The Cure to Seeking Validation and People Pleasing (that will change your life)

In this episode, I'm gonna show you the cure to people pleasing and the cure to seeking validation. I'm gonna share with you the shadow of why you may do that, where that comes from in childhood, share with you some epiphanies that I've had over the last couple weeks that have completely transformed the way that I view this whole type dynamic that also really simplifies the process. And I'm gonna show you how to stop doing it so that you can start feeling whole and complete now, which will have and consist of you having more magnetic energy, being more in your own frame, not being pulled into other people's reality or feeling not good enough because you're seeking something that's on the outside. This is something I've had an epiphany around recently, so I wanted to share it. Before I get into that though, I wanna just kind of share something that I learned in my own life as well that I think you guys might find interesting. And, or at least be able to apply in your own life. And that is to do with dopamine. Now I know that I've made episodes recently on dopamine and how dopamine affects our manifestation. Dopamine affects our, you know, what we're creating in our own reality. And in case you missed those episodes though, dopamine is what they traditionally call the reward molecule. It's the reward, it's a feel-good molecule. And what happens is when we are releasing dopamine, we are feeling good. Now, there's some things that stimulate dopamine more than others. And some of those might be like, you know, playing video games releases a big amount of dopamine, eating food releases dopamine, watching television show, you know, I watched the whole, I binged the whole season of all the series of Game of Thrones. Releasing a lot of dopamine. Any good shows that people are addicted to, it's because of dopamine. Drugs make people release dopamine. So when people are doing meth, heroin, cocaine, anything like that, they're releasing dopamine. So the thing to this, it's the motivation as well, has a lot to do with motivation. And what we're motivated for is the things that make us release dopamine. And I've been becoming very aware of my own dopamine because I watched some YouTube video recently that really broke it down very simply, but I'm gonna try to explain it to you here I'm here now because today I did this thing that just completely has made it easier for me to do what I need to do. And also like, you know, put energy towards my vision in a way. So the way that it was describing this in the video and the way it was kind of simplifying it is because we've been so stimulated in society with so much stimulation all the time, whether that's eating, you know, imagine eating food and eating like very unhealthy food for like a week straight, going out to eat every single night, eating a whole bunch of oils and a whole bunch of like crazy good dinners. And then imagine after that, somebody offers you like a bowl of potatoes. You're gonna be like, it's just a regular potatoes or a thing of rice or like asparagus, nothing on it, not seasoned or anything. You're gonna be like, eh, I don't really want that because you've been so primed with the dopamine from all this amazing food that that's become your new set point. So what happens is we become so stimulated that we're just looking for more stimulation, more stimulation, more stimulation, that what happens is we then end up seeking more, more, more, more. It's also kind of like the molecule of more. It's the thing that makes us desire. Now what I've realized though is that when I wake up in the morning, I have this pattern of going into my phone. You know, I get up, I meditate. I don't go to my phone right when I get up. I meditate, I go in my cold plunge, then I go on my phone, I look through Instagram, I'll go into my email, I'll get back to some people on my team. I'm doing all these things that are very high-stimulated dopamine, and it's right when I wake up. So what this video talked about though is going through like a dopamine detox where what you do is you pretty much take away all the high dopamine activities that are in your life and you lower your baseline. And when you lower your baseline, you're gonna feel bored for a while, but then what happens is when you go back to the other things, it's like really stimulating and it feels really good. Even the boring things, the things that could actually help you. Like if you were to take out all the things that were really mentally stimulating you, what you would find is that then what would happen is if you were to go work out, you'd release a lot of dopamine. You would be, you'd really enjoy it. So it's that our dopamine gets so high, like the things that stimulate us, that then we're not stimulated by normal things. And what I've realized is I think I've been so focused, like back in the day, my business was my dopamine. And I'm not saying that's good or bad. It did help me get to where I'm at today, but I used to really enjoy getting up, making videos, writing emails, doing all this stuff. But as of the last like couple months, I think I've been so stimulated by my environment, by, you know, watching YouTube videos, doing this, consuming, that I've kind of lost the drive for the lower activity dopamine stuff, which actually benefits me more long-term. So in a way, the reason I'm sharing this with you is what I did is when I wake up now, I haven't been on my phone yet. Besides to turn on my music, I turned on music, just like background music for when I get in a cold plunge and stuff, but I didn't go into Instagram, didn't really, didn't do anything else. And because of that, like I'm here making this episode with you right now, I'm way more focused and I'm way more in the moment because what I'm doing is, what you're supposed to do with this reward thing is what you do is you do the low dopamine activity stuff that actually gets you better results in life, that helps you with your goals, and then you reward yourself at the end of the day or later on after you've done something so that you're not like, you know, completely draining your dopamine earlier in the day. Anyways, I know that that's not as related to the episode today, but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hold back from like consuming Instagram, hold back from like watching shows and stuff like that till later in the day, which I honestly already kind of do anyways, but I'm gonna take it to another step and do it again and do it like even deeper. So anyways, that's a way you can hack reality, hack like your goal setting. What you're doing is give yourself the reward after you've done the lower dopamine activities. And then what happens is it's like you actually enjoy it more. You actually get more, it's a way of really programming you in a positive way. They've done a lot of studies with rats and stuff like that. And if you give like a rat so much dopamine, it won't eat, it won't sleep, it has no motivation to even get up and do anything at all if it's been so overridden with dopamine. I think that's why some people may go into certain forms of depression and stuff. They get so stimulated that they've kind of lost sensation to the easy things that you can feel grateful for right now. So anyways, I know that was a long thing. Anyways, I wanna kind of go into this and explain what has changed for me when it comes to people pleasing and seeking validation. I'll give you a little bit of a background of what happened recently that made me aware of this. But I think this video, honestly, listen to this video or this episode to the end. I think that you're gonna have some epiphanies in this episode because even though I've explained it before in other videos, different way of looking at why we seek what we seek and really the cure to this. And I had a shadow work integration coach session last night with, or yesterday, with my shadow work coach. And he was able to help me really see this in a different way. And I have like sessions with him every 2 weeks. He has been working with me for a while. And when it comes to validation and people pleasing and being a nice guy, that's something that I had to, I had to break over the last like 2 years, I'd say I've gone through many levels of shedding this because I would find myself in situations with friends or with people where I would say yes to things I didn't wanna really say yes to. I would find myself really being magnetized to other people's frame. Somebody that had a strong frame, I'd wanna be around them. And it was like, I almost got more out of feeling what other people were feeling versus like thinking, how do I feel in this situation? I think that's a common trait of people pleasers, nice guys, and people that seek validation is they're so easily tuned to other people that then they tie their emotions to other people. And if other people feel good, then they feel good. If other people feel bad, then they feel bad. And what happens is it then becomes a thing where I don't want other people to feel bad because if they feel bad, then I feel bad. Now, a lot of times I think too, this comes from people that are empaths, empaths, people that can feel other people's energy. And if you've seen my other videos, the thing I've already shared in other videos is that if you are an empath, then most likely what happened is growing up, part of a survival mechanism that you created for yourself was in order to cope with maybe emotional or physical unavailability growing up or abandonment growing up, You said, okay, if I tune myself to others, then, and I get mom or dad to feel good, then I can feel good. Or maybe you even had a parent that wired in, a lot of this has to do with the parenting too. If parents wired it into you that when you achieve, that's when you're lovable. Like if you do this right or you're being lazy, you're being this way, if you were shamed for being a certain way growing up or not doing certain things growing up, you start to then associate your identity with that of action, with that of being a certain way. And if you're not, if you're growing up and normally it's between 6 to 9 years old, we'll talk more about this in a little bit, but between 6 to 9 years old, if there's something you're told you're not doing correctly and you don't know how to do it differently, you will then come to the conclusion that there's something wrong with me. It's me, there's something wrong with me. I'm not good enough. So what happens is then what happens is if we didn't get that validation growing up and we didn't learn growing up how to validate ourselves because we were tuning to our parents or tuning to our environment, then we grow up and then we're seeking validation in other people, friendship dynamics, meeting other people. And it's pretty crazy to the lengths we'll go to get other people's validation, people's love, because it's literally like we're going around And there's some type of energy that we're, it's like a carrot on a stick. And if we don't get it, then we're not feeling that love. We're not feeling that wholeness. What we're all really searching for, by the way, is wholeness. We're looking for like wholeness. And by the way, a minute ago when I was talking about that of dopamine, people even become addicted to the dopamine of relationships. Like you may find yourself in relationship with people that spike your dopamine like crazy because maybe they're also emotionally unavailable or maybe they're also like, it's like this cat and mouse game. So a lot of this as well is like kicking the addiction. This really goes really well, by the way, the dopamine talk I had that I thought was completely not relevant is actually very relevant to people pleasing and validation seeking because that's what people are seeking. People are seeking the dopamine rush that they'll get when they're finally realizing, oh, I am worthy, I am good enough because this person has finally given me what I want, which is that validation, that love, that approval. So this is something that you become aware of. It's really awareness, by the way. Awareness is the key to all transformation. Awareness is the key to this own process. I've shared it in one other piece of content I think that's coming out, but recently I went to a dinner party with some friends, and when I went, there was also other influencers there, some of which I look at and I admire because they're, I don't know, there's like maybe ahead of where I'm at, or I don't know, I can tell that there's certain people I would put on a pedestal. You know, like, ooh, this person's really cool. It's really cool that I've met this person. Or I could tell that my ego in a way is like, and there was a part of me when I went to this dinner party, I could tell that there was a part of me when I went that really wanted to be liked, that really wanted to also be considered like at the same level and to have like, I wanted to really connect with certain people there because if I did connect with them, then that would mean to me that I'm enough. That I'm good enough. And I think I've also kind of had a chip on my shoulder for a long time when it comes to creating content, being on YouTube, because I've been like that YouTuber and a lot of people don't understand the YouTube niche. So it's like a chip on my shoulder. I remember there's like places I've been to before that are like life transformation places where I've been and I brought like, you know, out of the 100 people there, I brought like, 70% of them sent like certain places like $300,000 worth of business. And I go and I'm like, okay, I'd like to do a talk or something. And I'm told that, you know, yeah, you know, we're looking for someone more like Joe Dispenza to talk at this like little life, you know, life transformation place. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like I've got 70 of the 90 people here are here from my audience. They're kind of expecting, me to talk or something. It was just an interesting thing where it reflected back to me like a level of inadequacy or I was looking for authority. I was looking for someone else to tell me I was good enough in a way. And it was an interesting dynamic. So it was like, oh, they don't understand. Like it was, I could just tell I've had a chip on my shoulder sometimes with like proving myself. And a lot of this also ties back to dad stuff. Wanting my dad to be proud of me, wanting my family to understand what I do, or, you know, and I think my dad is proud of me, but I think I've seeked to prove people wrong for a while, and I've seeked people's validation, and I've seeked having a big YouTube channel and having many people like me, because if so, then I finally am enough. I finally would know that I've made it or I am worthy. I'm lovable. And it's this interesting thing. So I'm at this party and I would talk to certain people and I could see and feel in my energy. Now also, I've gotta give myself a little bit of the benefit of the doubt because going to this place, I got off a flight, my flight was delayed, I got off, I went home, changed for a minute, and then went to this dinner party. So I didn't have a lot of energy. I was also starving. I thought we were gonna eat a little bit earlier than we did, so I was like really hungry. But I could tell that my energy was like, I could feel myself losing my frame talking to certain people because I was like wanting them to view me and I was wanting their validation. I was wanting, and I could tell that it was making me come off awkward in certain situations versus just, you know, and I also was thinking like, oh, I have to mingle with other, I thought there was gonna be like 10 people there. It turns out there's gonna be 30 people there. So there's a lot of people to talk to. And I could tell that in my own energy, I was like feeling like I had to go talk to so many different people and I had to mingle and I had to get to know people. And I'm like, Why do I feel like I have to do that? I don't have to. What if I were just to chill and like relax and do what I wanted to do? It's a very interesting dynamic that I could see. But after this experience, I was then talking to my shadow work coach and like talking about how I could feel myself kind of losing my own frame, going into almost being a yes man when I was around certain people. Yeah, haha. Because I'm like, what part of me is afraid of rejection? Or what part of me you know, wants people to think I'm a nice person. And that was one thing I realized, by the way. There's a part of me that doesn't want people to think, there's a part of me that wants to control how people think of me. And I want people to think that I'm nice or that I'm good. It's like, why is that? Like, I think there's a part of me that from childhood went through a lot of tension from 7 to 15 years old with the whole ex-stepmom thing. So I was afraid of, I'm afraid of tension, even though sometimes tension intention, whether that's saying what I actually think or just being authentic, is actually more really me. Sometimes that means being more polarizing. So when I was becoming aware of this, I realized that a lot of this was me leaving my own frame, me in a way leaving my own body, feeling other people's energy, and then looking for something that's outside of myself. But here's what I realized, and here's like the epiphany I wanna share with all of you. When we are searching for validation from other people, what we are really searching for is a sense of value, validation and value. And the value's in the word validation. We are searching for and looking for other people to tell us that we are valuable, that we are worthy. So by me going around this party or we're talking to people and looking for validation. I'm looking for people to look at me and to see value because I didn't feel it within myself. And how funny is it when you do that, people don't give it to you because it is a form of manipulation. Give me value, give me this sense of approval. So the key to this is realizing that what is happening is we're searching for the value on the outside of us instead of valuing ourselves. Now, here's the funny thing too. We automatically in our lives give other people the authority to give us value. Think about that. We are deeming people and we are knighted. It's like we're finding people and we're knighting them. We're like, you are deemed the knight to tell me whether I am worthy or not. I now knight you, I salute you, and you can go about your business and "Let me ask you, am I worthy? Am I worthy?" We knight people and tell them, "You are the worthy." You can deem people as worthy or unworthy. We give away authority. We are looking to authority to tell us who we are. It's funny, right now I'm going through this process as well of being verified on Instagram. It's a long process because it has to do with press article, has to do with all this stuff that I have to do in order to get it. To get verified, to legitimately get verified on Instagram. Not like some, you know, like to actually go through this long process. However, it's funny that I'm going through that because I'm looking for authority to tell me that I'm worthy and good enough. The real reason I'm also doing that is because there's so many people on Instagram that are pretending to be me that are scamming my followers into thinking that they are me. 'Cause what they, and what basically what they're doing is getting people to Zelle them for intuitive psychic readings, which I would never do, by the way. I've never done that at all. but people are getting scammed. So I'm like, oh, in order to get these accounts taken down, 'cause Instagram doesn't do it easily, I get verified and then the accounts get taken down really quickly. So it's another reason I'm doing it. But anyways, it's like I'm searching for authority. I'm searching to be told I'm good enough and deeming authority as able to tell me. So there's certain people that are maybe in, that do what I do and I look to them, I'm like, wow, you live a cool lifestyle. You're at the next level. And because of that, you can deem me as worthy or unworthy. I'm gonna let you decide. Now, why is that though? Could it be because when we're kids, we are looking to authority, we are looking to mom and dad to tell us whether we are good enough, to tell us and to give us the sense of validation that maybe we never really got, so now we look for it in other ways. So we're searching for value. Now, this comes down to the childhood parenting style. And a lot of times what happens is, what it is, is when our parents are showing us that receiving love is an exchange of, it's an exchange of value, it's an exchange of energy, that's when nice guys and people pleasers are born. I will give this to you and you will give me that. I'm going to be nice to you. I'm not gonna rustle the feathers too much. I'm gonna be inauthentic. And then in exchange, you're gonna give me that value. You're gonna give me the validation. That's when you stop loving yourself and seeing the self-value within yourself for being who you are. And you start tying it to who you are to other people, what you're doing for them, overextending yourself. Have you ever found yourself overexplaining yourself to other people? Why do you feel like you need to overexplain yourself to other people? Because you think that they have the authority. You think that they can deem you as valuable, as worthy, or give you that sense of validation. So the key to this is becoming aware that love has been tied to what you are doing. And this is really about getting to the core of the belief system, the belief system. When you get to the core of your belief system, that's when everything can change. You have to become aware of these beliefs though. And normally for many of you, it'll be between 6 to 9 years old that you developed, or maybe even earlier, this belief system that says that I am worthy only if I do XYZ, get the validation, get authority. So my shadow work integration coach asked me, he said, what is authority? What is authority? I'm gonna ask you this. What is authority? Authority, what does that mean to you? I said, well, you know, it means permission. That was interesting 'cause originally I said it means permission in the sense that like, I was saying like it's a permission slip to give myself my own sense of authority is what I meant. But when I said the word permission, I thought about it hours later. What if permission is looking to authority to give me permission that I am enough? Because I had an ex-stepmom that was very controlling, abusive, narcissistic. From 7 to 15, she was in my life and we were, my brother and I had to tune to her to see how is her emotions today? How is she feeling? And if we did something wrong, then we'd get in trouble. We had to really tune to it. And then even afterwards, it's like still tuning to the environment after my dad divorced her and everything. But it's interesting how that pattern kept going 'cause I've had a pattern of that in my life where I had to become aware of it and had to shed it. So it's a belief system. Now, the things that the 6 to 9 years old, when these things happen, we eventually decide that there's something wrong with me, which then brings in shame. I'm broken, I'm unlovable, I'm not worthy. And what we have to do is we have to look at these beliefs and we have to start valuing ourselves. This is the key to not seeking validation. This is the key to not people pleasing. We have to start valuing ourselves and to value ourselves many times, what that means is that we give ourself also the equal authority or more authority even than looking to other people to give us our sense of validation or value. We start valuing ourselves. We see the beauty and the value in who we are. Now, what are our rules that we have that says, I know I'm valuable when? A long time, I thought I was valuable when I'm making great YouTube videos that help people. Well, guess what? If I'm not making videos during the week, then I'm not valuable. I'm tying it to what I'm doing. Every fucking Disney movie you watch, guess what? You are worthy when you accomplish and you slay the dragons, then you're good enough. Get the approval and the validation of the woman that you're trying to be around, and guess what? Then you're worthy. The mainstream advice for this is like, earn it, instead of realizing you are valuable for being you. You came here on this planet during this time of transformation on the planet to be a part of this shift in consciousness. Creation does not make mistakes. We've got trees, we've got birds, we've got fucking bees. You know, without the bees on this planet, everything would fucking collapse because they wouldn't be cross-pollinating shit and stuff like that. Everything here has a purpose. The bees have a purpose. Universe, God, Source energy does not make mistakes and they did not, it did not make a mistake with you. You are here for a purpose. You have a reason for being here and you are worthy simply because you exist. That's it. You exist, you're worthy and you will never not exist. You may change your form, you may change the way you're here, but you, this is something I learned from Bashar, this like a little thing I'm saying right now, but you are worthy for just simply being you. You. That's it. When you start to realize your own sense of value, that's when things change. I know for a long time I was seeking validation in the woman I was dating. Whoever I was dating, I was seeking their validation. I was trying to fix them, help them, went through patterns with that. And then you wanna know when everything changed? I started valuing myself. I started realizing my own sense of self-worth, not in an egotistical way like, I am the best, I am this, but I started realizing, oh, I am worthy. I let go of the shame really. That I had from when I was a kid, where I thought that, you realize your parents and their parenting style, they were doing the best they could with where they are, but realize that their emotional stuff wasn't your problem to deal with. Didn't mean you weren't worthy. If you simply let go and realize that was their shit, not yours, then what you can do is you could start to realize you are worthy. When you let go of the shame and the belief that you are broken, and you let that go, you'll naturally start to feel whole. This is more about letting go than wiring in. But the biggest game changer I've made is I realize now that you seek value on the outside, you'll never really find it because you're trying to seek something that only you can give you. But my question to you is, who is the authority in your life? Can you give yourself your own sense of authority? For many of you that are people pleasers, nice guys or nice girls or whatever, you know, the different terminology are, You're putting other people on a pedestal and you're thinking that their authority precedes yours. Instead, realize you have the authority to give yourself validation, to give yourself value, to recognize your own value. And the key for this is really being in your own frame. What Doug was telling me is like, you're going through the process of manhood and you're actually going through it way earlier than most people do. You know, he studies Carl Jungian psychology and he says that normally in like the forties, when you're in your forties and fifties is when you go through the phase that I'm going through right now in my life, which is where I'm becoming very clear about who I am, who I am not, but also being in my own frame. That's true masculine energy. I know who I am. And then what happens is, and you're very humble, that's another very important part of it. You've got a lot of humility. You know who you are and other people can't shake your energy. Because you're rooted in it. And by me realizing that I don't need, you know, this validation, this approval from other people, I don't need to be like everybody else, it's like strengthening my own frame. So in case you haven't seen as well, there is the 3 most powerful meditations that I have that will completely transform your life and help you shift your identity through this. If you go to aarondoughty.com/free, F-R-E-E, so aarondoughty.com/free, 3 meditations that will help you to shift your identity, to feel worthy, whole, and complete. There's an inner child meditation in there as well for healing that 6 to 9-year-old inside of you. Listen to those meditations, any of them. Some of them have been listened to millions of times, literally, but you can listen to them, download them, whatever you want if you go to aarondoughty.com/free. And those will help you with this process. Listen to the inner child meditation, which is one of the 3 meditations, and watch how your life begins to change because What this is when we're seeking validation and we're seeking approval from other people is there's an inner child inside of us that is seeking our needs to be met. And we are looking to authority from other people to tell us that we're valuable, worthy, whole, and complete. When you start in healing and giving that love and nurturing that 6 to 9-year-old inside of you, that inner child, that's when your life will really begin to change. It's an inner job. All the outer reality is on the outside is a reflection of the inner reality. And when you change, you become aware of the belief systems and you let them go, your whole entire life will transform. You will naturally just feel worthy. I naturally am just reminding myself of who I am. And when I go into these different situations, I know I will be in my frame, I'll be in my own body, I will be leading in my life, and I will not be seeking something that's outside of myself. Like the frame technique, feel inside your hands and your feet, go into public, watch how people respond to you when you're feeling separation. Between you and other people instead of focusing on the connection and feeling and empath, it changes everything. What childhood experience that you had growing up may have led to you developing a belief that you're broken and how you can start to be in your own frame. If you wanna learn the 5 secrets to letting go that will make you attractive AF, that's this video right here. Highly recommend that you watch it 'cause it'll help you with what you learned in this video. The less attached you are the more attractive you are. People are attracted to somebody that is in their own frame and doesn't