A Kind of Shield
Jul. 5th, 2011 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cedar_groveFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
What is it you need that you think their [the approval of others that we seek] approval will provide?
The answer to that is both easy and difficult at the same time. Validation.
It speaks back to the courage to be myself. If I have the approval of others for the things I do and say when I am 'being myself' then surely the things I do and the things I say are valid, and make me, as an individual valid as well… but why should that be true?
If I know in my heart that each person is a valid individual, a sacred part of life and as honoured and 'divine' as the next person, or as I, then what difference does it make whether or not those outside of myself approve, so long as I, myself, approve?
If not validation then what? Understanding?
Does someone else's approval of me and my words and actions indicate to me that they understand me, and our relationship is therefore facilitated with greater ease – our communication more effective? I don't think that's quite the whole of it either. I can be understood without being approved of, just as I can understand the actions and motivations of others without approval… but then again – by what right do I judge others or they judge me? It's a conundrum.
In the end, I believe the honest answer to that question is that the approval of others helps to keep my needy beast at bay… because if someone approves (either of me, my words, or my actions), surely it indicates, more than anything else, that I am in some way valuable – in some way needed. I am a very needy person. It is my human frailty.
The mind composed of ignorance or wrong
view suffers from spiritual disease; it sees falsely. Seeing falsely causes it to think falsely, speak falsely, and act falsely. You will see immediately that everyone, without exception, has the spiritual disease.
--Ajahn Buddhadasa
What is it you need that you think their [the approval of others that we seek] approval will provide?
The answer to that is both easy and difficult at the same time. Validation.
It speaks back to the courage to be myself. If I have the approval of others for the things I do and say when I am 'being myself' then surely the things I do and the things I say are valid, and make me, as an individual valid as well… but why should that be true?
If I know in my heart that each person is a valid individual, a sacred part of life and as honoured and 'divine' as the next person, or as I, then what difference does it make whether or not those outside of myself approve, so long as I, myself, approve?
If not validation then what? Understanding?
Does someone else's approval of me and my words and actions indicate to me that they understand me, and our relationship is therefore facilitated with greater ease – our communication more effective? I don't think that's quite the whole of it either. I can be understood without being approved of, just as I can understand the actions and motivations of others without approval… but then again – by what right do I judge others or they judge me? It's a conundrum.
In the end, I believe the honest answer to that question is that the approval of others helps to keep my needy beast at bay… because if someone approves (either of me, my words, or my actions), surely it indicates, more than anything else, that I am in some way valuable – in some way needed. I am a very needy person. It is my human frailty.
