In week 26 of our 52 Weeks of Chic we stop chasing others.
I don’t know if you’ve suffered from approval addiction or become emotionally exhausted by chasing others but I have.
Like any addiction, the addiction to pleasing others can be draining, destructive and deadly with devastating consequences.
You lose your identity, self-worth and dignity in trying to anticipate the needs and desires of others.
Finding out someone disliked or disapproved of me would send me into a tailspin, obsessing over how I could change it. It was an exhausting cycle only God could free me from.
We can’t chase our dreams and others at the same time because approval addiction steals our energy, time and attention leaving us unable to focus on anything else.
Approval addiction is like handing over the remote control to your emotions, moods, self-confidence or happiness to others and no one should ever have that much power in your life.
I didn’t love me but I wanted others to love me so I placed expectations on relationships and expectations will kill a relationship or friendship every single time.
The needs we place on others to make us feel happy or loved, be successful, confident, wealthy, healthy or at peace is our job alone.
You may not suffer from people pleasing or approval addiction.
But if so, I encourage you to step off that vicious roller coaster never again begging, buying or manipulating anyone’s love, acceptance or affections.
The day I prayed for freedom from my addiction to approval, God asked me a powerful question “Sandra, have you ever thought the people you are chasing don’t want to be caught?”
Ok ya’ll this truth hurt but it was the key unlocking the cage door because when I stopped exhausting myself by chasing, seeking and forcing relationships I finally found freedom, peace and rest and relationships that accepted me “as is.”
So, ladies this week we choose to stop chasing approval, love or validation and start chasing our passions, dreams and goals.
Sandra Hubbard
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