“Appreciation and approval are two entirely different things. Appreciation is the natural, spontaneous flow of energy back to you when others feel connected to you and your story. There is nothing you can do to precipitate appreciation other than to be yourself and tell the truth. You simply cannot be in control of what comes back. When you have shared authentically, something essential always comes back. It may not look like what you expect, because what your ego is looking for is not appreciation, but approval.
The search for approval is based on the consciousness that you are not enough. You want others to give you the love that feels missing in your life. This search is a futile one. If you feel empty and seek to be fulfilled from the outside, others will feel attacked. They will experience your request for appreciation as a demand. They will be repelled or repulsed. And then you will feel even more empty, rejected, abused.”
Paul Ferrini, in “The Silence of the Heart”
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Jeff Maziarek, author of Spirituality Simplified and Codi’s Journey, launched Pondercentral.com in April 2007 as a Web-based forum for “PONDER on THIS,” a series of weekday inspirational email messages he began sending to subscribers in March 1999. A FREE service since its inception, “PONDER on THIS” provides subscribers with meaningful content to assist them on their individual paths of spiritual growth. In addition, it benefits subscribers, authors, and publishers by including links to Amazon.com where subscribers can learn more about the book being quoted, and also purchase it.
