The speaker contrasts chasing validation with seeking genuine connection. Validation feels protective but leaves you empty once you see through it. That painful awareness can strip away your defenses and open you to real intimacy.
In looking at our need to be validated and putting that in front of our need to be loved and make connections, I really see myself doing that. And then I choose to put myself in positions where I want to be liked by others and accepted by others. And that showing vulnerability and really exposing my true colors puts me in a position where I could be disliked or rejected. And it's a form of protection. How do we go from that need to be liked and validated to really just allowing ourselves to be present and connect with the person that we're talking to and put that aside? Well, the first thing is to deepen our awareness that that's what we're doing. Because even though on a superficial level we're aware of that, we're hardwired for perhaps decades to seek this validation. And so the awareness isn't very powerful yet. For most of us, we, when we realize, oh my God, I've been a helper my whole life and I haven't been somebody that's asked for what I need. And I've been someone who's wanted validation my whole life, and that's been mostly as good as it gets. Rather than actually feeling nurtured or connected to. When that awareness deepens, that validation starts to feel emptier, it starts to feel less satisfying. It's really an organic process where we lose the motivation to come up with the excessive help or energy because we start to suffer. And the validation doesn't give us that feeling of inflation. It doesn't give us a sense of well being. We actually start to become aware of feelings of resentment or emptiness or disconnection or alienation or isolation or preferring to be alone, not wanting to go to the party. And those are good feelings because they are helping us become aware of what our needs are, our deeper needs for connection and for love and for intimacy and for presence. And so it really is an organic process where validation, which in essence is a substitute for real love, it's a substitute for real connection that as that starts to fall apart, it's something to rejoice. It might feel like a death, but it's only an ego death. It's a death to how we tried to build ourselves up. But it's a possible source of life and aliveness and love for our hearts. And so it's something to really continue to sensitize ourselves to and to become more and more aware of.
