Come As You Are — Why Permission Is Part of Healing

“Come as you are” can sound like a nice phrase — until you actually try to live it.

Most of us arrive everywhere slightly armored.
We try to be regulated.
Prepared.
Reasonable.
Better than we feel.

But the nervous system doesn’t unwind through performance.
It unwinds through permission.

In my work, I’m less interested in readiness and more interested in honesty — not verbal honesty, but bodily honesty.

Are you tired?
Tender?
Resistant?
Unsure?

All of that belongs.

In the Valentine’s gathering this month, people were invited to do their own work quietly. To draw. To listen. To rest. To follow what honored their nervous system instead of pushing through a process.

And that permission mattered.

When we stop demanding that healing look a certain way, the body often reveals exactly what it needs. Sometimes it needs movement. Sometimes stillness. Sometimes contact. Sometimes nothing at all.

Healing doesn’t begin with effort.
It begins with allowance.

You don’t need to be ready.
You don’t need to know what will happen.

You just need to be willing to arrive as you are — and trust that that’s enough.