Lyrics:

You’re allowed to see beauty with both of your eyes

You’re allowed to have feelings, as feelings arise

You’re allowed to imagine inside of your mind

You’re allowed to, you’re allowed to, you’re allowed to,

It’s fine.

You’re allowed to discover what your body is for

You’re allowed to express, you’re allowed to explore

You’re allowed to want pleasure, you’re allowed to seek more

You’re allowed to, you’re allowed to, You’re allowed to,

It’s yours.

And when you consider the teachers you’ve had

Who said you were broken, and said you were bad

You’re allowed to be angry, you’re allowed to get mad

You’re allowed to, you’re allowed to, you’re allowed to,

It’s sad.

You’re allowed in your body, the place where you dwell

You’re allowed to be whole, not a hollowed-out shell

You’re allowed to live freely, without fear of hell

You’re allowed to, you’re allowed to, you’re allowed to,

Be well.

You’re allowed to ask questions of all your beliefs.,

You’re allowed to surrender the ones you don’t need

You’re allowed to let go, let them fall like a leaf

You’re allowed to…

Release.

About this project:

This self-released home recording of “You’re Allowed To” is part of an ongoing project to help surface the stories and songs that emerged for me during a season of deep healing. You can read more about the story behind the project, and how you can contribute to the full album, by reading this post:

Healing Journey

Are you on a journey, too?

The short summary: This renewed project will share my song demos that have been helping me heal, on the journey to produce a full album, over the course of the year ahead. You might like to join/stay if you are a person curious about healing from harm done in the name of religion, who appreciates music and art, and is curious about trying to find a way …

Read more

a year ago · 1 like · Kevan Gilbert

If you’re just getting started, the other song to catch up on is called “You Have Heard It Said.” Click here to listen.

How do you receive this song?

In some ways, I’d like this to speak for itself. I’d like its themes to wash over you and let it mean what it might mean to you, and you alone. And perhaps, on your first listen, and as you reflect on the lyrics, you can let it be that way for you. 

Listen to it, and simply be still. Ask yourself what it brings up in you. Take some notes about where your own journey feels connected to what is being expressed here. 

Perhaps you might feel challenged or upset by some of the themes — why is that? Can you pause on the idea that stirs up an internal barrier, and “get curious” about why you are responding in this manner? 

Perhaps the themes simply float right past you, not registering as particularly resonant for your own life experience. Isn’t that interesting, in its own way? What does it say about your own personal sense of autonomy and agency? How long have you known about the permission you have? 

Maybe there’s something in you that stirs with resonance — part of you that feels like you recognize the subtext, and the unstated stories here. Maybe it somehow connects with some part of your own journey, a part of what you’ve experienced in your life that only you could know. Stay with that before reading more.

I’ll pause here to let you note those connotations and have full access to your own subjective experience of the song, before I add in my own “artist’s statement.”

About this song, from my perspective.

It’s for our shared mutual thriving and healing that I need to not just let the song speak for itself. 

Perhaps you’re already fully familiar with the term and idea of “purity culture.” If not, let me give a quick definition:

Purity culture is the system of beliefs, institutions and cultural practices (supported through books, events, groups and more) that teach that one’s virtue and value is connected to one’s ability to live within a specific sexual ethic. You can click here to read a deeper definition of purity culture from writer Linda Kay Klein, who spent several years studying this topic as the basis of her brilliant memoir, “Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free” (a highly recommended read). 

In purity culture, you are to “put to the death the sinful desires of the flesh.” Your desires are not simply undesirable, they are to be destroyed. This would include any manner of sexual thought, arousal, conversation, education, expression or enjoyment,  except  — and only — within the context of a heterosexual marriage. 

The consequences of purity culture’s ethics are many: one is a deeply ingrained sense of personal shame, inescapably wired to one’s sexuality. Another is a common sense of terror of an unknown threat — it might be the anger than an unseen God might have against you, the worry of failing to perform to meet an unmeetable standard, the collapsing overwhelm when faced with any manner related to sexuality. Not to mention the annihilation that is levied, externally and internally, against anyone whose sexual expression falls outside of the social majority. 

My partner shared with me a wonderful quote from a recent podcast episode from Jen Hatmaker who said, “Learning about sex through purity culture is like learning how to cook and only being taught about food poisoning.” 

What an interesting thing: to associate toxicity, shame and fear with something that is actually core to human existence. Without the urge towards sexuality, there would be no human species. Sexual arousal is one of the core human emotions — in Hilary Jacobs Hendel’s book “It’s Not Always Depression,” you can learn how our ability to welcome our emotions is a core part of how we access the “open-hearted state of the authentic self.” We cannot mute our emotions selectively. When we numb one part, we numb access to all our emotions.

What if it were true that you, as a human being, in the manner in which you exist, have a body that functions with purpose, with desires that can be listened to, with the ability to create an ethical framework that helps you navigate the world responsibly?

What would it look like to trust your ability to make healthy decisions that take into account the well-being and needs of yourself and others, if given the opportunity?

What if you could trust, welcome and honour yourself, and find your way through the world, making decisions with wisdom and freedom?

What if you were allowed to?