The Importance of Self-Validation
You wake up, and the first thing you do is check your phone. You look for notifications and likes on your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, hoping to see positive feedback from friends and strangers alike.
You feel validated when you see that you’ve received likes, comments, and shares. Validation from others is a powerful source of motivation, but it also has drawbacks.
When you depend on external validation, you give away your power to others. When you don’t receive validation, you can break down and lose your sense of self-worth.
That’s why self-validation is essential. It’s the process of recognizing your own worth and validating your own feelings.
The more you validate yourself, the less you depend on others for validation. Self-validation counts more than external validation, and it’s important for your self-acceptance and self-love.
You must learn to honor your feelings, even if others don’t. Iyanla Vanzant said, “Love yourself, accept yourself, educate yourself, and change yourself.”
Steps to Achieve Self-Validation
1. Being Present
The first step to achieving self-validation is being present in the moment.
Ground yourself in your environment and avoid dissociating, daydreaming, suppressing, or numbing your feelings. Assess what’s happening and try to stay with it.
Mindfulness practices such as meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga can help you be more present. 2.
Labeling Emotions Accurately
The second step to achieving self-validation is labeling your emotions accurately. Identify and name your feelings, whether you’re sad, angry, confused, or happy.
Depression is often an emotion that people find hard to label, but it’s important to recognize when you’re feeling depressed so that you can take steps to heal. Identifying your feelings and labeling them can help you acknowledge them and better understand yourself.
It’s essential to honor your emotions and accept them as part of your experience. 3.
Reflecting on Past Events
The third step to achieving self-validation is reflecting on past events. Your past plays an influential role in your present and future.
Reflecting on negative past events can give you insight into how they affect your present and what you need to do to heal. Trauma from past events can affect and perpetuate negative self-talk and self-doubt.
Taking the time to reflect and work through past trauma is essential in achieving self-validation. 4.
Normalizing Your Emotions
The fourth step to achieving self-validation is normalizing your emotions. Understanding that it’s normal to have emotions and that everyone has emotional moments is essential in recognizing that you’re not alone in feeling emotionally vulnerable.
Acknowledging that it’s normal to be human, and that all humans have emotions, can help you find your real self, who you are deep down. Normalizing your emotions also helps to lessen the importance of opinion from others.
5. Loving Yourself
The final step to achieving self-validation is loving yourself.
Self-love is the foundation of self-acceptance and self-worth. Educating yourself, falling in love with who you are, and valuing yourself is essential in achieving self-validation.
When you love yourself, you take care of yourself better. Your behavior and relationships with others become healthier and more authentic.
You stop seeking external validation and become self-sufficient in your validation needs.
Conclusion
Self-validation is essential for our mental and emotional wellbeing. When we learn to validate ourselves, we become more resilient, happier, and more authentic.
The steps to achieve self-validation involve being present, labeling emotions accurately, reflecting on past events, normalizing your emotions, and loving yourself. It’s essential to learn to honor your feelings, even if others don’t.
You must accept yourself for who you are and love yourself. Self-validation is a process and not something that can be achieved overnight.
It takes time, effort, and healing. But when you achieve self-validation, you’ll find that external validation matters less, and you become more emotionally independent and authentic.
The Dangers of External Validation
Validation from others, whether it’s from friends, family, or significant others, is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can be a powerful motivator, but on the other hand, it can lead to giving away power and intensity over your feelings.
When you depend on external validation, you’re giving others the power to decide how you feel about yourself. If you don’t receive validation, you can break down and lose your sense of self-worth.
This is a tremendous risk as not everyone you come across will approve of what you do, and the journey to self-confidence cannot thrive based on external validation alone. A danger of external validation is you deny your own feelings.
You begin to question what’s right for you and operate on the approval of others. It can lead to a sense of powerlessness and a lack of self-acceptance and self-love.
Seeking approval can come with compromise, and you may find yourself doing things that you don’t like, or acting in ways that aren’t true to your nature, just to earn someone’s love or recognition. It’s okay to want to please others, but not without being true to your authentic self.
Also, if you follow a path according to approval, even though deep down, it doesn’t sit well with you, you may find yourself in a constant state of confusion and turmoil as you fight your own intuition.
Benefits of Self-Validation
Self-validation is the process of recognizing your own worth and validating your own feelings. While there are dangers of external validation, self-validation is empowering and helps you to believe more in yourself.
1. Empowerment
One significant benefit of self-validation is empowerment.
When you learn to validate your own feelings, your sense of self-worth is no longer attached to external sources. It helps you become more independent and fearless when making decisions.
You’ll find that you don’t need others to approve of your choices before you feel confident enough to follow your intuition. 2.
Improved Self-Esteem
Self-validation helps to improve self-esteem. When you stop seeking external validation, you begin to focus on self-improvement.
You’ll start to set your standard for what fulfills you and what is vital to you. You’ll appreciate yourself more, and your self-esteem will rise.
3. Freedom to Be Yourself
Self-validation provides the freedom to be yourself.
You learn to accept yourself better and recognize your strengths and weaknesses. It makes you more comfortable with who you are and helps you to open up and share your unique characteristics with others.
4. Deeper Understanding of Oneself
Self-validation leads to a deeper understanding of oneself.
You become aware of your own emotions and motivations and begin to understand why you feel the way you do about certain things. You’ll start to develop a clearer perspective on life, empowering you to make better choices for yourself rather than doing what others want you to do.
Conclusion
External validation can be an essential part of how we feel about ourselves, but self-validation goes a long way in giving us power, self-acceptance, and self-love. It’s important to learn to trust yourself and not depend solely on the approval of others., while we may seek the support of others at times, external validation should never be a person’s sole source of validation and self-worth.
Knowing what you want and who you are is the first step in experiencing the benefits of self-validation. Self-validation is empowering, and when you keep up with practicing it, you get to reap its many benefits.
Practicing Self-Validation
Self-validation is all about acknowledging your own feelings and recognizing that they are valid. It’s important to practice self-validation regularly and to use it as a tool to empower yourself.
Here are a few ways that you can practice self-validation:
1. Acknowledging Emotions
The first step toward self-validation is to acknowledge your emotions.
Be honest with yourself about what you’re feeling, whether it’s happiness, sadness, anger, or pain. Recognize that your feelings are valid and that they deserve to be acknowledged.
When you acknowledge your emotions, you give them the respect they deserve, instead of brushing them aside or suppressing them. This allows you to avoid suffering from further emotional pain and move on in your life, without the negative feelings becoming a burden.
2. Being Kind and Compassionate to Oneself
The way you treat yourself is paramount in validating yourself.
Being kind and compassionate toward yourself is essential to boost your self-esteem and build self-love. Nurture yourself as if you’re your own best friend.
Be patient with yourself in your flaws and imperfections. When you accept your imperfection, you become more relaxed and open to new experiences.
This can help to lessen the pressure and anxiety that you might feel to be perfect and to hide your flaws. 3.
Embracing Flaws
It’s essential to recognize that nobody’s perfect, and this includes you too. By embracing your flaws, you are taking ownership of your own imperfections and choosing to accept that they are a part of who you are.
Instead, think of them as part of the uniqueness that makes you who you are. It takes courage to accept and embrace your flaws, but it opens doors to self-love and self-validation.
Celebrating your flaws makes you feel more authentic and less self-conscious about your imperfections. In this way, you can build more self-confidence in yourself.
4. Taking Responsibility for Oneself
Taking responsibility for yourself means that you recognize that you are in charge of your life and that your choices and actions have consequences.
Taking ownership of your life choices is empowering, as it encourages you to make informed choices, rather than trying to live up to other people’s expectations. Taking responsibility gives you agency, and it can help you to tackle difficult tasks that need to be done.
By recognizing that you have control over your life, you begin to take steps to change it and to claim authenticity in your choices.
Conclusion
Practicing self-validation is a powerful way of empowering yourself. It can help you to recognize your worth as a person and to make better decisions for yourself.
It’s important to acknowledge your emotions, to be kind and compassionate toward yourself, to embrace your flaws, and to take responsibility for yourself. When you practice these things, you’ll find that you become more confident, self-aware, and authentic.
Self-validation is an ongoing process, and it takes time to develop. However, with patience and consistent practice, it becomes easier to validate yourself and to reap the benefits of self-love and validation.
In conclusion, practicing self-validation is vital for our mental and emotional well-being, and it’s essential to our personal growth and authenticity. Seeking validation from external sources can be harmful, and it can erode our self-worth.
Embracing self-validation helps us become more empowered, authentic, and confident in ourselves. To practice self-validation, we must acknowledge our emotions, be kind and compassionate to ourselves, embrace our flaws, and take responsibility for ourselves.
When we begin to validate ourselves, we recognize our worth as individuals, and we realize that our lives belong to us and that we have control over our choices. Self-validation can be an ongoing process, but with persistence, consistency, and patience, we can enjoy the many benefits that come with it.