VALIDATION

“You’re doing a great job,” I told her.

“Thank you. And I know I am,” she replied with no hint of irony, only complete assuredness.

Do you ever encounter another human and maybe in the moment your attention is scattered in a million places, but something in the interaction cuts through all of the noise and ends up sticking long after? This interaction was maybe five seconds long at the end of an unsatisfying meeting, but her words keep coming back to me, breaking through my constant stream of thoughts, and I know exactly why.

The energy of a woman owning her power is one my inner wise woman recognizes and wants to move toward. She sees it and says breathe that in. Sit here in appreciation for this woman showing you who you want to be – unafraid of speaking the truth, refusing to shrink away from anyone in the room who doesn’t see it her way. She doesn’t need their approval because she is confidently self-validated. She knows that she will not be deflected from getting her needs, her questions, her requests met.

Lately, this is the energy I value in interacting with other humans, and the energy I want to hold on to and reflect back when I see it. Watching other people validate themselves and show up without shame brings me the most delight. It tickles something deep within me and sends up a flare of gratitude for the souls who show the way.

One of the many reasons I stepped back from sharing on social media was because I felt myself putting too much weight on external validation and craved more internal validation. Social media had me chasing likes, heart emojis, and views, and while I know now that it’s designed to do that to make it addictive, it was coopting a desire that already had too much control over me. And that desire for external validation showed up in plenty of other places too – client interactions, social situations, family gatherings. The gift of the pandemic was the socially acceptable excuse to step away from all of it and unlearn the story that I need to be what other people want me to be.

Partly, that desire for external validation comes from being female and codependent – learning that pleasing other people is an effective way to feel successful and useful (but it isn’t sustainable). The high of praise satisfied my ego because it made me feel wanted. Being wanted made me feel worthy.

Inside my body though, it came at the cost of silencing of my own desires and a feeling that my value was only how much I could serve or do for anyone else. At a soul level, I no longer even knew what I wanted or what made me light up – and it felt like that light, when I found it, could too easily be extinguished by a lack of interest or praise from the outside world.

Cultivating internal validation looks like acknowledging and recognizing the flickers of delight at the discovery of an insight. Feeling the jump of joy at knowing I’m aligned with what I feel pulled to create or advocate for. It is integrity – integrating what I believe and what I know to be true and then showing up for that even around people who believe or feel differently. Internal validation allows me to feel worthy based on my own curiosity and interests and enjoying my talents because I like them, rather than anything they do for anyone else.

As always, this is a constant learning – it hasn’t happened overnight and there is still work to do. My addiction to external validation is sneaky and likes to pop in uninvited. But these days I can see it for what it is: an old pattern that I used to survive.

And to the ones who show up and acknowledge that the work they are doing is good and worthy and necessary – thank you for basking in your magnificence. May you never stop owning your brilliance.