The email comes in at 4pm. "Loved your presentation today. Brilliant work."
And for about an hour, you're a different person. Happy. Lighter. Kinder to everyone around you. You might even leave on time.
By the next morning, the feeling's gone... and you're back at your desk, working on the next one.
I know that hour well.
I get hundreds of comments on my meditations, on YouTube and everywhere else. Most are short and kind. But every week, quite a few are something else. Intensely grateful. People telling me they slept through the night for the first time in years. People who listened and found comfort on the worst night of their year. Good news stories and long thank-yous from strangers all over the world.
They mean a lot to me.
And here's my confession... a few hours later, if I'm not paying attention, I'm scrolling for the next one.
(Yes, I know. Thousands of kind words, and I'm still checking for more 🙈)
Last week I told you about Father's Day, and how one quiet Sunday hurt far more than it should have, because it landed on something old. So many of you wrote back, thank you. This email is the next bit... what that old thing was asking for in the first place.
What we were really after
Here's the thought I've been sitting with this week. It made me a bit sad.
A lot of us were never really chasing approval.
We were chasing love.
Let me explain.
When we were small, we needed two things from the grown-ups around us. To be safe, and to be loved. And most of us worked out ways to get them. Being good. Being helpful. Getting the grades. Not making a fuss.
Those strategies worked. They bought us safety, which was real. And they bought us approval, which was real too.
But approval isn't the same thing as love. Approval is love with a condition attached. "Well done", because you did well. "Good girl", because you were quiet.
For some of us, approval was the main way love arrived. The warmth came when we did well, and cooled a little when we didn't. Nobody meant any harm by it. Most parents gave what they had, and plenty of them got far less from their own parents. But when love and approval always arrive in the same envelope, a child can't tell them apart.
So the child learns the condition. “Do well, and you'll be loved”. And then we spend the next forty years meeting it.
Why it only lasts an hour
That's why the email at 4pm, or a beautiful YouTube comment, feels so good. It’s also why the good feeling wears off by morning.
The part of you that lights up isn't only enjoying a compliment about a presentation. It's asking a much older question. Am I loved? Even if I get it wrong?
And the approval can't answer that question. It's coming from your boss, or a client, or a stranger online. People who were never in a position to give you the thing approval used to stand for. It's a lovely note... from the wrong person, decades too late.
There's a catch, too. Every time approval arrives, it subtly confirms the condition: You were appreciated because you did well. So the next time you want that feeling, you have to do well again.
That's the loop. And it's where a lot of the exhaustion comes from, because no amount of praise ever finishes the job.
Let it be sad
I'm not going to rush you into a fix here.
If this lands, it might bring up some sadness. For the kid who worked that hard for something that should have been free. For all the extra hours since, hoping this one would finally do it.
That sadness makes sense. It isn't self-pity. It's grief, and grief is what happens when we see clearly what we missed.
You're allowed to feel it for a while before you do anything about it.
The one thing I'd try
When you're ready, here's what I'm practising. I call it un-mixing. It's about separating the approval from the love, so each one can do its own job.
There are three steps.
Step 1. Catch the check. The next time praise arrives (an email, a comment, a "great job" in a meeting), pause before you soak it up and ask yourself one question. "What am I checking this for?" If the honest answer is "to know the work landed", great. That's approval doing its job. If the answer is closer to "to know I'm OK" or "to know they still like me"... you've caught it asking for love.
Step 2. Let the approval be approval. Say it plainly, in your head or out loud. "This is a nice note about my work. It isn't a verdict on me." Enjoy it at its real size, and let it go. You don't have to argue with it or play it down. You're only putting it back in the right envelope.
Step 3. Go where love lives now. Name one person who would still be there if you failed. Not the person who's impressed by you. The person who'd make you a cup of tea if it all fell apart. Then, this week, let them in a little. Tell them about a bad day instead of a good one. Say yes when they offer to help. Receive something without trying to earn it.
Here's how that might look. Take that 4pm email about your presentation. You notice you've reread it three times and you're wondering whether the rest of the team saw it (step one: you're checking it for something). You say to yourself, "That's a nice note about the presentation" (step two). And that evening, instead of replaying it, you ring your sister, tell her about the bit that went badly, and let her be on your side anyway (step three).
Why it works: Tim Fletcher, whose work on complex trauma I lean on a lot, describes approval as conditional acceptance. You're accepted for what you do, not for who you are. And conditional acceptance can't fill a need for the unconditional kind, however much of it you collect, because the condition comes built in. More approval only teaches the old lesson again. The need was formed in our closest relationships, and that's where it heals... with people who'd keep us anyway. That's why step three matters most.
None of this means turning the approval away. Keep the nice emails. Keep the kind comments. I'm keeping mine. The problem was never the comments. It was asking them to tell me I'm enough.
I'm nowhere near done with this myself. I still reread the good comments. But I'm getting better at noticing when I'm reading them for something they can't give me.
So here's something to sit with this week.
The last time approval arrived, what were you checking it for?
You don't need to answer it tonight. Just notice what comes up.
Two meditations for this
One for the day, one for the night.
If you catch yourself saying yes just to keep someone happy, play this one 👇🏾
▶ Watch: A Short Meditation for People-Pleasing | The Mindful Striver
And if you're lying in bed replaying what everyone thought of you today, play this one 👇🏾
Chibs 💙
PS. If you'd like to work on this with other people rather than on your own, that's what Tired & Wired is for. It's my small community for people running on empty, and we meet live every week. The first seven days are free if you want a look → https://www.skool.com/chibs
