I Need My Approval

I just wrote this "note" on Facebook, titled "Dearest Facebook Friends and Family,"

I have flip-flopped back and forth, to and fro about my relationship with Facebook, about my interactions with all of you, but mostly over how much "me" I want to be with all of you. I have considered shutting down my Facebook account because it doesn't feel whole to me, since I often censor myself to not offend more conservative loved ones. But then I think of how this is often the easiest way to connect with loved ones, and it is full of so much potential!

I live life intentionally, but I promise, I'm not here to intentionally offend anyone -- I am here to be the best me I can be. Not only do I have the inherent right to do so, but if you are on my list, you love me, right? I hope you really love ME. If what I am saying does not resonate with you, I will certainly not be offended if you ignore me :))) I am not afraid of my ignore button :))

I plan to network here, and to shine the brightest me I can be. I am a star, afterall (Vanessa means "star" in Hebrew) -- if I don't shine, I die out, and I am tired of feeling faded and uncharacteristically depressed. I'm ready to burst out of this shell, so be prepared :))) I am loud and bold and eccentric and certainly not conservative. I am wild and outrageous. I LOVE ME! I love being me. I am like the most interesting person I know -- I am so in love with me, and I will make no appologies <3 So, love me, too, or not. Jump in and dance with me, or stand on the sidelines. My life is a dance of wild abandon.

I know it's not for everyone, and I am letting go of negative opinions about it all. I am going to embrace what rocks my world, and I am going to let go of opinions I have been carrying around, opinions that aren't mine and don't align with my values. I am going to release the shackles that are not benefitting me. Bursting through this glass ceiling is going to be the catalyst to my self-actualization, manifestation, and wild soaring success.

Oh, this ride is going to be quite an exciting adventure <3 I look forward to the tribe caravan :))

And then I started to flow through the release, and I wrote this:

I have been living a censored version of myself, wanting approval of others, but it has been causing me to not accept myself, which is more important to me. How can I even know whose approval matters, when I don't have my own? I am prepared... for ridecule. I am prepared to not be understood or supported. I am prepared to look crazy and outlandish. And, once again, I am reminded that through the problem is my liberation! I am searching for what I need in the wrong places, and once I align with my insides and start living true to it, I will find everything that I need: support, approval, etc.

And synchrony released this little capsul of delight, which talks about how (and why) creative people are more eccentric and often "depressed", and all over I just keep remembering that it is normal to not be accepted by people, to not be approved of, to not be "for everyone" and that is okay. It is common for people to disappoint their parents, and I know of more than one person who has been deemed crazy by society for being true to themselves.

I keep seeking approval and acceptance from others because I don't have it for myself. Then, I think in terms of some analogies... My messy home, which I may not have shared my liberation concerning, yet, so the analogy is missing the other piece. I was questing to make my home clean and inviting for people, and I rearranged my living/dining area the other day during a revelation that my living/dining area were so sterile. I wanted to avoid mess and avoid opportunities for mess, so it was stripped of everything that might make it less inviting. Once I decided to make my home look more like a home, with touches of humanness and warmth, the whole thing just "rushed" into flow-mode. I just birthed an inviting home, after at least a year of pregnancy on the whole thing. I guess a warm and inviting home were incubating :)) Anyway, so now I don't care if my house is messy or dirty or clean or what -- it is inviting all over the place :) As it turns out, it wasn't the objective "messiness" or not of my home -- it was an inner acceptance that I couldn't find or manifest.

Now, me. I have been being a watered down and censored version of myself, a sterile me, with hopes of being inviting. Living with this wild hair for a week (think white person afro/Einstein), shamelessly untamed and exquisitely vulnerable-leaving for me... well, it has been a daring test of acceptance in the world, as I have ventured out to run various errands. And I was constantly reminded that people were much more comfortable with me if I was okay with myself. If my head was high and I bore the stride and smile of someone warm and confident, people were at ease. And the ones who didn't get it would never get it, and I didn't need them to. Because if I am good, then I am good. That's as good as it gets!

So, I have realized that this sterile version of me who is nice and appropriate and genteel and ordinary and not-drawing-attention-to-myself is... the cause of my own dis-ease. Fuggetaboutit. If I am going to REALLY be warm and inviting of people, I need to be accented with humannness and warmth, and the rest will rush and flow!!!!

Of course I have not been able to accept myself. I haven't been BEing myself. I have been trying to be what others want me to be. I have been trying to be peaceful and likeable and subtle. I am loud and vibrant and bold and brilliant.

As I am writing this, I am remembering why I tempered all of that... I didn't know how to be warm and kind and connective during it. YAY for being able to shake off outdated fears about offending people in a bad way.YAY for knowing that if I am living aligned with my truth that if I do offend anyone, that's only because of their own journey, not because of mine. I am finally confident in what I stand for (mostly that I am okay with being bold and making "mistakes"), and I am finally ready to plant and grow the seeds of substance that I have been collecting throughout my life. I'm ready to grow and live in this garden of self and life. Indeed, I am bursting with liberation and freedom and exploration and adventure. What a limitless opportunity to create!

I am just shaking with excitement about the self-acceptance I will feel from living boldly by my self-formulated truths, from creating and crafting and growing and changing and bursting over and over! I am thrilled to be ready to leave begging-for-your-acceptance-relationships where they are so I can spend my energy barefoot dancing... and knowing deep down that this is actually the key to getting their acceptance, because they love me and when I am loving myself, they won't be able to resist me! I am going to start doing so many things. I am finally ready to marry myself, to commit to honor and love myself forever through everything, regardless. Honor myself? Wow. That's a biggy, right? What would honoring myself look like? Maybe this blog post is more about honoring myself than accepting myself (which was rooted in The Work)? It is easy for me to honor others, but I have yet to shine that mirror onto myself <3 I'll let you know how that goes :)))

I am finally ready to throw caution into the wind and live wildly and beautifully and unsafely. Who wants to live in ideal condition forever? Oh, not me.

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- WOW-- What a Ride!"

Yeh, that sounds like current me. I am a wild woman.

And I have been thinking about changing my name legally to "wild artful tribal zen" hahahaha Who knows if that will come to be, but it seems to suite me so perfectly. And then my name would be wild zen. Okay, well, it is going to be on facebook. Gonna go change that asap. Who cares about long-lost friends being able to find me? LOL

Alright, enough of this train of thought here :)) I will probably be back with some more refined version at a later date :)))

Wildly, artfully, tribally, zen