Is it time for self validation?

When you’re on a journey of self awareness and discovery, it can be all too easy to focus on the places you have gotten stuck in your life.

Photo by Chela B. on Unsplash

As you dive into the work of knowing who you really are, you come face to face with all of the things you’ve tried and failed to be.

That's the perfect time to take a self validation break, and remind yourself how far you've come.

While you’re in the middle of intense new growth, it might take everything you have to keep moving forward. If you get caught in what isn’t working, what you’re missing, or where you went wrong, you’ll forget to validate what went right.

If you sit in judgment of yourself and are unable to let go of your previous choices, you won’t grow. You’ll get stuck.

If this is you, stop for a moment and ask yourself: what is the point of doing your own spiritual work? Is it to win some Perfection Award?

Or is the real point of all of this to learn who you are, and to feel relaxed and happy within yourself? If your spiritual growth doesn’t have a whole lot of joy in it, and becomes a never ending game of what isn’t working, you might be stuck in some perfect pictures about who and how you ‘should’ be.

It’s true that if you want to grow and be your authentic self, it’s important to face your shadow, honestly. You do need to take the time it takes to let go of the old you, so that you can welcome in a more present time vibration of who you are now.

This is why self love and forgiveness are important for any kind of consciousness work.

One of the many reasons why any of us begins to look within and do this work, is that we are feeling invalidated, and invalidation is a painful vibration to be in. Sometimes the problem with this is that we have been taught to wait for others to bestow validation upon us, for it to come to us from outside of ourselves.

When it doesn’t magically show up, and we’re still not validated, we become convinced that we are somehow wrong.

This self invalidation game is perpetuated by the advertising industry, which is banking, literally, on us needing validation and approval. It’s easier to control an invalidated person than a validated one.

Invalidation is always a lie. If you’re invalidated about yourself, you’re handling energy that isn’t you, controlling your ability to have your own spirit working for you.

The good news is that you have the power to change all of this. It might be time to take a self validation break.

If you’re waiting for others to decide you’ve become an enlightened being, know that it’s not up to them. The point of doing your work is to know you better, and to love yourself through all of it, including your errors, foibles, bad moods, negative attitudes, laziness, and all the other very human parts of yourself.

To try to pretend you’re other than who you really are wastes your energy.

Whose approval do you want? Who gets to decide how you feel about yourself?

Some of the people to whom you’ve given the power of deciding your worth, may not even be in your life anymore. You’ve chosen to leave the relationship, or you moved, graduated, got a new job, or grew up. Some of these people may not even be alive anymore, but they still command whether or not you feel worthy.

Even if they weren’t trying to decide your worth for you, you assigned them that role in your life. In some way, you stepped away from the old situation, but it’s still within you. You’ve given someone or something else the power to decide for you how you should feel about your own value.

If this is the case for you, it’s time to do some deep housekeeping. Clean them out of your internal spaces, out of your spirit, emotions, thoughts. Do the work, get angry, let go, forgive, and heal yourself. Make up a ritual that helps you release any old ties. (I personally like to write down what I’m releasing and burn it, it’s really freeing for me.)

The people who invalidated you helped you grow. Without meaning to do so, they helped you become stronger and more conscious. You get to use this energy!

You can choose to have experienced all of this and learn to self validate too.

You can choose consciously to forgive others for being mean to you. Use what you learned from any invalidating experiences in your life to love yourself more deeply.

Don’t sit around waiting to receive a seal of approval. When you know within your own heart that you are doing the best you can, and you’re doing your work, you bring a gift to anyone else who is working on self validation lessons too.

“i love myself.'

the
quietest.
simplest.
most
powerful.
revolution.
ever.”
-Nayyirah Waheed