You’ve Been Pre-Approved!

I spent a good part of yesterday trying to come up with a theme for this week’s blog and writing assignment. I was still pondering my options as I went down the stairs of my apartment building to the mailboxes on the main floor. When I opened my mailbox, out fell, of all things, a much smaller version of the Montgomery Wards Catalog (do they still even make “Monkey Ward” catalogs, as we used to call them?). Attached to the front page was a card that boldly announced: “You’re Pre-Approved.” Obviously these people feel that a month is ample time to dig ourselves out of the Christmas credit card nightmare just passed and it is now time to get shopping!

As I marched back up the stairs, catalog in hand, I ruminated about this consumer obsessed culture we live in. “I don’t need your approval, thank you very much,” I said to no one in particular. “I approve of where and how I shop, and no amount of your baiting me with your marketing tactics will drag me down your slippery credit slope.” When I got back to my apartment, I threw the catalog on my desk, with the full intention of chucking it in the recycling bin, when that phrase jumped out at me again: “You’re Pre-Approved.” I looked out the window at the sky … where I still believe Heaven exists even though I know differently now, but old habits die hard … and declared to the Universe: “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Once again you have provided me with an idea to write about!”

From the time we are tiny children, we devote the majority of our lives to seeking and receiving approval, first from our parents, then our teachers, our peers, and, eventually, the world at large. We learn what “good girl” and “bad girl” really mean. We arrange our lives so that we constantly receive that validation and, when we don’t get it, we rearrange it again, whether we like it or not, in order to get it back. Well, here’s a little piece of information that may change your plans indefinitely: You’ve Been Pre-Approved! You came into this world in a state of perfection. You got the OK from all of the Quality Control angels and God, The Universe, Source, Fred, or whatever you call it, put the ultimate Stamp of Approval on your butt before you were sent down the chute and out into the world. You never, ever, needed any mere mortal’s approval to be who you are because you got the highest award for manufacturing excellence there is from the Chairman of the Board!

Louise Hay, founder of Hay House publishing, the largest publisher of spiritual and higher consciousness books and media … and the Queen of Affirmations … tells us that every morning when we wake up, we should go to the mirror, look directly in our own eyes, and tell that person we see looking back, “I love you, I really, really love you. You’re perfect just the way you are.” If the One Who Made Us gave us their full and unequivocal approval to come into this world, we can certainly do the same as we enter a brand new day. After all, who are we to argue with Perfection?

Peace and blessings.