Understanding the Need for Validation and Control with Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life? Today we're going to be talking about two sort of related concepts that validation or our need for validation and control. So let's start with validation. What is this? Validation is when we get the message that we're okay. We need validation to feel good about ourselves, but we don't necessarily need validation from every person. And that's one of the places that a lot of us make mistakes, is that we want to be loved and approved of by everybody all the time. We, well, get over it. It ain't going to happen. You're not even going to approve of yourself all the time. But one of the steps or one of the things that you can do in order to ensure that you're getting the validation that you need is to a make sure that you self validate. You look at yourself and you say, I'm okay, I'm a good person, I make mistakes. I'm not perfect, but I'm a good person. And also surround yourself with significant others who, who validate you. They may not say it. And remember, when we talk about love languages, you know, sometimes people communicate their validation and caring not necessarily by words, but by acts of service or by giving gifts or spending quality time with you. If they want to spend time with you, that's validating. It means they enjoy being around you. So we do need to be a little bit more open to the concept of validation. We also need to know how we experience how we prefer to experience validation. Because even though people are not necessarily by their nature going to communicate that way, we can nudge them in that direction. We can let them know how we experience love, what our love languages are, and that will help them be able to more effectively validate us. So for me, for example, when one of my top love languages is acts of service, so when people do nice things, when my kids, I come home and they've done an extra good job cleaning the house, I'm just like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. That is very validating to me. It validates that they respect me and they care about me as a person. I'm not big on gifts, you know, that's not one of those things. So you need to know how you experience validation and be able to communicate that to others so they can communicate to you in your love language. Otherwise, if you're speaking two different languages, you're probably going to have an impasse. We also need to look at from whom we need validation and why. And this is a big question. We need validation from other people. It's true. We need to feel like we're loved and we're accepted by people, but not everybody. So I want you to think about who in your life you need validation from. Is it your kids? Is it your significant other? Is it your parents? Who is it and why? What would happen, just hypothetically, what would happen if one of those people that you need validation from didn't give it to you? Does it make you less of a person? Does it make you less okay as a person? Sometimes. I'll take parents, for example. Sometimes parents aren't going to agree with the decisions their kids make, and they're not going to validate those decisions. But we want to separate, number one, we want to separate them not validating decisions from not validating us. You know, if I make a decision that my parents didn't agree with or when I did, you know, they were very clear. They didn't agree with that decision, but they loved me and they supported me anyway, which was validating. They, you know, may not agree with the choice I was making. They may think it was downright a mistake, but they loved me and supported me anyway. So you want to separate validation of actions from validation of person, for one. And number two, remember that not everybody is going to be able to, for one reason or another, validate you all the time. So you need to be able to validate yourself if they don't agree with it or if they're not providing the attention and quality time and validation that you need. All right, where can you get it from? You know, so don't put all your eggs in one basket. Rely on other people. Know that you've got other friends that are there to support you, even if one friend is kind of flaking out right now. Do we need validation from our higher power? And if you're a spiritual person, you may. You may want to believe that your higher power approves of you. So again, that's a relationship that nobody else is taking part in. So you need to be able to have a good communication with that higher power or a feeling in your head, heart, and gut that says, I am doing right by my higher power and I'm making my higher power proud of me. If that is a validation that you need. And we do need validation from ourselves in order to get love, respect, validation from other people, we have to be able to love, respect, and validate ourselves. So you need to look in the mirror and Go, I'm a good person. Practice that when you start criticizing yourself. And a lot of us get caught up with these self deprecating comments about, you know, I'm stupid, I'm not good at that, I'm whatever, knock that off. You know, that's maybe you made a mistake, that's okay. But you're still a good person and be able to appreciate yourself for who you are, then you're not going to need other people to always validate you because if they're not able to do it because they're caught up with their own stuff or they just are mad at you for some reason or whatever, that's okay, you know, that's their right. You don't have to have them to tell you that it's okay that you breathe the air. You need to be able to validate yourself. So what does validation look like? We keep talking about this word, but what is it? You can have your feelings validated. And for a lot of us who are feelers, if you go to the Myers Briggs, we need to have, when we feel upset or something, we need to have our feelings validated. We need to have somebody say, I can see that you're really angry or I can see that you're really scared. They may not agree, they don't have to feel the same. But if they're identifying how we feel and they're going, I gotcha, I'm sensing that you feel this way, that can be enough. Now do they have to agree with our feelings? If we say yes, then we're going to set ourselves up for a world of hurt because we can't control how other people feel. We need to accept that we feel how we feel based on our experiences. My experiences are very different than my friend's experiences. So where something might stress me out, you know, it may not stress her out. And there are some things that stress her out that don't bother me a bit. And you know, I understand, for example, she is terrified of paper wasps. And I love the little buggers. They're, they're great beneficial insects. They're really docile. But I can understand her fear of them. And so, you know, I validate the fact that she's afraid of them. And you know, I respect that. I don't say, oh, well, you know, pooh, just get over it. It's not that easy. You know, I wish she could and see how cute they were, but that's not how she's wired. So I recognize that is a part of her and I validate that. We want to validate people's thoughts and they're going to have different opinions. My son has different opinions about things than I do and you know, I have different opinions than my mother and etc. And that's okay. We want to validate their thoughts as their thoughts are valid. Your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings are valid for you. They may not be valid for me, but they are valid for you and I respect you as a person. And we need to have our being validated. We need to be validated that we are lovable good people and that is independent of what we do and our feelings and our thoughts. It's who we are. We are good people that make mistakes that are fallible. That, yeah, yada yada yada. But we need to believe that we are lovable and we need to feel, experience that other people believe that we are lovable. And again, it doesn't necessarily come from the people that every person that we want it to. Not everybody is going to validate your being and that's a lot, a lot of times that has more to do with their stuff than your stuff. But if you let it destroy your self esteem and your confidence and your mood and your energy, then you're giving them power. Validate yourself, Say, you know what, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me and move on and recognize all the other people in your life that validate who you are. That person is just missing the boat and in tough diddly winks for them. So what are some reasons we may not get validation from other people? Well, they may not agree or feel the same and they may be unwilling or unable to take our point of view. Some people have huge control issues. It's either their way or the highway. Now remember I keep saying, if they can't validate you, it's probably more about them than about you. Well, this is a perfect example. If they are unwilling to respect your point of view or your feelings, that's more about them. If they're too immersed in their own stuff to be able to begin to understand your point of view, whether it's, you know, whatever drama they've got going on in their life and they just don't have the emotional energy to pay attention to what's going on to you or to listen or to be there for you. It doesn't mean it's about you, it means it's. Their stuff is getting in the way. So always take a step back and ask yourself, is there Some other reason besides me, besides me being unvalidatable, that this person may be acting this way. And 99% of the time you're going to come up with a great big yes. Now why might we not get validation from ourselves? Well, it's really hard to validate ourselves if we base our entire worth on what other people say, do and think about us. So if I feel like I'm a worthwhile person as long as so and so likes me and as long as I'm in a relationship and as long as this and that and the other, all of those things are involve other people and I can't control other people. So if those other people are caught in their own stuff, which a lot of us are these days, then I may be out there kind of like flapping like a fish out of water. If I can validate myself, then I can catch my breath. We can't validate ourselves if we don't appreciate ourselves. And you know that whole self love thing, people kind of laugh at it and they're like, oh, that's so hokey. But really you need to realize and call it whatever you want, self respect, self love, self honesty. You need to look inside and go, I, I'm a good person because, and one of the ways that I have clients do this sometimes is go online and find a list of values. And if you put in like the top 100 values or something, you can get all kinds of values lists and it'll say things like honesty and integrity and compassion and yada yada yada. And go through that list and highlight all of the values that represent you and then go back over that list and highlight the top five that really characterize who you are. That you know, if you were, heaven forbid you were to die today, they would put on your epitaph, she was caring, compassionate, loyal. You know, I sound like a dog at this point, but you want to identify those things. That way you can recognize them in yourself and go what? And say to yourself, you know what, I'm pretty awesome. I'd like to be my friend. Because that's what validation is. It's being your own best friend. And you may not validate yourself if you were taught that you are only lovable if somebody else says you are. And again, that goes back to relying on other people to get their head out of their own stuff. Focus on us. That's pretty self centered, isn't it? So we've got to realize they've got other stuff going on. They've got their life they may not agree with us, whatever. They've got their stuff and we've got our stuff. We all have stuff. But we need to be able to look at ourselves, independent of our stuff and say, I'm lovable, I'm a good person. So I encourage you to start working on that today. Identify five characteristics, five values, whatever you want to call them, that make you a really awesome friend, person, whatever, and focus on those for the next week to realize how cool you are. Alright, so once you start being able to validate yourself, it's a little bit easier to let go of control. Because if you're not having to ensure that everybody else tells you you're okay, then you can let things flow a little bit. You can go, you know what, I'm good. Things may not go the way I planned, but I'm good. So when we come down to relationships and validation and everything, we need to recognize that letting go and forgiveness can be very scary. And if we rely on that other person to validate us, then letting go can be terrifying because if I let go of that person who validates me, then who's going to do it? Maybe I'll cease to be. So we want to be able to recognize that it's important to be able to validate ourselves so that if somebody leaves our life, we don't feel like we're going to disappear. Forgiveness can be scary because it means letting go of anger, it means letting go of hostility, it doesn't mean forgetting. And forgiveness is really a power play. Letting go means choosing not to waste your energy fighting against something you can't control or is not worth your energy. So again, going back to a bad relationship. For example, if you're in a bad relationship and that person is not validating you, that person is not making you feel like your uber self. They're dragging you down in some way, shape or form and it's just, it's oil and water. It may not be the best relationship to stay in, but letting go is hard, number one, because you know what to expect with that person and you don't know when you're going to find somebody else and dating's a hassle and all that, but letting go is a choice you make in order to be true to yourself. Inside your own head, your brain and your heart are telling you this is a bad thing. This is not where you need to be. This is not a good situation for you. When you validate yourself and you say, you're right, this is not a good situation for me, I need to get out. Oh, my gosh, how liberating is that? But then that means you've got to let go. That means you've got to let that person go to the curb and be okay with that and choose not to waste your energy fighting against, you know, trying to change them, not waste your energy trying to make them into something they're not. We cannot change other people. We can help them see things. We can suggest that we would like to see some changes, but unless they want to make those changes, they ain't going to make them. We can't change other people. So when we let go, we're saying, you know what? I'm done. I tried as hard as I can, and it's time for me to move on. Because if I validate my own thoughts and my own feelings, I know that the right move for me is to move on. Forgiveness means letting go of the hurt and resentment that's draining your energy so you can move forward to what's important to you. Forgiveness is for you, not them. So if you're in a relationship that's not meeting your needs and you know, you're frustrated with that person because you feel like they're just. They're not trying. You feel like they're undermining you, you feel like they're not validating you, whatever it is, you know, you can get really frustrated at, you're not doing this. You're not doing this. Okay, they're not. What are you doing? What do you need to do? Forgiveness is accepting that they either made a mistake or they did something that was unacceptable and, you know, you identified it, or they're not willing to change and you need to be willing to forgive them because that unleashes that energy. If you stay angry at them for not changing, then when you get into your next relationship, you're still carrying that baggage with you, and you're probably still back in the back of your mind looking for this next person to do the same thing and the next person after that. So forgive that person. Say, you know what you had. You were too stuck in your own stuff. I'm not going to forget. I'm not going to go back there, but I'm going to forgive you because it's not worth me staying angry over what you did or didn't do for me, and I'm going to move forward. So letting go and forgiveness are things that we generally can only do when we start validating ourselves. So can you get validation and have control at the same time? Well, not everybody's going to validate you. It's not their job to make you feel okay. Your job is to make you feel okay. But there's generally, you generally will always have some people that you will that will validate you. You know, whether it's your parents or your best friend or whomever, you're generally going to have someone that will validate you. If you get hung up on why a particular person won't validate you, ask yourself, why do I care? You know, if this particular person is just not getting with your, your program, why are you beating your head against a wall for that? Why do you keep going after something that is clearly not going to resolve the way you want? A lot of times this is because you're trying to relive something from the past and you're trying to get it right this time. So if you've been in a bad relationship and you get into another relationship that's similar, you may be trying to make this one work out correctly. A lot of times people will redo things subconsciously trying to succeed, trying to fix it this time. Another question you can ask yourself is, why am I trying to control this person? Why is it worth my energy to try to convince them to do all the things that I want the way I want? Why? Why do I need to do that? There are millions of other people out there. What is it about this person? And what parts of this situation do I have control over? Because maybe the person's not doing what you wanted them to do because you haven't clearly communicated all right, well, that you have control over. Maybe the person isn't doing what you want them to do because they don't want to. Well, you don't have control over that. So then you can. The part you have control over is whether you choose to stay in that relationship and stay in that situation, if it is not growth producing, if it is hurting you instead of enhancing you. When you're in relationships, when things happen and you're feeling like you need validation and people aren't doing what you want, it can be a really icky place to be. So practice psychological flexibility. Identify to yourself that you're feeling empty, you're feeling unloved, you're feeling however you're feeling. And then ask yourself, what things can I do, starting right now, to improve the next moment? What would make me happy? You know, what things can I do? What do I have control over? Can you get enough sleep? Can you go out and exercise? Can you hang out with some different friends? You know, what Is it that you can do to improve your next moment instead of staying stuck spinning your wheels? It's like a car that gets stuck in the mud and you're just spinning your wheels and throwing mud and digging deeper into it. If you try to fight this other situation, try to fight and get somebody to do something that they are just not going to do and develop hardiness, commitment, control and challenge. And we're going to focus mainly on commitment. Remember every single morning when you wake up and every night before you go to bed, kind of do an inventory of all the awesome things in your life. What is going for you? What good things do you have in your life? Yeah, you are going to have some things that are not going the best. Nobody has a perfect life all the time. That is okay. But too often we get stuck focusing on those things that aren't going the best. And then we start feeling unlovable and unsuccessful and un. Un. Everything. So it's important to remember all of the things that you've got going for you, the friends that you have, the things that are going right in your life and that will help you keep moving forward. And remember, you know, commitment. Be committed to those values that make you such a lovable, awesome person. Because if you're exuding awesomeness, other people are going to gravitate towards you. If you are kind and compassionate and caring and intelligent and you know, whatever the things are that make you who you are, other people who value those qualities are going to gravitate towards you. So it's just a matter of taking a breath and living authentically. Other things that you can do with psychological flexibility, you can unhook from your thoughts. So you know, ending relationships and not going back can be really challenging, especially if you have low self esteem or codependency. You know, there are a lot of reasons. So one of the things to do when you get out of a relationship and you know you're tempted to try to go back and make up, you're tempted to minimize what was going on and get back into the relationship. A lot of times your brain is saying, I can't live without that person. And you may feel in your heart like a part of it's being ripped out and it kind of is and you feel like you can't take it. Well, unhooking from your thoughts is a way of separating from that. And instead of saying I can't take it, say I'm having the thought that I can't take it. I'm having the thought. Thought that I'M going to be alone forever and then work through it. Because thoughts come and go. You know, let that thought go or replace it with another, more accurate thought. Identify who and what is truly important in your life and acknowledge your feelings, thoughts, urges, and behaviors in the present. So if you're feeling lonely and isolated and defeated, that's okay. Acknowledge it. Instead of fighting with it or ignoring it, acknowledge it. And then say, what can I do to improve the next moment? You can make two lists. The first list is things that I do or think that help me move toward the important things in my life. And review this list every day because these are things that you want to do to keep moving forward. And the other list is things that I do or think that keep me stuck, drain my forward energy, or move me away from what is important. And, you know, dwelling on things, chasing after old loves. You know, there's a lot of things we do that waste our energy that could be used to move towards our goals. So you have those two lists. Review the positive list every day. That'll help you remember what you need to do to keep moving toward the important things, like take care of your health. You know, if you want to be there for your kids because they're important, well, one of those ways to do that is to take care of your health so you live a long life and finally make a choice. Remember that when you feel a certain way, you have control over how to use your energy. So you can either, you know, spend the energy running after that person, pleading with them to change and to take you back, back and to do all these things and probably not get anywhere and be back in the same place in a month. Or you can choose to do something different and live more authentically, moving towards other people and things that are important in your life. And acknowledge that that one, while it had its benefits, also had a lot of drawbacks. And for your own health, sanity, and happiness, you need to let it go. So, steps towards self validation. Here are some exercises you can do. Identify the values and characteristics about yourself that make you awesome. We talked about that one. Make a Bill of Rights. And each item starts with I deserve to. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to take a break, I deserve to whatever. Keep that Bill of Rights going. Try to make 20 items that's gonna make you really think by the time you get past 10, you really start having to think about, you know, what exactly do I deserve? And if you can't think of all of them, you know, think about your kids, for example, and think about, you know, what do they deserve? What do your kids deserve? They deserve to be happy, they deserve to be healthy. They deserve to not be scared. You know what else? Follow your Bill of Rights. Once you write it, you got to follow it. So remind yourself, when you start doing things, am I adhering to my own Bill of Rights? Identify the people in your past from whom you craved validation and never got it, and explore why that may have been more about them than about you. So if you wanted validation from one of your parents and you just could never seem to please that parent, okay, you know, now that you're older and wiser and everything else, let's look back and see if that was more about them and their frustrations or their stuff than it was about you. Or maybe they actually did approve of you, but they didn't know how to communicate it, so you didn't feel feel validated even though they approved of you. Identify why you crave validation. Do you want to know that you're important? And a lot of times if you're not able to self validate, then you need others to tell you you're okay and you're important. If you can validate yourself, then you don't crave validation from others. Make a list of people you know who fit the label that like the person that you want to be, who is it that is important, relevant, and lovable in your life and identify how you're like those people. So if you have a hard time identifying what's awesome about you, look around at your friends and the people that you value and identify what's awesome about them and then go, you know, do I have that quality? And a lot of times you're going to find that, yeah, you do have that quality or something similar. So we've gone over, you know, kind of a broad spectrum and we're talking a lot about validation because the need for validation from other people is one of the reasons that many people stay in unhealthy relationships. So we talked about why we may need validation, how we can get validation, how we can validate ourselves. And then we talk a little bit about letting go of control and admitting that sometimes somebody else just can't or won't validate us. But a lot of times that's because of their stuff and we can't fix that. They have to be willing to fix that. So we've got to be able to let go of control, forgive them for not being willing to play by our playbook and move on. And then we ended with exploring some psychological flexibility activities that we can do in order to learn about and keep present in our mind how awesome we are and why we deserve love and respect. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Join our facebook group@docsnipes.com Facebook or join our community and access additional resources at docsnipes. Com.