In this empowering episode of Not That Girl Anymore, discover how giving yourself permission can transform your healing journey. Learn how to break free from “good girl” rules, set boundaries, release shame, and reclaim your voice, worth, and power. Perfect for women ready to step into confidence, authenticity, and freedom.

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Embrace Your Brave: Hey, friends! Welcome back to Not That Girl Anymore.

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Embrace Your Brave: This is a space for healing and truth, and together we'll find our voices, reclaim our power, and bravely step into the women we were always meant to be.

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Embrace Your Brave: I am so glad you're here.

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Embrace Your Brave: And I don't know why, but I just felt like maybe someone needed to hear this today.

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Embrace Your Brave: And maybe that someone is you.

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Embrace Your Brave: Today I want to talk about something kind of small on the surface, but really life-changing.

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Embrace Your Brave: When you let it in.

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Embrace Your Brave: And that's giving yourself permission.

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Embrace Your Brave: Because so many of us, I know this was true for me, We live our lives waiting.

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Embrace Your Brave: Waiting for someone else to say it's okay.

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Embrace Your Brave: It's okay to rest. It's okay to speak. It's okay to walk away.

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Embrace Your Brave: It's okay to want more.

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Embrace Your Brave: But what if you don't have to wait anymore?

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Embrace Your Brave: What if the permission that you've been longing for has been in your hands all along?

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Embrace Your Brave: I remember what it felt like to live without permission.

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Embrace Your Brave: It was like carrying a weight on my chest every single day.

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Embrace Your Brave: My whole body was tight.

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Embrace Your Brave: braced, waiting for the moment I'd be told that I was wrong, or I was too much, or I was not enough.

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Embrace Your Brave: And maybe you know that feeling, too.

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Embrace Your Brave: The constant second-guessing. The fear of disappointing someone.

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Embrace Your Brave: The shame of just being you.

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Embrace Your Brave: And for some of us, it goes even deeper. There's a kind of spiritual anxiety that takes root.

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Embrace Your Brave: That gnawing fear that you'll never get it right with God.

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Embrace Your Brave: That if you question, if you doubt, if you miss a step, You'll be punished.

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Embrace Your Brave: And it convinces you that you can't trust yourself.

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Embrace Your Brave: But hear me out.

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Embrace Your Brave: That fear doesn't come from God.

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Embrace Your Brave: It comes from systems that used fear.

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Embrace Your Brave: to control you.

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Embrace Your Brave: When I was walking through my first marriage crisis.

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Embrace Your Brave: The one that got me into therapy.

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Embrace Your Brave: I was barely functioning.

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Embrace Your Brave: I was not eating or sleeping.

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Embrace Your Brave: I was completely exhausted. I was traumatized.

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Embrace Your Brave: And I felt like I was drowning.

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Embrace Your Brave: And in that season, A friend gave me a gift that I didn't even know I needed.

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Embrace Your Brave: And she introduced me to this idea of permission slips.

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Embrace Your Brave: And she gave me one.

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Embrace Your Brave: It was so simple, but yet so profound.

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Embrace Your Brave: She told me I had permission to feel whatever it was I was feeling.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or permission to do whatever my body needed in the moment.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or permission to fall apart.

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Embrace Your Brave: If that's what I needed.

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Embrace Your Brave: And I'll never forget how much that meant to me.

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Embrace Your Brave: Those words felt like oxygen.

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Embrace Your Brave: I didn't have to keep it together. I didn't have to perform.

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Embrace Your Brave: I could actually just be human.

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Embrace Your Brave: That was one of the first times I realized how powerful permission can be.

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Embrace Your Brave: And it meant so much to me that I remember I started handing out permission slips to my other friends, who I knew needed them

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Embrace Your Brave: And now, years later, it's a regular part of my life. It's a regular part of my work as a therapist and a coach.

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Embrace Your Brave: I see this all the time with my clients.

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Embrace Your Brave: So many women are just looking for permission.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to start caring about themselves.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or permission to question what they've been taught.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or permission to leave abuse.

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Embrace Your Brave: or permission to matter.

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Embrace Your Brave: Trauma teaches us to outsource permission.

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Embrace Your Brave: Which means, instead of trusting ourselves, we let other people tell us who we are, and how to think, and what we're worth, and what we're allowed to do.

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Embrace Your Brave: And when you live like that long enough, you forget that the pen was ever supposed to be in your hand.

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Embrace Your Brave: So, abuse, or religion, or culture, or family systems.

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Embrace Your Brave: They all hand us these invisible rules.

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Embrace Your Brave: Good girls don't say no.

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Embrace Your Brave: Good girls don't get angry.

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Embrace Your Brave: Good girls don't take up space.

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Embrace Your Brave: Good girls don't rest until everyone else is taken care of.

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Embrace Your Brave: Sound familiar?

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Embrace Your Brave: And the truth is, those good girl rules don't just disappear when we grow up.

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Embrace Your Brave: They follow us into adulthood.

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Embrace Your Brave: They become the silent expectations placed on us as women.

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Embrace Your Brave: And especially as women, we've been conditioned to believe

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Embrace Your Brave: We can't make decisions on our own.

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Embrace Your Brave: That we're not capable, or we're not wise enough, or we're not allowed to.

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Embrace Your Brave: So we hand over our choices.

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Embrace Your Brave: To parents, or partners, or pastors, or bosses, or leaders.

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Embrace Your Brave: Waiting for someone else to tell us what's right.

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Embrace Your Brave: But the truth is, you are.

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Embrace Your Brave: capable.

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Embrace Your Brave: You ARE wise.

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Embrace Your Brave: You have everything you need inside of you to choose your next step.

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Embrace Your Brave: Healing is remembering that you don't need someone else's approval.

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Embrace Your Brave: to trust yourself.

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Embrace Your Brave: You already carry that authority.

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Embrace Your Brave: And permission says, I don't have to wait anymore.

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Embrace Your Brave: I can write that slip myself.

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Embrace Your Brave: So sometimes permission looks different depending on the season of life that we're in.

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Embrace Your Brave: So, for some of us, It's emotional permission.

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Embrace Your Brave: Like I needed that day.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to feel everything.

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Embrace Your Brave: I tell my clients, you know, I want you to be able to feel everything that you're supposed to as a human. So that might mean one minute you're crying on the bathroom floor.

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Embrace Your Brave: And that's okay. And the next minute, you might be dancing in the kitchen.

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Embrace Your Brave: And that's okay, too!

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to feel everything, even the messy stuff.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to not be okay.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to trust your gut.

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Embrace Your Brave: Even if it doesn't line up with what other people want for you.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or maybe it's relational permission.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to say no.

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Embrace Your Brave: Without explaining.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to set boundaries without guilt.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to stop being the peacekeeper.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to walk away from what is harmful.

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Embrace Your Brave: Even if no one else understands.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or permission around your identity and your worth.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to take up space.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to be seen instead of hiding.

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Embrace Your Brave: And permission to use your voice, even if it shakes.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to believe that you are worthy.

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Embrace Your Brave: Because you Are, and just as you are.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or permission in our bodies. Maybe it's permission to rest.

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Embrace Your Brave: Without guilt.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or maybe it's permission to enjoy food and pleasure.

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Embrace Your Brave: And movement without shame.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to listen to your body.

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Embrace Your Brave: And love your body, instead of punishing it.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to care for your health before everything else.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or maybe, for you, it's spiritual permission.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to question what you were taught.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to lay down fear and choose love instead.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to find God, or spirituality.

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Embrace Your Brave: In your own way.

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Embrace Your Brave: And then there's the permission for your dreams. Permission to start over.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to dream again after heartbreak or disappointment.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or permission to do things simply because they bring you joy.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to live a bigger, freer, louder life.

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Embrace Your Brave: Than you were told was acceptable.

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Embrace Your Brave: And with that comes permission to change.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to change your mind.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or to say, you know, that used to work for me.

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Embrace Your Brave: But it doesn't anymore.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or to evolve, or to pivot, or to grow in new directions without apology.

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Embrace Your Brave: And maybe most of all, there's permission to heal.

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Embrace Your Brave: Permission to lay down the shame and the silence, and to tend to your wounds, and to choose freedom.

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Embrace Your Brave: And permission to take your life back.

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Embrace Your Brave: To reclaim your voice, your story, And your future.

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Embrace Your Brave: Friend, whatever.

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Embrace Your Brave: That is for you, wherever you find yourself today.

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Embrace Your Brave: Hear this.

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Embrace Your Brave: You are allowed.

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Embrace Your Brave: You don't need anyone else to hand you a slip of paper. The pen is already in your hand.

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Embrace Your Brave: And I want to invite you to try something right here with me, wherever you are.

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Embrace Your Brave: And I invite you to take a deep, Slow breath.

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Embrace Your Brave: And drop your shoulders down.

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Embrace Your Brave: And feel your feet on the ground.

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Embrace Your Brave: And whisper to yourself, I give myself permission to.

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Embrace Your Brave: And don't overthink it, just let whatever comes to mind first rise up.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or maybe it's… to rest.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or maybe it's to speak.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or maybe it's to not be okay.

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Embrace Your Brave: Whatever it is, just whisper that to yourself. I give myself permission.

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Embrace Your Brave: 2.

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Embrace Your Brave: And you fill in the blank.

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Embrace Your Brave: And if you want to go deeper later, then grab a piece of paper and write it out.

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Embrace Your Brave: And start with those words, I give myself permission to, and just see what comes out.

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Embrace Your Brave: And maybe it's… What do I need permission to stop doing?

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Embrace Your Brave: Right now.

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Embrace Your Brave: Or what do I need permission to begin?

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Embrace Your Brave: Or what do I need permission to believe about myself?

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Embrace Your Brave: Or what do I need permission to change?

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Embrace Your Brave: Or what do I need permission to heal?

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Embrace Your Brave: And before we close, I do want to speak some of these words over you.

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Embrace Your Brave: And you just received this.

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Embrace Your Brave: You have permission to rest.

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Embrace Your Brave: When you're tired.

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Embrace Your Brave: And you have permission to cry when you're sad.

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Embrace Your Brave: And you have permission to laugh.

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Embrace Your Brave: When joy bubbles up in you.

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Embrace Your Brave: And you have permission to walk away when something isn't love.

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Embrace Your Brave: And you have permission to change.

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Embrace Your Brave: And permission to change your mind.

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Embrace Your Brave: And permission to heal and take your life back.

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Embrace Your Brave: And permission to start over again and again.

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Embrace Your Brave: And permission to be soft.

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Embrace Your Brave: And permission to be fierce.

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Embrace Your Brave: And you have permission to matter in every room, in every relationship, in every dream.

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Embrace Your Brave: Friend, you don't need anyone else to sign off on your life.

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Embrace Your Brave: Including me.

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Embrace Your Brave: You are the one holding the pin.

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Embrace Your Brave: And every time you write a new permission slip, you step further away from the girl who had to stay small and stay silent, and you step into the brave, whole woman that you are becoming.

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Embrace Your Brave: You get one life.

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Embrace Your Brave: I want you to live it.

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Embrace Your Brave: And I want you to live it in alignment with who you are.

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Embrace Your Brave: Not what everyone else has told you to be.

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Embrace Your Brave: You matter.

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Embrace Your Brave: Your story matters. Your life matters.

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Embrace Your Brave: Take the pen back and start creating the life that you want to live.

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Embrace Your Brave: And whatever it is that you are needing today, Take this from me.

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Embrace Your Brave: Here is your permission slip.