The Permission I’ve Been Waiting For

Have you ever gotten to that point in life where you envy the elders? How honest and blunt they are. How they’re not afraid to simply tell it like it is and call you out on your own nonsense.

They remind you that life is short. To embrace it with all that you are.

They’re sassy and authentic - and I don’t mean stuck in their ways or unwilling to grow. They have this carefreeness that I’ve always found myself saying, “I can’t wait until I get to the age where I can be free to live fully me. All aspects of me.”

Then I stepped into business. Everyone said “be authentic” but it became this glamour word. Overused until it became another mask to wear, another way to perform being real.

It sounds so great, right? Yet like an unattainable goal. Something we search our whole lives for, only to maybe - maybe - get a decade at the end where we truly let go and LIVE.

What if we actually embraced our quirks right now? What if we were grateful for each day to walk them out in their fullness? What would that look like for you?

At 43, I Finally Pressed Record

This past week I finally recorded my single. I’ve been singing since I was little, professionally since I was a teenager. But I chose to leave the arts and go into business. I separated my self-expression a long time ago and then wondered why nothing ever felt right.

Something was always missing. I’d sit and admire those who truly let themselves be free and be seen.

Now at 43, I’m finally giving myself permission to be. I’m not boxing myself into just teaching business. It started over ten years ago when I went on the journey of stepping into my feminine, but even with that breakthrough - I don’t want what helped me find my freedom to become another prison.

I’m actually asking myself what I want to be when I grow up. Seems too late, but it’s a pattern, isn’t it? At this age we go through what’s called a midlife crisis - where we can no longer take another second playing in a world we don’t fit in. And we’re actually okay with it.

All the masks come off. When we look in the mirror, we allow the silence to paint our truth.

The Artist’s Curse I Tried to Escape

I remember seeing movies about artists who shaped history and culture, yet they spoke of love as longing. A moment once breathed but fleeting. I wondered - if I hid this part of me, would I be saved from the same fate? Parents and family often shunned them. Friends? You don’t hear about those. Just them and their gifts.

Would I be okay to drink from the same cup?

But in the end, can you truly outrun the way God made you to communicate? The expression He gave you to share? It always catches up. Either it haunts you - so you stay busy enough to drown out the echoes vibrating through your being - or you yield.

I’m writing this, so you can imagine which I chose.

Maybe what it cost me to not share this part of myself was greater than I imagined. How can I get closer to God while holding back pieces of who He made me to be? The weight of “You can have all this, but not this part - I don’t want to share that.”

What if...

I feel like I’m starting over. Not even crawling yet. Like everything I’ve built needs to be redone, needs new life breathed into it. Has it been an injustice to play it small?

The Love I Craved But Couldn’t Name

For so long I wanted a loved one, a friend, someone I’m connected with to ask me about what I’m writing or creating. To show interest. To get excited with me. So I held it in like a mystery to keep dear - a part of me not to expose but keep safe.

I wanted them to ask because that meant they actually cared about me within. Writing and music and art - they’re expressions of what’s inside. My inner thoughts coming out to play and dance on pages or swing on a melody. If they asked, they truly cared.

Or so I thought.

Even as a child, I remember creating cards instead of buying them, even when I had money. I’d try to get creative, but it wasn’t received the way I hoped. I lived in a house with those who valued education, corporate high living, financials, big houses, and nice cars. And I’m not saying I don’t like nice things - but I was more of an artist.

My family loved me deeply, but theirs was more of an educational love. My parents got degree after degree and intellect was extremely important. I believe it was because we are minorities, and my parents knew what was needed to survive. They wanted to show us that there was a different way for us to live, being raised in a Black and Puerto Rican household. I totally get why they would do what they did.

But I always felt like a black sheep in some way just because I loved the arts.

It’s funny because as I got older, I did the same thing. I got my degrees, always taking courses, and ended up teaching. I did step out of the box a little by becoming an entrepreneur, but if I’m honest, entrepreneurship was in our family veins. My parents had a Trinidad and Puerto Rican restaurant. My mom also had a consignment shop and eventually a bridal shop. She always made arts and crafts and sold them everywhere. My Papa would fix boats in a boat yard.

They did what they had to do.

I loved writing, playing my violin, being outside in nature, playing in the dirt, climbing trees, writing poetry, getting messy with paint, music from jazz to orchestra and symphonies to hip-hop and R&B.

Now I don’t look at any of those forms of expression as a way for somebody to love me or appreciate me or value me. They’re simply ways to express, ways to not hold everything in.

When Strangers See What Family Missed

So if I kept it hidden, the fact that no one asked wouldn’t hurt so much. Wouldn’t sting like proof that they only loved the surface of me.

But then a stranger would stop out of their own stillness to appreciate something I’d created. Their eyes would light up. They’d lean in. And somehow - maybe selfishly - their well-intentioned excitement carried no life for me as I gazed upon their enthusiasm.

The guilt would wash over me: “Shouldn’t you be excited? Isn’t this what you wanted?”

But it wasn’t the same. It was appreciation for my output, not recognition of my essence.

Becoming the Friend I Always Needed

I’ve come to find joy in being that person for others now. The one who asks. Who leans in. Who sees the artist behind the art. While the longing is still there, I’ve learned to appreciate my dances with the Lord. I create not to be seen but from recognizing that the greatest gift is exploring how to articulate what’s seen through my eyes - not managing the outcome.

That’s not my responsibility. Mine is simply to be obedient.

But I have to be honest - even in my special friendship, they didn’t necessarily seek me out and ask to read my poetry or writings. What they did was create an example, a model. As they continued to write their poetry and say yes to God, they set an example. As I watched all the things they went through - at times doubt, at times excitement - I got to truly see that it was okay to go through all those different emotions and give myself permission to sit in every feeling and observe it, not become it.

In my gratitude, I did share some of my writings and they showed appreciation and received them, which helped me gain confidence. I still had to open up and it took me some time, but in their consistency and on the journey watching them, it gave me the strength to do so.

I developed a hunger watching them embrace life and record it through their lens in many forms of expression. Maybe even till this day, they don’t know what they’ve done. Because even to this day, I don’t think I’ve shared any of my writings or poetry again.

But something shifted. I learned to ask the right questions to help individuals break free. Honestly, I don’t feel like I can take much credit because it’s really just creating a safe space and being still enough for them to hear their own voice.

We don’t think we know that we’re ignoring what’s within, but we do know. There was no specific moment I realized it - but there was a specific moment I made a decision to stop looking for external validation of what I already knew I was created to do.

I guess that’s why I’m known as the activator.

The Blueprint Was Always Inside

Not compartmentalizing, fully integrating - this is freedom itself. I was stuck in a world so hungry not to disappoint God that I followed gurus and mentors and courses every chance I got. Racing toward someone else’s blueprint for success.

But within me was the blueprint. I needed truly one person to help me integrate, to help me grow into the fullness of who He made me to be.

That person was me.

Honestly, I don’t feel like I lost anything in business during this integration. Those that are drawn to me or my voice will still remain. Those that appreciate the time around me or the gift that I have or the ability to activate and mentor will purchase, will do what they do to subscribe and stay close.

I got to the point where I don’t even like the performance of mentorship or coaching - where you’re almost trying to beg your clients to stay. I’m definitely not perfect in any way, shape, or form and I know I fall short, but those that have eyes to see and ears to hear, I believe it’s because God brought them to me. Even if it’s just a few, I’ll be faithful with them.

I don’t want to beg or chase for money or for people or for time or to prove my value or my worth.

Stepping more into my feminine has brought me into a place of more creating, and that special friendship I hold dear has allowed me to feel like I can breathe again. I felt like I was holding my breath for so long, compartmentalizing.

When you get to this place in life, you produce because you love it. You create because you can’t imagine doing anything else. It becomes less about making a living or being relevant or keeping up with the Joneses. It becomes where you live each day - creating it and making it a beautiful tapestry that even if you never got to partake in the fruit, it’s like David and Solomon. You get the blueprint, but Solomon builds and sees the fruit. But knowing that you left that behind was enough.

If You’re Still Holding Your Breath

Maybe you’re the same. Maybe you’re wrestling with sharing your gifts, your forms of expression. Maybe you’re holding them silent - like they’re the last part of you that’s truly yours. That no one can destroy or take away. So you keep them clenched tightly to your chest.

In one breath hoping someone seeks to know them, in another hoping they don’t - because it would require you to let go. To share. To let them into the vulnerable place where only you and the Lord have danced.

You have to go through your own process, but I can tell you this - the ache doesn’t go away until you release it.

Start Where You Are, With What You Have

The first thing to do is just appreciate who you are. If you want to start off with a hobby, do that thing you would’ve loved to do. I remember I started skating. I found pleasure in rollerskating with the music and the movement and the low lights. I also began writing poetry again and taking a look at sign language for worship and even learning a new language.

Then I would just share - not with everybody, but with those that followed me. There are people I talk to regularly who don’t even know some of the fun things I do. I don’t share them on Instagram or social media. Honestly, I just keep them to myself until somebody who wants to explore or learn more about me finds them.

I’ve learned to get up and live life. Try new things even if it’s by myself. Then you slowly express certain things. Maybe change up how you dress or express it in an email. Maybe you do a workshop or something and you try just a small way of expressing yourself that you normally wouldn’t express.

I remember when it was so difficult for me to just take off my shoes when I would speak, but I felt more grounded. More myself.

The Foundation That Never Shakes

Maybe you’re afraid that releasing your voice will cost you the love and security you’ve built. But here’s what I’ve learned: if that love and security isn’t rooted in Christ, if it’s built on codependency rather than divine design, then it was never truly stable to begin with. It was never true security or true love.

Perfect love casts out all fear.

The Questions That Will Set You Free

So I have to ask - have you really built anything if it’s built on needing external validation or love from another in order to feel valuable? To feel that your expressions have worth? That your thoughts deserve to be heard?

Why do we need external validation if our gifts are truly downloads from God? If they’re expressions of who He created us to be? Why would we want to wear a mask, hoping someone would love the person wearing the mask?

Why not take it completely off? Allow yourself to truly be seen?

Because truly, if we have found even one person in this lifetime who can appreciate who we really are, then we have found the true intention and reason God created us in the first place.

For intimacy.

It actually feels freeing to be whole. To appreciate all that comes with it.

You sleep better when you release your voice.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanyatenica.substack.com/subscribe