"They" weren't paying attention. Why should I?

They taught me to wait for permission. They just forgot to tell me when to stop waiting.

Can I just tell you something?

I think I’ve been waiting for permission from people who aren’t even paying attention.

That sentence landed in me like a little bell. Not a church bell. Not a warning bell. More like one of those tiny bells on an old shop door that rings when somebody walks in and the owner looks up and says, “Well, look who finally got here.”

Me.

I finally got here.

I am telling you my story because I have a feeling it is yours too. Not the details. The pattern underneath the details.

For most of my life, I measured what I wanted to do against a few old voices that had taken up residence in my head. Would they approve? Would they think I was foolish? Would they roll their eyes? Would they think I was too much? Would they think I should be quieter, smaller, more reasonable, more practical, more acceptable?

And here is the ridiculous part.

Most of those people were not even thinking about me. Not really. Not in the way I was thinking about them. They were off living their own lives, buying groceries, watching television, worrying about their own knees, their own bills, their own children, their own disappointments, their own private weather.

Meanwhile, there I was, still holding their imaginary opinion up to the light before I made a move. Should I write this? Should I say that? Should I paint this? Should I make the video? Should I tell the truth? Should I become more myself this late in life?

As if I needed someone to hand me a little permission slip. As if I was still waiting outside some invisible office door, hoping a voice from the other side would say, “Yes, Monica, you may.”

Well. Why the hell was I waiting?

That is the question that cracked something open.

Because waiting for permission is rarely just about manners. It is rarely just about being considerate. Underneath it, if we are honest, there is usually a much older ache.

Self-doubt.

That old, sneaky, well-dressed thief.

Self-doubt makes us look outside ourselves for proof that we are allowed to want what we want. It makes us think somebody else has better information about our life than we do. It makes us confuse approval with safety. It makes us believe validation is the same thing as truth.

And if we have lived long enough without believable faith in ourselves, we can start outsourcing our decisions without even realizing we are doing it.

If I had possessed that faith when I was eighteen years old, my life might have gone differently. I might have stood up to my father and said no. Not because marriage was wrong — but because I had never once stopped to ask myself what I actually wanted before I said yes. That question. That one quiet question. I had never asked it.

Would it have been messy? Of course. Would I have made mistakes? Absolutely. Would I have been scared? Probably out of my mind.

But it would have been my fear. My mistakes. My life.

Instead, I did what many of us did. I looked around at the people who seemed to know better than I did, and I assumed they must be right.

That is the particular tragedy of not yet trusting yourself. You do not just doubt your choices. You doubt your right to have choices. You doubt your own inner knowing. You doubt the quiet tug in your chest. You doubt the part of you that whispers, “This is not my life.”

And if enough people around you sound certain, you can mistake their certainty for wisdom. Even when your soul is standing in the corner waving both arms and saying, “Excuse me, sweetheart, we need to talk.”

It took me nearly forty years to build faith in myself. And I did not build it in one dramatic moment. There was no lightning strike. No grand epiphany with orchestral music. No angel descending from the ceiling with a clipboard saying, “Congratulations, Monica, you now trust yourself.”

Wouldn’t that have been handy?

No. It came slowly. Painfully. Awkwardly. One decision at a time. One truth at a time. One moment of finally admitting, “I do not want this,” or “I do want this,” or “I cannot keep pretending this fits.”

Believable faith in yourself is not the same as confidence. Confidence can perform. Confidence can put on earrings and lipstick and walk into a room like it owns the place.

Believable faith is quieter. It is the part of you that can sit down at the kitchen table with your doubt and say, “I hear you. I know you are scared. But you do not get to drive today.”

That is the part I have been building. I am still building it.

Doubt still visits me. More often than I care to admit. Doubt does not knock politely either. Doubt walks right in, opens the refrigerator, comments on the housekeeping, and asks who I think I am.

Who do you think you are to write that? Who do you think you are to paint that? Who do you think you are to start over now? Who do you think you are to be seen?

And I do not always rise up like some glowing goddess of certainty. Sometimes I wobble. Sometimes I get quiet. Sometimes I have to sit down with myself and remember what is true.

Not what I have earned. Not what I have proven. Not what I can justify to the committee in my head.

What is true.

That my worth was never supposed to be up for vote. That my soul has been talking to me for a long time. That I am allowed to listen to it — not because I have finally become impressive enough, but because I always was.

That is what I come back to when doubt opens the refrigerator and makes itself at home.

And that, I think, is what so many of us are doing at this stage of life. We are coming back to ourselves after years of asking everyone else where we were supposed to stand. We are connecting dots. We are seeing how one old decision led to another. How one swallowed truth became a pattern. How one “I better not” became a lifestyle. How one person’s disapproval became an entire set of invisible rules. How one moment of not trusting ourselves became a lifetime of looking outside ourselves for permission.

And then, if we are lucky, something happens. A sentence lands. A memory opens. A pattern reveals itself. We realize the people we have been trying not to disappoint may not be paying any attention at all.

And instead of that only feeling sad, it starts to feel like freedom.

Because if they are not watching, we can stop performing. If they are not keeping score, we can put down the pencil. If they are not thinking about us, we can stop living as though their opinion is the weather system over our entire life.

And if they are thinking about us? Well, that is still not a reason to abandon ourselves.

That may be the most grown-up sentence I know.

Someone else’s opinion is not a reason to abandon myself.

I wish I had known that at eighteen. I wish I had known that at thirty. I wish I had known that at forty-five.

But I know it now. And knowing it now still counts.

Who is living rent-free in your head right now? And when did you last check whether they are actually paying attention?

One more thing before you go.

I wrote a guide called Building Believable Trust in Yourself — and for the next 48 hours I want to give it to every woman who becomes a paid member today.

Not as a download. Not as an automated sequence. You send me an email and I send it back to you personally. That is how much I mean it.

The guide is built from everything I learned — slowly, awkwardly, one decision at a time — about how to stop outsourcing your choices and start trusting the woman who has been right there all along.

If that is the work you are ready to do, I would love for you to have it.

Become a paid member today, then send your request to monica@monirosesou.com

I will send it to you, directly.

This offer closes in 48 hours.

PST: Might want to take advantage of the 20% off discount, too!

One more thing.

A few days ago I popped on live around 5 o’clock to talk about something that connects directly to everything in this piece.

Removing friction.

Not fixing yourself. Not becoming more disciplined. Not trying harder. Just noticing where the resistance actually lives — and asking whether the problem is you or the shoes.

It’s seven minutes. Grab your coffee.

Also, someone asked how to “ buy me a coffee” recently. Often, I forget to put the link here, so here it is - just in case.

https://buymeacoffee.com/dpxlblxff2

And if something in this piece made you pause, nod, or feel a little less alone — please give it a heart before you go. That one small tap tells the algorithm this conversation matters. It puts these words in front of another woman who needs to hear them today. She’s out there. Help me find her.