The most powerful kind of approval

April 10, 2025 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Your own.

I used to run around trying to prove I was worthy.

I overworked myself at my job. I volunteered on weeknights and weekends. I said “yes” to everyone and everything.

I thought if I did enough, I’d finally feel valuable. But because I didn’t know how to approve of myself, I kept seeking that approval from others—and at my own expense.

What I didn’t know back then: You can seek your own approval.

In fact, your own approval is the most important of all. Because only you get to decide whether you approve of yourself.

Even when we try to seek approval from others, we can’t control what people think of us. People will form opinions based on them—their experiences, conditioning, values, beliefs—not necessarily based on us.

Imagine being in a room with 10 people. You say or do something meaningful to you. Chances are, you’ll get 10 different interpretations. You didn’t change what you did—but each person filters it through their own lens.

If we’re chasing approval from all 10 people, we might get praise from a few… and judgment from a few others. It’s a losing game, and it pulls us away from who we really are.

Instead, we can learn to ask:
“How do I want to show up?”
“What feels aligned for me?”

When we act from our values—when we behave in ways we’re proud of—we can approve of ourselves, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Now, I still do a lot of things. But I’m no longer doing them to prove my worth.

I do them because I want to. Because I know I have value to contribute. Because I know I’m already worthy.

But most of us weren’t taught that we’re already worthy. I know I wasn’t.

What we’re often taught is that worth has to be earned—through performance, achievement, likability. That if we want to belong, we have to please. That if we want to be accepted, we have to keep the peace.

But real belonging never asks you to betray yourself.

When we build self-approval, we become more able to connect authentically—with people who see us clearly, and who love us as we are. We stop bending and breaking ourselves to be palatable. We start showing up as more of ourselves. And from that place, real belonging becomes possible.

Your turn:

Do you believe that you are already 100% worthy?

If not, could you try on the thought: “It’s possible that I’m already 100% worthy”?

What might change if you practiced believing that?

Where in your life are you tempted to hide or perform to feel like you belong?

What would it look like to bring more of your true self into those spaces?

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

Talk about what hurts

November 21, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

To heal.

“We’ll never be okay if we don’t talk about what hurts.” – Ashley Ford (https://www.ashleycford.net/bio)

I heard this quote mentioned on a podcast I listened to and it resonated with me. So often, we talk about everything BUT what really hurts.

We bottle up our emotions and wonder why we feel so much resentment, powerlessness, guilt, or shame.

Sometimes we don’t even tell ourselves the truth about what really hurts us because it’s “easier” not to think about it. But then not thinking about it actually makes our lives harder in some ways because we disconnect from our truth – and from ourselves. We hide from ourselves or tell ourselves it’s not a big deal, that we need to get over it, that we’re “stronger” than this.

I think what helps us feel stronger is when we tell the truth and actually talk about it instead of denying it to ourselves. Talking to trusted friends or family members might feel supportive. Or talking to a therapist, counselor, or coach might feel safer – someone more objective and who has tools to hear us and empower us to move forward.

For me, seeing a therapist regularly to talk about what hurts was one of the most empowering things I’ve done for myself. When I let myself be vulnerable and saw that someone else could hold space for that vulnerability, I allowed myself to then learn to hold space for myself in that way. I allowed myself to be more vulnerable with myself and then with others. I stopped hiding myself so much and this is what also allowed me to be more authentic and aligned with who I am. I started to feel okay with who I was.

One revelatory truth for me during therapy was, “I am okay . . . I have always been okay . . . and I will always be okay.”

Your turn: What hurts have you been denying or hiding from yourself? How might talking about them help you? Who is someone that you can talk to?

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When saying “yes” is a lie

October 31, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Tell the truth: say “no.”

We’re continuing our boundary discussion. Last week we talked about some examples of boundary requests and consequences/actions.

We are the keepers of our boundaries and we’re responsible for taking the actions to maintain them.

Many people aren’t good at saying “no.” Or when they do say “no,” they try to offer an explanation – usually a lie – in order to control what the other person thinks of them.

We often say “yes” when we really want to say “no” because we’re afraid of what other people will think of us. This is part of people-pleasing. (Read more about people pleasing here.)

But when we aren’t able to tell the truth out of self-respect and say “no,” we end up lying and saying “yes.” This is how we set ourselves up for boundary violations.

When we do this, we create the potential for resentment to build in us.

Think about what happens when we don’t start out by telling the truth about our boundaries – not being able to say “no” when we want to – and end up experiencing boundary violations. We then have to do the harder work of circling back to prevent further boundary violations.

This can look like “standing up” for ourselves because the person who is violating our boundary has been doing so for a while now and not knowing that they are. So now we’re also likely setting this boundary out of anger as well. To the other person, it’s like we’re “coming out of nowhere” with our boundary request and exploding at them for no reason.

If we’re willing to say “no” at the outset, we don’t have to stand up for ourselves. We’ll just simply say “no” at the beginning to avoid other potential boundary violations.

We have to get good at telling the truth and saying “no” while staying connected as a practice, so we can say “yes” to what we really want to do.

Then our “yes” will also be telling the truth.

Next week, we’ll look at what to say when saying “no” is really not an option.

Your turn: When do you find yourself lying by saying “yes” when you really want to say “no”? What would you need to believe in order to tell the truth by saying “no”? What are some ways you can recognize when you want to say “no,” honoring that in yourself, and practice saying “no” when it’s the truth? How can you feel empowered to be the keeper of your boundaries and be responsible for taking the actions to maintain them?

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When you “don’t got” this

September 12, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

That’s OK.

How many of us have said to others or have had it said to us, “You got this!”? Or how many times have we said to ourselves, “I got this!”?

Sometimes that phrase can be an energizing, motivating way to support someone else or ourselves. Sometimes we need to hear it to get a nudge of confidence or determination to do something hard.

And sometimes, the most supportive thing we can tell ourselves is the truth, “I DON’T got this.”

It might be a hard truth to hear for some of us who are used to figuring it out no matter what or pushing through it all the time.

But try it out. Let it sink in. “I don’t got this.”

How does it feel to say that? Maybe to admit that?

Maybe it doesn’t feel realistic because it’s not really true right now. Maybe it doesn’t feel supportive. Maybe it feels icky. Why?

Or maybe it feels like relief. Maybe it feels like a revelation. Maybe it feels responsible.

When we can allow ourselves to think or say, “I don’t got this,” we are allowing ourselves to tell the truth in some aspect of our lives that might feel daunting or overwhelming. Sometimes our lives can feel that way because we are human beings living in a world that we mostly can’t control.

If we can admit to ourselves, “I don’t got this,” a helpful next thing to ask is, “What do I need?”

Our brains like to find answers, so asking “What do I need?” gives our brain a job to do. The answer might be:

“Let it be for now” or
“I think I need to talk to someone” or
“I think I need to ask John for help” or
“I think I need to ask Susie for help too” or
“I think I need to slow down” or
“I think I need to cry it out”

Or whatever the answer might be, listen and allow.

It doesn’t mean we give up and we’ll never “got this” again. It means right now, we need some extra support – either from ourselves or from others who we trust to help or support us in a way that works for all involved.

Your turn: Where in your life do you “don’t got” this right now? Are you willing to admit that to yourself and have it be OK for now? Are you open to seeing what you need to move forward? How would you like to support yourself in this?

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I didn’t want to write this post

April 18, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

😑

Sometimes, I just don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like doing “the thing,” whatever it happens to be.

For example, I didn’t feel like writing this post this week. I kept thinking, “What do I have to say? I’ve said everything that I want to say. I don’t have any new ideas.”

I felt unmotivated to come up with something new. But because I’m committed to myself and my business, I decided to tell the truth and have that be a topic I’m writing to you about this week.

We all struggle with those times when we say to ourselves, “I just don’t feel like it!” And then we don’t do whatever it is that we told ourselves we’d do.

And sometimes, that’s OK. When we check-in with ourselves and find that we really don’t have the energy or capacity to do something, we can choose not to do it.

We just want to make sure that it’s intentional, on purpose, and not just an automatic response, a way for us to push the “easy” button on something that might be really important to us in the long run.

What I mean is, are we getting in our own way and self-sabotaging in that moment OR are we choosing to take care of ourselves in that moment?

Because sometimes doing something to take care of ourselves might be hard – not easy. And doing something self-sabotaging is usually easy. Like eating that fourth cookie, or having that third drink, or blowing off the gym, our walk, our yoga class, our meditation practice – or not writing a weekly blog post.

So we really want to check-in with ourselves and ask, “Do I really not have the energy or capacity for this? Or do I just want to do the easy thing? What might be the long-term benefit of doing / not doing this thing?”

Sometimes we will choose to do the easy thing. If we do, we choose that on purpose and then we don’t need to beat ourselves up for it. Because choosing the easy thing and beating ourselves up for it doesn’t help anyone. In fact, it probably defeats the purpose of choosing the easy thing if we’re just going to beat ourselves up for it. Might as well choose the hard thing, then!

So I could’ve chosen the easy thing and not written a post this week. Would anyone have noticed? Maybe. Maybe not. But I chose to write this post and tell the truth about not wanting to write this post as an example of what’s possible.

(And honestly, when I finally sat down to write this, it wasn’t that hard!)

We can be intentional about our decisions as acts of care for ourselves, instead of automatically pushing the “easy” button. And we get to know the difference between self-sabotaging actions and self-care actions. We can always choose differently next time.

Your turn: Are you clear about which of your choices are self-sabotaging or self-caring? If not, you can get clearer for yourself. Each time you have the thought, “I don’t feel like it,” get curious with yourself. Why don’t you feel like it? Is it about caring for yourself or is it about pushing the “easy” button for yourself (aka, possibly a self-sabotaging action)?

Ultimately, you get to decide which one it is for you. Asking the last question, “What might be the long-term benefit of doing / not doing this thing?” could also help you find more clarity.

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Episode 2 of my show “Get Out of Your Own Way” is on today at 3:30pm Pacific time! And you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, by searching my name, April Yee. Listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Podcast Addict, and more!

“I don’t got this”

January 25, 2024 ~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

And that’s OK.

How many of us have said to others or have had it said to us, “You got this!”? Or how many times have we said to ourselves, “I got this!”?

Sometimes that phrase can be an energizing, motivating way to support someone else or ourselves. Sometimes we need to hear it to get a nudge of confidence or determination to do something hard.

And sometimes, the most supportive thing we can tell ourselves is the truth, “I DON’T got this.”

It might be a hard truth to hear for some of us who are used to figuring it out no matter what or pushing through it all the time.

But try it out. Let it sink in. “I don’t got this.”

How does it feel to say that? Maybe to admit that?

Maybe it doesn’t feel realistic. Maybe it doesn’t feel supportive. Maybe it feels icky. Why?

Or maybe it feels like relief. Maybe it feels like a revelation. Maybe it feels responsible.

If we can admit to ourselves, “I don’t got this,” a helpful next thing to ask is, “What do I need?”

Our brains like to find answers, so asking “What do I need?” gives our brain a job to do. The answer might be:

“Let it be for now” or
“I think I need to talk to someone” or
“I think I need to ask John for help” or
“I think I need to ask Susie for help too” or
“I think I need to slow down” or
“I think I need to cry it out”

Or whatever the answer might be, listen and allow.

Your turn: Where in your life do you “don’t got this”? Are you willing to admit that to yourself and have it be OK for now? Are you open to seeing what you need to move forward? How would you like to support yourself in this?

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