When you truly know who you are the validation of others becomes less of a crutch to lean on and more like a flower you notice and appreciate.
Society is structured in a way that values external validation, which means we look to others and the immediate environment to determine things as far as our relevance, our worth, whether we fit into the more popular social circles, the list goes on. What we often forget is that we have the unlimited potential to determine these things for ourselves but more than that: we are what we need, that is to say you are what you need.
Take a typical school environment for example, it is a top-down approach where the teacher tells and determines the student’s progress. A student slides into their wooden bench and desk every school day with anticipation of what their grade will be. Thus learning this habit for the rest of their lives without the awareness of what the student can offer herself. When you look within to seek answers only you have, there is a shift that happens to how you perceive the world and how the world perceives you. This shift is a result of an understanding that fundamentally, we are unique, creative and beautiful beings and when we lean into this understanding we gain the insight of no longer seeking validation but spiritual enlightenment.
Spiritual insight is not some far-away state that can only be achieved by monks living on a mountain, born into a culture that encourages this way of life. Yes, it is but also it is accessible to the rest of us if we seek it. Spiritual insight or alignment or any other term you give to the sense of peace that transcends the trivial tasks of daily life is something we are born with. It comes with our essential or true selves; this is slowly eroded by the social and cultural norms that we are conditioned into by family, school, religion, etc. The world is so busy and loud that if you do not slow down to take notice of how what you just did makes you feel, you will continue on this roller-coaster of conformity and spiritual misalignment. Being on this roller-coaster can be manifested through the experience of intense and excessive worry and fear about everyday situations, feelings of being out of control and nothing ever being good enough. It is a race toward something specific but with an elusive finish line, no matter how much you plan and forecast, you don’t ever seem to achieve the goal. It is almost as if the goal post keeps shifting which, in actual fact it is because when we try to please others, what we do is neither sustainable nor enough so we give more and do more until all our resources are depleted.
The more we give to others (in the form of trying to please them and make them happy or like us that much more) the more peace we take away from ourselves. This is a tricky concept for a girl that was raised Christian, such as myself because we are taught to “love thy neighbor” or when someone does something untoward to “turn the other cheek”. While these are good values to have and some of us could do with more of them, there is an aspect of the self that needs to be acquired before we can embody these values genuinely, in the way the great book of life; the Bible intended. We need to awaken to our own needs and wants; I mean this in the way the passenger on the plane needs to put on their own mask first before assisting fellow passengers. We cannot give that which we do not have, we cannot afford the energy we are currently dispensing to the validation by others because we need it to reconnect with ourselves first. To reconnect can be simply asking “what do I need today?” then taking a couple of deep breaths to let this simmer and this step is necessary because you are likely to criticize/judge/ or feel shame for that first thing that comes to mind because you are so accustomed to the needs of others. Expressing and hearing your own needs is foreign so yielding to them will be difficult but stay with me here. Take three deep breaths.
Reconnecting with yourself seems a weird concept because you were never disconnected in the first place but once you start to slow down and notice yourself before noticing others, it will become clearer what this means. Slowing down can be a physical or an internal process, it depends on how you are currently showing up in the world: are you doing something quickly so that you can get to the next? (me, when I eat pizza, i gobble this slice so I can get the next one) Or are you thinking about the next thing on your list before you have even completed the one you are currently busy with? These can be signs for needing to slow down and expand yourself horizontally because the more time you have to be with yourself, the more time you will create to find yourself. Although, it is important to note that we may not always want to let go of the roles we are currently playing, no matter how far they take us from our essential selves because of the shiny trophies they come with. We need to be willing to let go of the status that comes with the job, the security of a monthly salary that comes with that position, let go of the influence we have if we are to reconnect with our selves. The process of letting go has its consequences and as a result, you have to be grounded in who you are trying to become and that letting go of this one (or a few) good thing will bring you great things.
We are socialized to believe in the tangible; what we can see, quantify and explain so the idea of letting go of the good things we have worked so hard to achieve may be the very definition of insanity. But if you believe in a higher power, if you can believe that the universe is working in your favor then maybe the idea that there is more for you in the spiritual world than what we can see and desire in the physical world then maybe, you may have the courage to take the first step of letting go. This is a journey taken one step at a time in the company of kindness to self, non-judgement to self and most importantly gentleness with the self. It is a journey of falling down and getting up again because falling is part of the process, failure is part of the learning and repetition is how we relearn and reconnect back to our essential selves.
With Love,
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