I NEED to be acknowledged and affirmed! Society is built around acknowledgment. It’s one of our biggest sources of dopamine, a happy trip for the brain. In other words, being acknowledged feels soooooo good. Why, you ask?

We both consciously and unconsciously teach children how to behave.

We use punishment and reward. The same way we domesticate a dog. This is nothing else than normal. Almost all education is built around reward or punishment. We learn that we are either doing good or bad. With time we start to categorize everything we do and ourselves as good or bad. We start to reward or punish ourselves. We are afraid of getting punished and later on we also become afraid of not getting the award and not being good enough. We have now created a part in our brain that is always judging. We Categorize everyone and everything as right or wrong. You see and you know while a 4 year old does not judge and has no concept of right and wrong until we teach him or her. Before that they are completely free from their own judgment.

You have a need to be approved. Yes? But that is actually a false need. The real need under it, is to be free. Free from approval and judgement, free from your own and other’s right and wrong thinking, categorization and labeling.

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, You are free.”

– Jim Morrison

Exercise your acceptance muscle – Surround what is there with curiosity

Spend today to allow yourself and others to be exactly as you and they are. What is this like? Experiment with just allowing, without judging or labeling anything as good or bad.

Read more about how to meet your needs here, here and here.

This is a guest post. The opinions expressed are the writer’s own.