from London,

But it was safe,

Comfortable,

Clean,

And easy living.

But something wasn't working.

As time went on,

My husband and I were growing further and further apart.

As well as the MS,

There were fertility issues.

We separated,

Moved apart,

And got back together four times before we finally called it quits.

We went to couples therapy and tried everything we could think of.

It was immensely sad,

As we really cared for each other and had supported each other through so much.

The whole process was incredibly difficult.

Maybe we had married too young before we really knew what we wanted for our lives,

And we just grew into different people with different needs,

Likes,

And wants.

I never quite know what to say when people ask me,

What happened?

Why did you get divorced?

It happened.

It was painful,

And it took me years to recover from it.

I wouldn't change anything from my time with him,

And I have absolutely no regrets.

On the ledge Age 37,

I decided that it would be sensible to have my eggs frozen,

In case I thought I might want my own children one day.

I didn't want to rush into meeting someone new and getting married just because my biological clock was ticking.

I also thought it would appease my family and others,

Who thought it would be a shame for me not to have children.

I am highly sensitive to medication,

And neither my doctors nor I could have anticipated the trouble I would have with the hormone therapy required for this process.

A bad reaction,

Caused by the interactions of various other medications,

Combined with the emotions related to the difficulties I had been having in my personal life,

Resulted in a disastrous outcome.

Essentially,

It was a perfect storm.

I became almost psychotic,

And at one point I came very close to jumping off the ledge of my 12th floor downtown loft.

I remember looking out over the city.

All the bright twinkling lights were so mesmerizing.

They pulsed hypnotically and were almost beckoning me.

It seemed very peaceful.

And then all of a sudden I had a flash of lucidity.

I realized what I was about to do,

And I was really afraid.

What kind of message are you giving your patients if you leave them this way?

As a therapist,

I knew all about how medication,

Stress,

And depression can affect people.

I suddenly realized that the person who wanted to take her own life was not the real me.

For a moment,

I could see and hear the monster inside me,

Which often told me that I was useless and stupid,

And that nothing good was ever going to happen to me.

I recognized it as the cause of much of my self-sabotaging behavior.

All my life I had lived according to what I thought other people needed and wanted from me.

Ironically,

This is what saved me now.

I found strength in the knowledge that my patients needed me,

But more importantly,

It would have been very harmful to them if I had jumped off the ledge.

I was accountable to them.

I often hear people talk of how selfish people who commit suicide are.

How could they do that to their families?

Having come close to doing that myself,

I know that the thought of family and friends rarely crosses the distressed person's mind.

They are in pain,

And they simply want to get out of a situation that has become unbearable.

I was just lucky to have my education,

Awareness,

Strength,

And that very brief,

Clear whisper.

During that moment of clarity,

I knew I needed help.

At 10 p.

M.

,

I called my neurologist,

Who happened to work at the same clinic as I.

Both literally and figuratively,

He talked me down from the ledge.

I will be eternally grateful to him.

Taking Personal Responsibility Accept who you are,

And revel in it.

Mitch Albon When I finally accepted that things were just not working out for me,

I started to explore what was holding me back from achieving the life I wanted.

I realized that it was not other people who were getting in my way,

Or that I lived with a chronic illness.

It was me.

Not my mother,

Or anybody else.

Just me.

My own decisions,

Interpretations,

And perceptions were getting in my way.

I was the one who had decided that I would sacrifice my own preferences and interests in order to do what I thought everyone else wanted.

I was the one who was running around in circles,

Trying to keep everyone else in my life happy.

I had discounted and failed to honor what I really wanted.

In short,

I was not taking personal responsibility for my life,

Thoughts,

Needs,

Desires,

And well-being.

I was letting others dictate what I should do.

Or,

In truth,

My perception of what they wanted me to do.

I argued with my mother when our worldviews clashed,

Rather than accepting that she had one way of seeing things,

And I had another.

I thought that she would be disappointed in me if I did what I wanted,

Or that the choices I wanted to make were not ones she would approve of.

It took a while before I understood that I didn't have to first consider how I thought my mother would react before doing anything for myself.

I had never learned how to give myself permission to wholly trust myself,

To see my own opinions as primary.

Over time,

I learned that I could give myself permission to present myself to the world the way I wanted.

To disagree with my mother about fundamental issues without feeling hurt or upset.

To understand that we were both entitled to our own views,

And to live accordingly.

Ultimately,

I learned,

If I wanted things to change,

I already had the power to effect that change.

I could decide to let the other people in my life be themselves,

And to give myself the same freedom to take responsibility for my decisions and myself.

Whether the people in my life were actually judging me or not,

I needed to reach the point at which I could stop judging myself according to how I perceived others viewed me.

Spreading my wings.

When you have been with the same person for over 15 years,

You realize that most of your pictures are of the two of you together.

Each event or moment in time has the potential to stir up all sorts of memories of the relationship,

The joy and the sadness.

As a result,

You end up displaying pictures from bygone days,

Of fun events in childhood or teenage larks.

I found my class photo from when I was 15 and put it up in my new flat.

Since I was so happy at school and was still friends with quite a few of the girls in the image,

I felt safe and comfortable looking at it.

Quite by chance,

My friend Alec looked at the picture.

He asked me,

Knowing what you know now,

What would you tell that 15-year-old girl?

Without skipping a beat,

I turned to him and said,

I would probably tell her never to leave London.

In that moment,

I realized with startling clarity that objectively,

Nothing was tying me to the United States and that I could leave whenever I wanted.

Alec's simple question had given me permission to listen to myself.

After many years of living and working in Los Angeles,

I reached a point at which I knew that the right thing for me was to make a move.

I had already worked on changing my role in my mother's life and subsequently in my grandmother's.

I understood that over the course of my time in Los Angeles,

I had assumed responsibility for everyone else.

I had felt that I could never leave Los Angeles because my family needed me.

I became resentful of and angry with them at times,

And experienced the role of a victim,

Of someone who sacrificed her own happiness and well-being for the welfare of others.

But the truth of the matter was that I had chosen everything in my life,

And that nobody else was really making me do anything,

Even though it felt like it at times.

I was the one who had decided to stay in Los Angeles,

And I was the one who had decided to be responsible,

Priya.

Instead,

I could choose to do the really responsible thing,

What was right for me.

Everything happens for a reason.

After I moved back to London,

I became involved in a relationship that wasn't good for either of us,

And after a destructive few years,

It came to an end.

Once again,

I was devastated.

Yet again,

I had relegated my dreams,

Hopes,

And desires to those of someone else,

And was not giving myself permission to do what I wanted.

I had found myself giving away my freedom and all the responsibilities for my life.

As I healed from that relationship,

I was also able to heal as I needed to from my marriage,

And from the many years of making myself subordinate to everyone else.

My experience has been that when someone hasn't really worked on something,

Another event or someone else comes along to force the issue.

Hopefully,

The person eventually learns their lesson,

And the experience and subsequent healing process is a metamorphosis.

Where I landed I feel that the healing process is ever-evolving.

I now know that my opinion matters,

And I feel worthwhile.

I have good self-esteem,

And I'm confident in the things I know how to do.

I know that I am the only one responsible for how I think,

Feel,

And act.

I am responsible for how good a daughter I am,

How good a partner I am,

How good a friend I am,

How good a coach I am,

And for just about everything I allow to happen to me.

I know that the buck stops with me.

I may fall short,

But by experiencing a failure once in a while,

I learn something.

And in so doing,

I increase my chances of success the following time.

This understanding has given me an incredible sense of freedom to chart my own course in life.

Freedom to listen to others without getting defensive or feeling attacked.

Freedom to think that I am good enough to be in this world,

And to interact with others.

I also now have the strength,

Ability,

And freedom to make hard choices for myself.

It is also easier to live with any fallout,

Because I know I made the best decision I could at the time,

Given the information I had,

And I respect myself for it,

Good or bad.

I am healthy and happy,

And there are still loads of things I want to do and experience in life.

I am now free to give myself permission to figure out what they are,

And to pursue them.

Hence,

Here I am,

Finally writing the book I always thought I would,

Because I want to help you get to a place of freedom,

Too.

It's not easy,

But I know I will never forgive myself if I don't forge ahead with dignity,

Tenacity,

And resilience.