Reflection | On appreciation | 22nd July 2010

Do I really need to shy away from appreciation? Why do I shy away from admiration? What happens to me when people admire me?

A follower of my blog wrote something yesterday which I have conveniently taken in as admiration. For all you know, she may have simply left a comment / remark from her side which expressed what she felt. And I choose to look at it as admiration.

Well - this is surely one inner process I need to examine. What happens when someone says something? Why is there a need to attach a 'meaning' to it - so that I can then feel something about it? A friend of mine tells me that I think too much asking me, "Is it really necessary to think so much? Yes - we attach meanings - so what? Everyone does. So let go on with life..." I usually hear some variant of this from a lot of friends.

But somehow, my heart deep inside is not convinced. It wants to delve into depths hitherto unexamined. It wants to examine each and everything that comes the way. My quiet rejoinder to my friends is: If we are unwilling to examine ourselves and want to be what we are because everyone else is, then we should be ok in the way everyone else is treated by life. We need exceptions on how we should be treated; yet we are unwilling to examine ourselves.

Coming back to the issue of admiration. I feel cornered. Let me admit that I do like it. Come on - who won't. Sometimes we don't. I recollect the times I used to cringe from it. Now I at least accept it, though still find it difficult. It occurred to me in one instance of an intensive self work that for me the sense of appreciation was linked to the issue of feeling 'worthy'. There is this inner voice within that constantly used to ask: Am I really worthy? Do I really feel that it belongs?

It has been a troubled quest and in that quest, the quote from Marianne Williamson, which Nelson Mandela had once used, has helped me stand in good stead:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are younot to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” (Marrianne Williamson in "A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles").

If this is so, do I really need to shy away from appreciation?