MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
Do You Like Me?<\/p>\n
When we look for approval, it\u2019s like a drug. We think we\u00a0need it, it becomes addictive and we lose a part of ourselves as we search for
it everywhere. And then, when we get it, we don’t really trust it. It\u2019s a never\u00a0ending cycle. I remember a time when someone else\u2019s opinion of me\u00a0felt more\u00a0important than my opinion about myself. I\u2019d just started dating someone when a\u00a0friend asked me, \u201cWhy do you like him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI like how much he likes me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut do you<\/em> like him<\/em>?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n I had to stop and think about that. I was attracted to himbut did I really like him? I didn’t know because I hadn\u2019t considered it. At the I knew a famous monologist, the late Spalding Gray, who wrote Looking for praise and approval on the outside is a dicey Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder but it starts in\u00a0our own hearts. When we approve of who we are, \u201cwarts and all,\u201d as the clich\u00e9\u00a0goes, other people follow our lead. They are drawn to our openness, our\u00a0kindness, the warmth in our eyes, our acceptance of ourselves and of them, and\u00a0the ease they feel when they\u2019re with us.<\/p>\n I was writing a memoir for a news anchor and we were in her\u00a0town car one morning on the way to the studio. She suddenly looked up from\u00a0something she was reading and said, \u201cApproval is an inside job.\u201d I hate to\u00a0admit that I thought, \u201cDuh! Are you just realizing that?\u201d I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t say\u00a0it out loud because this many years later, I see that I didn’t give her enough\u00a0credit. Self-approval doesn’t happen once and that\u2019s it. It has to be renewed\u00a0on a daily basis. We have to keep reminding ourselves that no matter how many\u00a0people like us, however we enhance our faces or change the shape of our bodies, I remember seeing an old friend after forty years who said,\u00a0\u201cYou used to be so beautiful.\u201d It stung. It made me wish I were younger but I\u00a0can only be the age that I am and appreciate how I look and feel today. Making\u00a0peace with who we are and how we look is something we have to work on all the\u00a0time but it\u2019s worth it. Just think: If you hate your legs because they aren\u2019t\u00a0shapely like Heidi Klum\u2019s, I know a woman in a wheelchair. If you think your\u00a0breasts are too small or saggy, I know a woman with cancer who had hers\u00a0removed. If you think you need to lose ten pounds, I know a woman who died from\u00a0anorexia. It\u2019s all relative and comparisons never end well. We have the body we\u00a0were born with and it’s our job to love it, appreciate it and take care of it. Not\u00a0to hate it and try to change it.<\/p>\n When we approve of ourselves, the whole kit\u00a0and caboodle, no matter what happens to us or how old we are, we\u2019re giving MY WEEKLY BLOG Do You Like Me? When we look for approval, it\u2019s like a drug. We think we\u00a0need it, it becomes addictive and we lose a part of ourselves as we search forit everywhere. And then, when we get it, we don’t really trust it. It\u2019s a never\u00a0ending cycle. I remember a time when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
time, it was enough to simply be liked and desired. But what if my admirer left\u00a0the picture and I no longer had a mirror to show me a positive reflection? What\u00a0if the mirror collapsed? Was I okay with that? Or would I have to immediately\u00a0go on the search for a new mirror? \u00a0<\/p>\n
a novel called, \u201cMonster in a Box.\u201d When he was promoting the book, a\u00a0photographer wanted him to stand up on a tall box for the cover photo. \u201cThe\u00a0surface was really wide,\u201d he said, \u201cbut when I climbed\u00a0 up and stood on it, I couldn’t keep my balance until they placed a large mirror in front of me. As long as I could see myself reflected, I could keep my balance. I had to know I was being seen from the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
undertaking. It’s a sign that we don’t really like ourselves so we hope someone\u00a0else will. But it doesn’t work that way. A friend of mine was in a relationship\u00a0with a lovely woman. He enjoyed being with her and making love with her, he always\u00a0let her know that \u2013 until one day, she got up out of bed, looked into a full\u00a0length mirror and said, \u201cI hate my body.\u201d From then on, so did he.<\/p>\n
just like my client said, \u201cSelf-approval is an inside job.\u201d When the applause\u00a0stops, when the show is over, when you take off your makeup, turn off your\u00a0phone and stop looking on Instagram to see how many people are following you\u00a0and how many \u201clikes\u201d you have on Facebook, you are left with the only opinion\u00a0that matters. Your own. The next time you hear yourself wondering, \u201cDoes he or\u00a0she like me?\u201d turn it around and say, \u201cDo I like him and do I like myself?\u201d<\/p>\n
ourselves a chance to have a good life and to feel loved and loveable. What\u00a0could be more important?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"