How much of your validation comes from the external world instead of your internal world?
Today, in the midst of a cleaning rampage as I get ready for a weekend, moving through these frustrations, I came to the terms that most of my life, I lived to seek the approval and acceptance of external sources instead of remembering the seat of my own power – that I am my own authority.
It is human nature to want to seek approval, acceptance and belonging, especially in our immediate surroundings – with the people that matter to us, our family, friends, community. The difficulty arises when you were not made to fit in with the status quo. Instead of harmony in accepting differences, there are pressures to submit into uniformity and passivity.
The way I dressed, acted, the things I did, what I liked…they slowly morphed from things that truly brought me internal happiness and inner approval to wanting to be the desires of the people whose care and affection I depended on. As a child, this is important because so much of your needs depend on adults to take care of you. But now, as an adult, it is my responsibility to become my own inner child’s parent. It is my job to set boundaries, to advocate for my needs, to determine what behaviors, habits and attitudes need to evolve and/or be nurtured.
I have learned that if I am unhappy with something in my life (or, perhaps, with myself), it is because I am focusing on seeking a specific outcome, approval or reaction from an external sources to determine my value, instead of defining it myself.
Are you dressing for yourself? Creating for yourself? Living a life for yourself? Posting on social media for yourself? Or are you doing it to “keep up with the Jones’”?
It takes time, patience and grace to learn what truly makes YOU happy.
Have you ever reorganized your closet?
You start by pulling everything out and dumping it into a pile.
Absolute chaos.
Then you evaluate everything, one by one.
I like this. I don’t like this anymore. I have outgrown this.
And then you are left with a more organized pile of mess before you develop a system that works for you and put it all back into your closet.
And this happens all the time, throughout your life. It is a cycle.
There will be moments of chaos and moments of peace. Because this being human is not a static state of being.
It is like Isamu Noguchi’s ‘Water Stone’: a giant stone fountain sculpture. A giant basalt stone fountain with water emerging from its depths, gently and subtly overflowing in an infinite cascade over its sides, recycled into reservoir where it completes and continues this cycle, simultaneously.
In this moment of clarity, I am unlearning these modes of external validation based validation and reclaiming my inner authority and power.
These wonderful moments of life, where I feel so connected to everything and everywhere, so confident in myself, so willful, determined and powerfully focused…It is in these moments I remember that I am to define myself by how I respond and meet these challenges instead of being defined by them (read carefully).
I reclaim the permission to live life fully expressed – to dance, move, sing, write, create, draw and feel every little thing my soul needs to feel in this lifetime.
I return the focus to self and, in turn, this deep knowing of myself helps me to know, help and respond to others.
I wrestled with this idea of ‘selfishness’.
Is it selfish of me to constantly be so focused on my own inner experience?
And then I thought: how do humans relate to each other? When you remove all symbols of differentiation: race, religion, creed, nationality, social status, economic standing, beliefs, one of the uniting threads between all of us is in the way each of us has feelings and similar experiences.
Through these experiences, we can only understand our own position. And by sharing, empathizing and relation to each other through these individual experiences, by deeply knowing ourselves, we can learn how to treat each other better. To help walk each other home. To help each other remember our inner divinity, our shared collective dream and to do better.
I came across a quote the other day, I believe by Dr. Tara Swart, where she muses: “it is better to do 10 things 1% better than to do 1 thing 10% better”.
In releasing control of things I don’t have control over (like the world, other people, how I am perceived), I can reallocate these resources in bettering myself as a human being each day. Starting with small things like habits, mindsets and being very aware and conscious of my thoughts.
Over here, we aim for progress over perfection. Because perfection is debilitating. Start somewhere and improve as you learn, grow and go.
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