Classroom Talk: 7/16/2004 - Seeking the approval of others -- in the hope of measuring the worth of ourselves -- makes as much sense as looking for our reflection in a falling drop of rain, with the main difference being this: A raindrop actually lasts longer than does that fleeting sense of self we win for having sold our soul for another empty smile.

Topics covered: Events are not something to fear; Seeing the good within what we think is bad; Physical fear versus psychological fear; Using the moments when fear appears; The feel is real but the why is a lie; Basing our value of self on the approval of others; Seeing the dictator behind psychological fear; Societal tendencies towards identification; Unconscious reactions and stolen identity...

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley explains that what we don't like about other people is what we want from them. If we didn't want something, then there would be no problem with another person's bad behavior. The task is to see that we have lived unconsciously from a nature that rejects anything that doesn't meet its approval.

Topics covered: The root of fear is a mistaken identity; Seeking approval from others to prove your worthiness; Learning to use fear instead of it using you; Letting go is an inside job; Using conscience to explore possibilities; Connecting with the presence moment; As goes my attention so comes my experience; Awakening to the parts of you that project a negative reality; Using moments of nega...

When I receive approval -- get patted on the back -- my mind tends to process and reprocess that praise. You said in your talk, Deep Spiritual Magic, "The next time you start to suffer over something, Don't let your mind talk to you about it. Your mind will try to reduce it down into something it can deal with." I sense that the same principle applies with being happy about something -- as in...

Topics covered:  What is success? Presently, winning approval is connected to the idea of being a successful human being. That is not success at all. Our ideas of what it means to be successful have destroyed us; True success is to exit each moment with a completely new understanding of yourself; An instant of resistance and limitation is not a punishment, but a pathway to higher understanding

Topics Covered: There is no such thing as a compulsive pleasure; We are not meant to spend our lives compulsively defending and justifying ourselves. Those things are addictions; Physical hunger and thirst are natural, but being hungry for approval is not natural; Every day we go compulsively looking for what our mind says we need in order to find fulfillment. What we long for...

Whatever seems to be in the way of your happiness must be realized as being a part of the way or... You're going the wrong way.

In the end, and to the point of this work we do, the journey is from outward to inward. The journey takes a person from "out there" (powers and possessions, travel, drugs, new hobbies, friends, relatives, approval, etc.) to an understanding that as long as they look to anything or anyone outside of themselves, it is never going to reconcile or bring an end to the overwhelming negative states such as fear that are wrecking their life.

What do we have to do to change the balance sheet of our lives so that for every measure of impatience and intolerance there may be at least an equivalent sum of compassion and consideration? How do we learn to use our relationships with others to realize a new kind of relationship with ourselves wherein we are able to discover that who we really are is all we need to be? Your willingness...

Topics covered: Real existence is being rooted in an awareness that doesn't pursue anything because it is already a part of everything; There is no addiction that doesn't begin with a sense of self that feels incomplete; In order to win the approval of others, we have to sell ourselves. Our sense of self is dependent upon exterior conditions; There is no fear without the fear of disappearing, without the fear of losing myself...

Topics covered: In any moment that you see beauty, you are not searching for anything to complete yourself; The world tells us that the way to complete ourselves is through acquisition, achievement and approval; We spend almost our entire lives trying to find the "partner of the moment" to complete us. Every partner we imagine has to be re-imagined when it doesn't live up to what we thought it would be...