Recently, I got stuck in the old seeking-approval rut, the I’m-not-good-enough rut, the people-don’t-like-me rut. I still get snagged there sometimes. Thankfully, the fall doesn’t last nearly as long as it used to. I pick myself up fairly quickly, dust myself off, and continue on my journey towards self-love. I do that with the help of spiritual tools such as readings, prayer, and journaling.
In her book Comfortable with Uncertainty, 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion, American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron writes about suffering. “[We suffer when] we proceed as if we are separate from everything else, as if we are a fixed identity, when our true situation is egoless. Because we mistake the openness of our being for a solid, irrefutable self, we suffer.” [From Teaching #27: “The Facts of Life: Suffering”]
For example, I suffer when I second guess myself, and I second guess myself when I worry about what other people think of me, when I worry about their disapproval. That is suffering. When I concern myself with “me” and “them,” instead of “we,” I suffer.
Chodron goes on to say “[W]e look for happiness in all the wrong places. The Buddha called this habit ‘mistaking suffering for happiness.’ We become habituated to reaching for something to ease the edginess of the moment. Thus we become less and less able to reside with even the most fleeting uneasiness or discomfort. What begins as a slight shift of energy – a minor tightening of our stomach, a vague indefinable feeling that something bad is about to happen – escalates into addiction. This is our way of trying to make life predictable. Because we mistake what always results in suffering to be what will bring us happiness, we remain stuck in the repetitious habit of escalating our dissatisfaction.”
Yes! Such as when I yearn for approval from others. I’m embarrassed, I’m resentful, I’m uncertain. Immediately, I think, how can I change myself to get people to like me? That is the “repetitious habit” Chodron speaks of, the addiction to easing the discomfort, to easing the “edginess of the moment” rather than simply being with it, accepting it, and sitting with the discomfort.
In other words, do nothing, because the only approval I need is God’s.
And what happens when I sit in silence and do nothing? What happens when I focus on the discomfort rather than trying to make it go away, when I accept the discomfort for what it is – uncomfortable?
I find that I am loved. Regardless of all my imperfections and petty worries, I am loved.
And isn’t that what I was after all along?
