People usually say that everyone wants to "be happy". I don't think this is exactly right. I think everyone wants inner tranquility, a sense of all being right with the world and within oneself. I think this comes from the subtle recognition of our true nature. Tranquility and inner peace makes me think of stillness, joy, acceptance, awe, beauty, observation, reception, breathing, embracing, free-flowing and unrestrained movement (say, dance), being in a state of flow, living in the moment...
That said, if we want inner tranquility, there must be something that interferes with this when we start to base our sense of self-worth on the validation of others. Sometime in our early childhood development, we must have been taught that to live in that inner tranquility, there are certain pre-conditions that must be met first. Often, these are quite literally the approval of others, especially our parents. We are taught to respond to compliments of our being. If we are told we are "good", it's generally in relation to something we are doing. Therefore, we learn that to be at peace means to be "good", and to be "good", we must do X.
Once that false notion is established and internalized, we start to pursue that external validation as a constant affirmation of our being OK. And of course, it is not other people's job to always affirm us, especially since they're often busy trying to do the same thing for themselves. And so since we're hyper aware of other's responses to us, we notice right away anything that veers even minutely away from 100% validation, and we immediately sound the alarm that something is not right, that we are not "good" (enough), and therefore CANNOT be at peace with ourselves UNLESS and UNTIL we DO something - please someone, change ourselves.
This never-ending cycle feeds on itself and will never be satisfied. The only way out is to get off the looney train. Stop seeking validation outside of oneself, and recognize that I am already perfectly "good" without having to "do" anything special, and without having anyone affirm that for me. I must learn to trust myself. If I tell myself that I am well, then I am well. Nothing else is needed to prove this to myself, and certainly not to others. I can choose to be at peace with myself just as I am, even when others disapprove, because their approval is irrelevant to my inner state, unless of course I delegate my responsibility to maintain my mental and emotional equlibrium to others.
How can someone outside of myself ever truly judge me, though? They will never know the entire thought process that went into my decision-making. They will never have experienced my life's circumstances in the same way that I have. They will never have had the same set of experiences in the first place. No one can ever relate 100% to my lived experience, so how can they truly tell me if I'm "good" or not? Why should I trust them if they offer such a judgment? It's chaos.
We must remember that what we're struggling with, they are too. Why should they be validating us when they ought to be validating themselves? That's what happens - we start validating others, and forget to validate ourselves. And then we fill that void by seeking others to validate us. And then we're resentful of those who don't fully validate us, because we think - we're validing others, why can others validate us? What if we all stop validating each other and start validating ourselves?
Will I make mistakes? Yup. So what? Who taught me that I shouldn't make mistakes? It doesn't matter, because they were wrong. Mistakes are a part of life, just like breathing. There's better and worse ways of breathing (some lead to hyperventilation, some are context-dependent [like holding one's breath under water]), but as long as we're breathing, we're "good". We waste precious potential breaths when we think, "oh, no! I shouldn't have breathed like that! I should've slowed my breathing down a little. That would've calmed me down. I can't believe I did that."
Mistakes are like breaths. If the inopportune one happens, we acknowledge it and focus on the next one. Nothing more, and nothing less. Mistakes are not evidence of our failure as human beings. And while we're at it, successes (as measured by society's standards) are not evidence of our being exceptional human beings.
If something or someone does not help me circle back to this basic realization, I need to distance myself from it or them. If my religion tries to make me focus on my mistakes (sin! confession! hell or purgatory!), then it's not leading me closer to my true nature of oneness with God (which is what even Christian scriptures claim to be the end goal of the Christian life, just via often convoluted wording).
If it's not helping, it's harming, and I'm distancing myself from it.
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