Why should you care whether someone else approves or not? If your essence is going to depend on the approval or perception of other people, then it is not free. We look at what happened in childhood so we can see how we lost our essence and how we can retrieve it. If we continue believing that we have to get what we didn’t get from the outside, we will continue to do what we have done all our lives! And this is what causes our misery and suffering. Because our environment wasn’t hospitable, compassionate, loving, or supportive, we think we can get satisfaction by getting an environment that is loving, compassionate, perceptive, and appreciative of who we are. What we are saying is that we want that positive merging again, otherwise we’re not going to feel good. “I have to have somebody who loves me. I have to have somebody who sees me, who values me.” It is true that this is useful and supportive at the beginning, but if you continue depending on it, this will stop you from owning and being who you are. Being who you are, being your essence, should be completely independent of any other factor, inner or outer. As I said in the beginning, Essence is the life. Essence is the fulfillment. It’s not the environment, not the situation, not the job. It is Essence itself, your essence. – Diamond Heart Book One: Elements of the Real in Man, ch. 9