{"id":1854,"date":"2015-09-02T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=1854"},"modified":"2015-08-21T17:48:02","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T21:48:02","slug":"learning-to-approve-of-me-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Approve of Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

By Joyce Rothman<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Low self esteem and the desperate need for approval has plagued me since childhood. Never thinking I was enough, surely everyone else knew better than me what I should do or how I needed to act. Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

It took cancer to change my perspective and now my decisions are less often based on what other people think. Living life with this diagnosis has resulted in knowing and trusting myself so much more. With trust comes self confidence and the strength to reject another\u2019s negative judgment. I see myself in a new brighter light that I can now turn on without first needing to wait for someone else\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n

I never would have thought that cancer would empower me to live my life in a way that takes a lot of angst away. I realize that it is mine to learn from and make decisions for, not anyone else\u2019s; as much as they are to live their own and do the same. Besides, how could I know what is best for another when I\u2019ve not had their unique experience? Even though there is much in common that we do share, we are each our own person. I find that I\u2019m getting much better at learning to not judge others too and these are truly gifts of the highest kind.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, cancer is giving me freedom from self-doubt and fear and blessing me with self-confidence and contentment. It lets me be me so I can finally live as I choose. It occurs to me that I am actually learning how to complete myself and it feels pretty good.<\/p>\n

Facing a major illness separates much of the small stuff from what is truly important I\u2019m getting the courage to stand up for what I believe is right for me. I\u2019m also living more into the moment because I know that if I\u2019m thinking about the future, I miss out on enjoying what I do have now. Yes, it is amazing that cancer is giving me such important life lessons and allowing me to live with more self-love and authenticity than I ever thought possible. For this, I am so very grateful.<\/p>\n

* ***
\nDonna Henes is the author of The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/em>.<\/a> She offers counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity. Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n

The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Joyce Rothman Low self esteem and the desperate need for approval has plagued me since childhood. Never thinking I was enough, surely everyone else knew better than me what I should do or how I needed to act. Or so I thought. It took cancer to change my perspective and now my decisions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2,7],"tags":[55,62,40,59,13,849,39,57,44,43],"class_list":["post-1854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-empowerment","category-inspiration","category-self-esteem","tag-cancer","tag-courage","tag-empowerment-2","tag-healing","tag-holistic-living","tag-illness","tag-power","tag-self-approval","tag-self-confidence","tag-self-esteem-2"],"yoast_head":"\nLearning to Approve of Me - The Queen of My Self<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Learning to Approve of Me - The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  By Joyce Rothman Low self esteem and the desperate need for approval has plagued me since childhood. Never thinking I was enough, surely everyone else knew better than me what I should do or how I needed to act. Or so I thought. It took cancer to change my perspective and now my decisions…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-02T10:00:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-21T21:48:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Henes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Learning to Approve of Me - The Queen of My Self","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Learning to Approve of Me - The Queen of My Self","og_description":"  By Joyce Rothman Low self esteem and the desperate need for approval has plagued me since childhood. Never thinking I was enough, surely everyone else knew better than me what I should do or how I needed to act. Or so I thought. It took cancer to change my perspective and now my decisions…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html","og_site_name":"The Queen of My Self","article_published_time":"2015-09-02T10:00:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-21T21:48:02+00:00","author":"Donna Henes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html","name":"Learning to Approve of Me - The Queen of My Self","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-09-02T10:00:51+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-21T21:48:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2015\/09\/learning-to-approve-of-me-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Learning to Approve of Me"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/","name":"The Queen of My Self","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Donna Henes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a","name":"Donna Henes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","caption":"Donna Henes"},"description":"Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, ritual expert, award-winning author, popular speaker and workshop leader whose joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities since 1972. She has published four books, a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/author\/dhenes"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1855,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions\/1855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}