Inspiration
"Intense love does not measure, it just gives."
~ Mother Teresa
For more quotes like
this,
click here.
Speaking Schedule
Below is a list of where and when I'm speaking for the next few months. Most of these events are for my corporate or organizational clients (i.e. not open to the public). The ones in blue, however, are public events. I hope to see you at one of these!
9/23: Emeryville, CA
9/28: San Francisco, CA
9/29: Mountain View, CA
10/4: Chicago, IL
10/5: San Francisco, CA
10/7: Mountain View, CA
10/10: Suffield, CT
10/12: San Francisco, CA
10/13: San Francisco, CA
10/14: San Diego, CA
10/14: San Jose, CA
10/18: Ann Arbor, MI
10/20: Mountain View, CA
10/21: Palo Alto, CA
10/25: San Francisco, CA
11/1: San Francisco, CA
11/7: London, England
11/8: Dublin, Ireland
11/10: New York, NY
11/14: San Diego, CA
11/30: Mountain View, CA
For more public event details, click here.
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September 22, 2011
In This Issue
Featured Article: Will You Still Love Me If...
Recommended Resources
Daddy's Little Girls
Hey there, how are you? I hope you and those around you are doing well and having a wonderful week so far! I am excited to be back writing again. It's only been two weeks since my last newsletter - getting closer to returning to weekly! I appreciate the support, understanding, and positive feedback I've received from so many people on my list in the past few months with everything going on in my world. Thanks for being a part of this community!
The article I wrote two weeks ago, "Focus on What Truly Matters," got lots of great feedback. If you'd like to re-read it, you can do so on my blog or listen to the audio podcast associated with it as well. You can also check in out on Intent.com (a very cool and inspiring site).
Have a fantastic day and rest of your week!
With Gratitude,
P.S. I've been having fun on Twitter these days – sharing updates, thoughts, questions, and ideas intended to empower, and "re-tweeting" posts and links that I think people will enjoy and benefit from. If you're on Twitter and would like to follow me, just click on this link, www.twitter.com/mikedrobbins
Will You Still Love Me If...
(For this week's audio podcast, click here.)
Over the past few months I've been looking at the phenomenon of approval seeking that exists in my life and my relationships. My mother's death has brought up an intense mix of emotions and reflections. Like most people, my mom was a fundamental source of love for me, especially early in my life. As such, I learned various ways, from quite a young age, to gain her approval. Although this evolved over time and I outgrew certain aspects of approval seeking from my mom specifically, I realize now that I was much more attached to her approval, even as an adult, than I thought I was.
The irony is that this had very little to do with my mother herself. While she did have strong opinions, like most of us, and she and I dealt with our fair share of conflicts and challenges in our relationship, I never questioned her love, commitment, and loyalty to me. Much of the "conditionality" in our relationship (i.e. me thinking I had to be a certain way to be loved and accepted) was self imposed. As I've looked at this more deeply in the recent months, I realize this is also true in just about all of the relationships in my life - family, friends, clients, and more.
I read a great book a number of years ago written by my friend, mentor, and counselor of seventeen years, Chris Andersonn, called Will You Still Love Me if I Don’t Win? This book was written specifically for parents of young athletes, but has a much wider and broader message about both parenting and life - it's really about how much pressure most of us feel as kids (and then throughout our lives) to perform for our parents and others.
This pressure to perform and to "live up to other people's expectations" creates an enormous amount of stress in our lives. Clearly there are healthy expectations and positive forms of accountability that benefit us (i.e. when people around us expect excellence, integrity, kindness, success, and more which can, in fact, influence us in a positive way). However, more often than not, we place a great deal of pressure on ourselves to act, look, and "perform" in specific ways that we believe we "have" to in order to receive the love, acceptance, and approval we want (or sometimes feel we need) from others.
Consciously or unconsciously we tend to ask ourselves questions like, "Will you still love me if..."
- I tell you how I really feel
- I gain weight or my physical appearance changes
- I change jobs or careers
- I don't succeed or produce specific results
- I disagree with you about important/sensitive stuff
- I don't live up to your standards/expectations
- I want to alter or renegotiate the nature of our relationship
These and many other questions like them create an intense dynamic of pressure in our lives and relationships. And in many cases, like I've recently realized with my mom, we create most of this pressure ourselves. Often the place where unconditional love is lacking most significantly is within us. We have a tendency to be quite hard on ourselves and to have lots of conditions in place for our own approval. This demand for perfection is always a set up for a failure.
What if we let go of our conditions and just loved and accepted ourselves and others exactly the way we and they are right now? Acceptance isn't about resignation, it's about freedom, peace, and appreciation. When we practice unconditional love and acceptance it doesn’t mean that everything is "perfect" or that things can't or won't change in a positive way. However, love and acceptance are about appreciating the way things are and trusting that we and other people are "good enough".
Seeking the approval of others is something most of us learn to do early in life and is actually a natural, normal, and healthy aspect of our growth as human beings. However, as we evolve, seeking approval not only becomes problematic, but can be quite damaging if we don't consciously pay attention to it and ultimately alter it.
Here are three things you can do to loosen the grip of approval seeking:
- Notice - Pay attention to your approval seeking tendencies. In what relationships and situations does this show up most often for you? Like most things in life, change starts with awareness, so noticing when, how, and what specifically it is that you do or say (in your head or out loud) in terms of seeking approval is the first step.
- Share - Talk about this with the specific people in your life it impacts the most - your significant other, your family, your friends, your co-workers, your boss, your clients, and more. Because much of this stuff is self imposed, when we start talking about it we often realize that we're putting a lot of pressure on ourselves, in many cases unnecessarily. In other cases there may be some unspoken dynamics in place that can be altered by having honest and vulnerable conversations. Either way, talking about it will almost always help alter things in a positive way.
- Give To Yourself - Give yourself that which you are seeking, which in most cases is love and acceptance. The source of much of our pain and suffering, as well as our joy and happiness is us. So often we're looking for others to give to us that which we need to give to ourselves. When we love and approve of ourselves, two important things happen. First of all, we become less needy of the approval of others. Second, because we are giving it to ourselves and aren’t as needy of it from others, we often get even more love and acceptance from those around us.
While this may seem simple and straight forward, it can be tricky for many of us as our patterns of approval seeking began before we had language and at a time in our lives that we can't even access with conscious memory. As we do this important internal work, it's essential that we're gentle, kind, and compassionate with ourselves. And, when we remember that the love, acceptance, and approval we're truly seeking is our own, we're reminded that the answer is right inside of us, like it almost always is.
Where do you place conditions on your love and acceptance - for yourself and others? How can you let go of these conditions and start accepting yourself and others exactly as you and they are, right now? Share your ideas, commitments, thoughts, dreams, and more on my blog here.
To listen to this week's audio podcast, including additional thoughts, ideas, and tips, click here.
Great Books to Check Out:
Spirit Junkie, by Gabrielle Bernstein
 My friend Gabrielle Bernstein's second book, Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles, just came out! It's part memoir and part road map – a very powerful book! Gabby shares her journey toward becoming the full-on, inspirational Spirit Junkie that she is today, and she teaches you many important lessons she has learned along the way. You can check out the Spirit Junkie trailer to get a taste of the book. The New York Times Sunday Styles section called Gabby "a new role-model" - because that's exactly what she is. Gabrielle's positive energy is infectious and she's the real deal! For more information and to purchase copies of this wonderful new book, click here.
Getting Ahead, by Joel Garfinkle
 What makes one person more successful than another? The answer: leveraging and applying perception, visibility, and influence better than anyone else. While some people leave the fate of their careers in someone else's hands, others determine their future using these three critical skills. In his brand new book, Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level, my good friend Joel Garfinkle, one of the top 50 executive coaches in the United States, reveals his signature PVI model - Perception, Visibility, and Influence. Through practical advice, specific exercises, and action-oriented tips, Joel teaches you how to create the right image, increase your profile across the organization and among higher levels of management, and exert influence by driving change and inspiring people. For more information and to purchase copies of this powerful new book today, click on this link.
You Can Create and Exceptional Life!, by Louise Hay and Cheryl Richardson
 What happens when Louise Hay and Cheryl Richardson combine their collective wisdom into one book? Find out as you read You Can Create and Exceptional Life! You'll feel as if you're simultaneously having lunch with your best friends and also attending a master class put on by two leaders of the self-empowerment movement. The candid conversations between Cheryl and Louise will empower you, open your heart and mind, and give you the tools you need to create the exceptional life you've always dreamed of. These two amazing women are living proof that the spiritual principles they discuss really work. To find out more and purchase copies, click here.
"We know we are loved and accepted unconditionally."
- Samantha and Rosie
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