My guest this week is Regina Louise, author of a new book called Permission Granted: Kick-Ass Strategies to Bootstrap Your Way to Unconditional Self-Love (affiliate link). I know I’ve often tended to seek permission from other people to do the things I want to do. The first time I had a book contract, for example, I felt like colleagues and past supervisors were looking over my shoulder, and like I had to clear everything I wanted to say with them in my head before I wrote it. But obviously that’s not a great place to write from, and we end up really limiting ourselves when we look to others for permission that isn’t theirs to give. So as you’ll hear Regina describe, we can liberate ourselves from the false stories we carry about what we’re allowed to do and who gets to decide who we are and what we’re capable of. I think you’ll find her message very uplifting and inspiring.

Topics in our discussion include:

• Realizing that one’s life is just as meaningful as anyone else’s
• Cultivating one’s character to be of use—just as all of creation is useful
• Taking back the power that we give to others
• Learning to stay with discomfort
• Reconciling the reality of systemic oppression with taking radical responsibility for our lives
• Regina’s defiance in doing the things she was told “Black people don’t do”
• Mindfulness as living in alignment with reality as it is
• Writing one’s own “permission statement”
• The imperative to individuate from one’s parents
• Listening to music that “revives the soul,” like “O Holy Night”
• The powerful experience of spirit recognizing spirit
• Resurrection as a return to spirit

Regina Louise is the bestselling author of memoirs entitled Somebody’s Someone and Someone Has Led This Child to Believe.

Her story was made into the award-winning Lifetime movie I Am Somebody’s Child: The Regina Louise Story, which was nominated for a 2020 NAACP Award for Best Director.

Regina graduated summa cum laude from the California Institute of Integral Studies with a master’s of fine arts degree.

She’s also a Hoffman Process teacher, a workshop facilitator, and a motivational speaker who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Regina has been featured in media outlets like NPR’s All Things Considered, Good Morning America, The CBS Early Show, The Tavis Smiley Show, and many more.

Discover more about Regina on her website and follow her on Instagram and Facebook.