Insight of the Week: Validation, Validation, Validation

By official definition, validation is “the action of making or declaring something legally or officially acceptable”. When applied to our emotions however, we can say that validation is the recognition and/or affirmation that a person or their feelings or opinions are valid or worthwhile.  It’s a powerful action that can be both uplifting and positive or deep cutting and hurtful.  This is predicated by who is seeking the validation, from whom and for what purpose.  But what causes us to seek validation? Simply it stems from a false belief or sense of “not being good enough” in one area or another, from a conditioned insecurity that taught us not to trust ourselves whether in our decision-making, or performance, or in relationship.  Validation, however, need only come from within ourselves.  When we seek it out from other’s we give our power away allowing them to decide our value and sense of self-worth, thus destabilizing our belief within and our ability to assess ourselves by our own metrics.

More often than not, and especially in our times of insecurity or doubt or when our life goes awry in some aspect, we look to our friends, family or colleagues, for assertions on our thoughts, actions and beliefs. Although we have come to view this as common practice, what we are doing, in essence, is consistently undermining and feeding the belief that someone outside of ourselves “knows better”. When we realize we have everything we need within us to live the life we choose successfully, we will organically validate and trust ourselves without a second thought.  We won’t need to turn to another to confirm our belief, action or thought. We won’t need to seek out another to make us feel better about our decisions.  For in truth, no-one knows “you better than you” and therefore, no-one can make the best decisions for you, but you.  Others might not understand or agree but it is not necessary that they do for them to love you.  A woman and mentor of mine once taught me “no head above your own”.  A powerful lesson and how right she was.