I have a theory that approval is a special kind of magic.
It’s not really my theory, exactly – I’m borrowing it and trying it on to see if it fits.
The idea that I’m playing with, and getting it wrong before I get it right, is this: whenever I feel ashamed of any type of emotion or desire that’s coming up, rather than fighting against it, I’m trying approval instead.
Angry? Approve of the anger.
Stressed? Approve of the stress.
Pain? Approve of the pain.
Hungry? Approve of the hunger.
Have an inconvenient or excessive desire? Approve that desire. (My current one: I want to buy all of the fancy, sparkly, expensive jewelry. And it feels so wildly unnecessary, selfish, and extravagant that I’m really struggling to approve it. That is the work.)
Inside my head, it sounds like this: Yes, you really feel this. Yes, I approve of that feeling, of course you feel that, and I believe that you feel it.
Approval, my business coach told me, is the opposite of judgement. And I suspect it’s also the opposite of deprivation too. Because deprivation is a constant story that I don’t deserve – to have, to feel – what I actually want and really feel. Maybe that’s also called denial, and self-denial has led me down some dark roads, in the past, toward ignoring abuse and trauma, disordered eating, pathological selflessness, and purity culture.
This practice is not easy, at all. It goes against every ounce of conditioning I have that says the way to change how I feel is to deny, pretend, judge, or just get over it. Except that denying, pretending, judging and forcing aren’t working. All of those options feel terrible, a type of self-policing that’s exhausting and leaves me feeling depleted. It takes away my honesty and my integrity. It also keeps me from experiencing some of the deepest pleasure that life has to offer.
The challenge is to release the energy used up in trying to bypass those uncomfortable and inconvenient feelings by approving them instead. And I mean it when I say challenge, because unlearning the other way is real work. Not approving feels like a type of resistance, a withholding or bottling of feelings and emotions, the ultimate self control and, sometimes, self harm. Approval feels like letting go, surrendering, and allowing space to experience the sensations of my emotions and needs in my body.
At the heart of this is, I think, that approval allows me – the human – to feel validated and real. It allows me to see me. There’s no need to hide anything from myself, or pretend, because approval creates space for understanding and compassion. And just maybe, self approval has the ability to short-circuit the need to be approved by everyone else, and I’m starting to believe that intrinsic approval is the most important type of approval.
Which brings this to the place of wanting this for all of us, where the ability to approve of ourselves is something that we all get to experience, that we have permission to experience. I have this wild hope that practicing radical self-approval might be the thing that sets every one of us free and brings more autonomy, pleasure, and delight into all of our lives.