Approval is a sign that another person or group accepts, values or agrees with something about us.
It can feel warm, useful and deserved. It becomes harder to live with when it is made responsible for identity, safety or the right to want what we want.
The journeys do not ask the reader to stop caring what anyone thinks. They ask what approval is being asked to carry—and what happens in the body when it is withheld.
Different from: belonging. Approval is a response to something. Belonging is the deeper experience of having a place without continually earning it.
Related: Emotional Hunger; The Shaped Self; Agency; Living on Love Crumbs.
