inquiring parent

The Tao of Meow

I am cooking. I notice my body feels tense, and then the cat comes in, meowing. She wants food, not just any old food but the kind that comes out of a little sachet and has lumps of meat and gravy, and is fish. (Or at least it says on the packet it’s fish though it never looks much like it to me.) She has already had some today and, according to the vet, she is overweight. Certainly she is a little barrel of fluff. I am fairly certain that if I put dry food into her bowl she won’t eat it, and that she is not really hungry.

I wonder why she wants food when she’s not hungry. Then I remember reading years ago that when animals live closely with humans they develop human-like traits. I have no idea if this is true, but it reminds me to look behind the obvious. That, and remembering that when I see something in someone else, even if that someone is a cat, most likely it’s also in me. Recognising that the cat’s meowing alerted me to my own wanting I say thank you to her  and tell her she’s a wonderful little thing and I love her. She understood every word. (No, I don’t really believe that, but sometimes it’s fun to project.)

Then I ponder what is it I want? For a start, I want the tension in my body to go. I want a reply to an e-mail I’ve just sent and I want that reply to be favourable, for the recipient to think that I am wise or clever or some other such nonsense. I want a reply to something I’ve posted on a forum and I want it to be similar to the e-mail. So it would appear that what I want is approval. As I allow myself to welcome this wanting of approval the cat goes quiet and sits still and apparently peaceful. (Of course this could be more projection on my part, perhaps she’s really seething underneath and plotting her revenge.)

More to the point, as I allow myself to welcome this wanting approval I feel calmer. It leads me to contemplate the many ways I seek approval. As I type this now, remembering the story of cooking and the cat, am I again editing my thoughts to make myself look good and so create a favourable impression on any reader? Or am I being totally, ruthlessly honest? The truth right now, is I don’t know. This has perplexed me ever since I started writing this blog, and now it doesn’t matter any more. In the past I’ve agonised over whether I was writing it for the right reasons, as I’ve done about most of my writing. (A good way to develop writer’s block if anyone wants to know!) The right reasons being to do good, to help others, to be of service. And why would I want to do that? Well, so that I can approve of myself of course!

In I Need Your Love – Is That True, Byron Katie asks: “Who would you be without the thought you need to make an impression?” She also writes: “Seeking love becomes so much a part of our lives that it’s automatic. We hardly know we’re doing it. It’s easier to notice the anxiety it creates out there among our friends and colleagues.”

So it is, and Katie invites us to judge our neighbours so that we can see these traits in others and then turn the spotlight on ourselves. She does not invite us to do this so that we can judge ourselves, condemn ourselves, and force ourselves to do better. That’s pretty much what got us into the whole approval-seeking game in the first place, so it’s not likely to get us out again.

Can we ever be totally free of wanting approval? Perhaps that’s the wrong question to ask, perhaps a better one would be can we be free with wanting approval? I’m not sure the first question is even answerable, and so is likely to keep the mind spinning. I might imagine that a few awakened beings – Katie for instance – have transcended this need, and that if I try hard enough, do The Work rigorously enough, use the Sedona Method often enough, if I’m lucky I’ll eventually get rid of all my wanting approval and find the happiness I crave.

You may already have noticed a few flaws in this plan: for a start, though it seems possible that Katie never wants approval, I can’t absolutely know that’s the case. Then, if the whole reason for wanting to get rid of the feeling of wanting approval is to feel approved of this has much the same effect as the cat chasing her tail.

The second question is a different matter. Can we be free with wanting approval? I’d say the answer is yes. When I welcome that wanting there is freedom, or maybe more accurately there is awareness of freedom. All that ever stops me noticing that awareness is a thought or belief that I’m not free, that I need approval, that happiness is somewhere else at some other time: when I have got rid of all my accumulated baggage, when I’ve got my children to sleep, when they’ve grown up safe and well, when they have careers they love, when their children have grown up safe and well…

by which time this body would be

six

feet

under