Affirmation to Heal Judgment: "I Approve of You"

One of the powerful, healing things you can do in your life is learn to approve of other people.

I started doing this a few weeks ago and found it to be very powerful.

What I do is notice as soon as I’ve made a harsh judgment or critique about someone, I immediately replace my thought with “I approve of you.” I feel a switch from the bad way I was feeling when I was making the judgment to a peaceful and healing feeling.

I get to see hundreds of people every day in my travels and trips to perform music or do readings. I see lots of different sizes, shapes, and behaviours in people. I learn from them all, identify with many, and judge way more than I’d like to admit.

Whenever we have a negative thought about someone, it shows us how we’re feeling about ourselves. Whatever we don’t like about them is something we either don’t like, haven’t accepted, or learned to love about ourselves.

What I’ve noticed is as soon as I say “I approve of you” (hopefully silently in my mind!), I immediately not only feel better, but as if I’ve come a long way in learning to heal and approve of that part of myself.

When I see a very overweight person and I judge them and feel bad about them and have negative, critical thoughts, I’m thinking and feeling just as badly towards myself and my own weight, my own difficulty in maintaining a healthy weight for myself – my own weaknesses, which I then notice I’ve been bashing myself over the head about. As soon as I think, “I approve of you”, I am also saying “I approve of myself. I approve of my fat. I am okay. I love myself. Hello, fat! Wanna hang out? “ I say. Okay, well, maybe not exactly, but pretty darned close!

Tonight I was on the bus, and sitting in front of me was a woman who could be younger than I am (I’m 40). With her was one of 3 teenage mothers and their children. The woman ahead of me took one of the babies from a girl who looked to be about 14 – then I heard the young girl call the woman, “Grandma.” Immediately, I flew into disgust and disapproval, that someone could be so young and have a grandchild. That a 14 year old could be a mother already. I thought of the Chris Rock joke about this kind of upbringing, and how it almost always leads to the children having disciplinary problems and going into a life of crime. I looked into the eyes of this adorable infant boy, thinking, “Is prison in your future?”, as Rock’s joke played in my mind,

“If the kid call his grandmamma ‘Mommy’ and his mama ‘Pam’, he goin’ to jail!” Then I realized I was having negative thoughts about this beautiful child. I blessed him instead with thoughts of abundance and success, saying to him in my mind while I looked at him, “You’re going to be brilliant. You’re going to do the best, greatest things. You’re going to be a success story.” I started saying also, “I approve of you” to and about his mother and his grandmother – the young women sitting in front of me. As soon as I said I approved of them, I felt a healing inside of everything I’d ever done to garner disapproval from the outside world insofar as sexuality and so-called decorum was concerned. I’m sure these women are looked down upon anytime they’re far away from their neighborhood and people who are like them. It must be something like wearing a scarlet letter to be barely in high school and pushing a baby stroller.

I thought of the things I’ve done that my parents and society didn’t, wouldn’t approve of, and won’t approve of when The Book(s) come out, heh-heh! In approving those women, I was approving of, forgiving, and in some cases, defiantly celebrating those aspects of my past and present.

I’m really glad I learned to do this, and I hope it helps you, too. Next time you have a harsh thought about someone, think, “I approve of you” about that person. You may instantly feel relief, love for that person, and love and forgiveness, and total acceptance of yourself.

© Copyright 2009 by Cassendre Xavier aka Amethyste Rah. All rights reserved.