I have been trying to find out what created my irrational need for approval from others for a while now.
Theoretically I know that it’s irrational and that as long as I love and approve of myself, the need would disappear in time.
However, I still seem to let it control my behaviours and actions and still find myself in situations where I give it power.
When I break it down and analyze it, the approval itself is very short lived and doesn’t actually give me anything of value. It just seems to feed my need for more!
I want to find out where it came from and I want to find a way of eliminating it. I know that loving myself is a part of the process and I am working on that, but I figured that if I can get to the root of it then maybe it will be easier to move forward.
As always, when I am in situations like this I tend to look for answers outside myself instead of looking within.
Actually, “looking within” is something I still want to fully understand, because so far it is mentioned in a lot of places but either I am totally blind to the message or it isn’t explained in a way that my mind can understand.
The easiest way for me to “look within” is writing my journal, where I can be completely honest with myself, not worrying that anyone would ever read it.
Today I wrote for about 2 hours non stop and memories started to surface. Initially I was tempted to copy the whole journal entry on here, but at the moment it doesn’t feel right.
What I did learn was that my need for love and approval has been down to a few people and now I think that the next step for me is to find a way to forgive them (they are not to blame – they did the best they could) and release the past.
Searching for answers outside of myself today proved to be beneficial, because had I not read THIS I wouldn’t have searched for answers within myself.
Posted by J 
