Life Wisdom - By Words of Taoism - How to stop seeking approval - Daily Wisdom #15

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

Welcome back to daily wisdom.Approval does not always look dramatic. Often, it happens in small movements: We hide an opinion because it might make the room less comfortable. We say yes quickly, before checking whether we mean it. We become slightly more cheerful than we feel, slightly less tired than we are, slightly more agreeable than our own truth allows.More resources:Free resources, books and more on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://wordsoftaoism.com/⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My blog⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://taoismteachings.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music I use, as a playlist:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist⁠⁠⁠⁠

Welcome back to daily wisdom. In the last reflections, we spoke about self-criticism, comparison, the feeling of not being enough, and the strange tenderness of feeling out of step. Today I would like to approach another question through a small story. Imagine a man who carried a mirror everywhere he went. It was not an ordinary mirror. It did not show him his real face.

It showed him the face he thought other people wanted to see. When he entered a serious room, the mirror made his features sharper. When he entered a cheerful room, it made his smile wider. When he stood before someone he admired, it made him look more impressive. When he stood before someone he feared losing, it made him softer, easier, less demanding. At first the mirror helped him belong. It helped him avoid rejection. It helped him sense the mood of a room before speaking too freely. People found him pleasant. They praised his sensitivity. They trusted his ability to adapt. And because this made life smoother, he kept carrying the mirror. Years passed, and one morning, as he prepared to meet someone, He looked into it and felt a strange sadness. The mirror was still offering him a face as it always had,

yet he could no longer remember what his own face looked like before it began changing for everyone else. This is what approval can do to us. It rarely takes us away from ourselves all at once. It happens through small adjustments. Of course, living with others requires sensitivity. We do not need to say everything we think. We do not need to make every feeling public.

There is beauty intact, in kindness, in knowing how to meet another person with care. The problem begins when this sensitivity no longer comes from love. There is a line in the Tao Te Ching that says those who stand on tiptoe, cannot stand. stand for long, and those who try to shine do not truly shine. I think of this often when approval becomes the center of our lives. Seeking approval is a kind of standing on tiptoe before the world. We lift ourselves slightly above our natural height. We try to look more acceptable, more admirable, more harmless, more complete than we actually feel. For a while, it may work. People may like the Polish version.

They may praise the person who never disturbs the room. They may reward the version of us who's always easy to understand. Yet inwardly, the legs begin to tremble. A life lived on tiptoe becomes exhausting because it asks us to remain above our own ground. This does not happen because we are shallow. It often happens because approval feels like safety.

Praise make you feel visible. Maybe love felt warmer when you performed well, stayed useful, or asked for very little. Maybe you learn to read faces before you learn to trust your own feelings. So the part of you that seeks approval deserves tenderness. It is trying to protect something.

It wants to be included. It wants warmth. It wants to know that your presence is not a problem. There is nothing wrong with this longing. Human beings are relational. We are made to be met. We need affection, recognition and belonging. The wound begins when approval becomes the only place where we feel real.

A flower needs light, yet it cannot spend its light. chasing the sun across the sky. It also needs roots. It needs a place where it can receive nourishment from below. In the same way, we need the warmth of others. Yet we also need an inner ground that does not disappear when someone looks away. Without that ground, even praise does not stay. It feels good for a moment, then fades. We need another side. sign, another reassurance, another little proof that we are still acceptable. Approval passes through us like water through a cracked bowl, because the place that would receive it has not yet learned to trust itself. The Tao Te Ching often returns to the value of the uncarved block,

the simple wood before it is shaped into something useful or impressive. I like to you. I like this image for approval. So much of our life is spent carving ourselves into forms that might be praised. We become sharper here, smoother there, smaller in one room, brighter in another. We learn how to be useful, pleasing, understandable. And somewhere beneath all those shapes, there is the original would. Maybe the work is not to become someone who no longer cares what others think. That would make us less human. The work is to stop carving away our own truth in order to fit every hand that wants to hold us. There's a difference between being shaped by love and being erased by approval. Love can change us. A good relationship softens us, teaches us,

It reveals places where we need to grow. Love may ask for patience, humility, and repair. Approval us for performance. It rewards the version of us that causes the least discomfort, even if that version is slowly losing contact with what is true. This is why approval can become lonely. You may be liked and still feel unseen. You may be praised and still feel unseen.

unknown. You may be surrounded by people who appreciate the version of you they receive, while another part of you remains quiet behind the curtain, wondering whether it would still be welcome if it stepped forward. And perhaps this is one of the saddest forms of loneliness, to be approved of for a version of yourself that costs you your own presence. The return begins when you notice the small moments where you leave yourself. The moment you agree too quickly. The moment you make yourself smaller before anyone has asked you to.

The moment you hide a true preference because it might be inconvenient. The moment you feel your body tightened around a sentence that wants to be spoken more honestly. And once you see one doorway, You can begin with one small truth. You can answer more slowly. You can say, let me think about it.

You can let a silence remain without rushing to fill it. You can allow someone to misunderstand you without immediately rebuilding yourself around their reaction. You can choose one place in your life where being honest matters more than being approved. This is how an inner ground returns. Small truth, by small truth. If you have spent years adjusting quickly,

even a small act of sincerity can feel like disobedience. You may worry that you're becoming difficult. You may feel the old fear that affection will be withdrawn if you stop being so easy to approve of. And it may feel uncomfortable. Yet something else will also happen. Some relationships may become more real. Some rooms may reveal that they only wanted your performance.

Some forms of praise may lose their power because you begin to see how much they were costing you. And in the space that opens, you may feel something unfamiliar. The relief of being present before being pleasing. Maybe we can live with others in that way. We can listen, adapt, care and respond while still remaining in contact with the source inside us. The place that knows what feels honest.

The place that grows quiet when we betray ourselves. The place that does not need to be loud in order to be real. And little by little, you can stop asking every room to tell you who you are. You can enter the room with more of yourself already present.