Approval

All my life I’ve looked for approval and my
self worth in the eyes of the men in my life. I did whatever it took to gain
that approval and feel worthy to be alive on this earth, even if it went against
what I believed to be moral and right. After years of ‘doing’ to gain approval
I’ve come to a place in my life that I am now able to look at myself and the
world around me and find my real value in the eyes that look back at me in my
reflection. I am finally able to just ‘be’ a part of this world and my life
without ‘doing’ all the time. Just ‘being’ is such an easier way to live.

The definition of reflection
according to Mr. Oxford is: the act or an instance of reflecting;
the process of being reflected; reconsideration; an idea
arising in the mind; a comment; a consequence;
evidence.

Over the last two years of my life I have done
a lot of reflecting on me, my life, how I’ve lived my life, the
choices I’ve made which have brought me right here – right now. I feel that the
fact that I am ‘being’ in my world is reflected in my life and the way I live
now. I have reconsidered most of things that I used to take for
granted in my life – my family, my friends, but most importantly – ME. The
ideas that arise in my mind now are so different than they have ever
been. My reflection of me in the mirror makes a comment
about who I really am now, to me it does, and that’s what I feel really matters
– the person I see in the mirror and not the person I want the world to see. If
I love the one I see in the mirror that’s all that matters. The world can have
and is entitled to it’s own reflection of who I am. And for me now, that’s OK.
In the face I see reflected in my mirror I find the consequences
of the choices I’ve made in my life. In MY eyes I see the evidence
of those consequences and I am at long last comfortable with what I see.

Odd that the word ‘being’
would appear in that definition and not the word ‘doing’.

Beverly V.
August 10, 2001