Stop Seeking Validation From Others And Belittling Your Shine

I used to be that girl that always had to have someone by her side.

Maybe it was the feeling of elation they gave me, or maybe it was their company — the way they splurged on me, held me in their highest esteem, showed me off to their friends and family. Perhaps it was the feeling of being part of something bigger than I was… perhaps it was the constant reassurance.

Reassurance of what?

Reassurance of completeness, of feeling like I wasn’t lonely when they were around? Reassurance that I was beautiful, capable, and worthy of all the wonderful things in the world? Wow.

I, we, never loved these people.

Okay, so we might have. We might have cared for them deeply and yes, we might have went through hell for these people. We loved them to the moon and back, so fiercely that we didn’t leave a drop of love for ourselves, not even an ounce of self-awareness. We loved them because we felt powerful, affectionate, and supernatural while loving them. But what we didn’t do was love these people the right way. What we felt wasn’t a right kind of love. In fact, it wasn’t love at all.

We needed them more than they needed us.

We grow jealous, we try to control. We worry incessantly about their feelings for us. Our partners can confess their love over and over again until they are blue in the face and still, we do not believe them. But why?

Because you are trying to fill a void with another human being.

Needing someone to tell you that you are beautiful all the time means you think you are ugly. Needing someone to tell you that you are strong and capable means you believe you are weak and incompetent. Needing someone to tell you that you are purposeful, whole and perfect as you are means you view yourself as everything but. The only thing you need to do is figure out why you need to hear all of this from others to believe. You might love the person in front of you, but what you really love is how they make you feel about yourself.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

Stop dating people because you dislike yourself and need someone to hold your hand through your shit. Insecurities spoil love. All that self-doubt, self-hate, and agonizingly painful baggage we bring into a relationship just ruins the beauty and purity of love. Love is an understanding— transformational. Validation from other people? That’s not love. Before you can receive and give away the power of this glorious manifestation, you need to love yourself. You need to stop fishing for compliments, stop stringing people along, and stop settling for crappy partners because you think you’re not worthy of better.

I used to be that girl, that girl that needed a partner. Yuck! I was needy, I was clingy, and most of all, I was lonely. That loneliness and feeling of insufficiency is deeply rooted. Your problems probably are, too. Passing your problems to another person just fucks up the flow of a healthy relationship. Actually facing your problems and working to be a better person?

Now that is truly worthy of something.