#483: How To Stop Seeking Approval From Others

If you’ve ever caught yourself wondering, “Am I good enough? Lovable enough? Worthy enough?”... this episode is for you.

Today, I’m diving into the powerful difference between external and internal validation, and how learning to validate yourself is the key to breaking free from codependency, people-pleasing, and enmeshment.

When we rely on others to tell us who we are, we lose touch with our true selves. But when we start building that validation from within, everything changes: our confidence, our sense of worth, and the way we move through the world.

Transcript

Hello,

Hello everyone.

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show.

So today's show turned out to be really great.

I was talking with actually someone on my team,

And we happen to be on video,

And she was asking me a question around external validation versus internal validation.

We were discussing some things we're going to do this month around codependency.

And what do you know?

It turned into a podcast.

It was so good.

I'm like,

This is such good stuff,

And we have it on recording.

So let's run it.

So today is all about internal versus external validation.

And I got to tell you,

I wove into this show enmeshment,

Codependency,

And what internal and external validation does for us.

And let me tell you what.

It boosts your self-esteem,

Self-worth,

Self-value.

I get into it.

I get into it.

So I cannot wait to hear what you think about this show.

It's really,

Really powerful.

And I know so many of you listening will be able to relate to this.

If you're human,

You're going to relate to it.

I don't know of a human that would listen to this show that would not be able to relate to this.

So here we go with external versus internal validation and codependency and enmeshment and so much more.

So enjoy the show,

You guys.

I want to talk about external validation,

Especially when we think about codependency and enmeshment,

When we are so,

We don't even know who we are because we're so merged in with other people,

You know,

Enmeshment,

Codependency,

People,

And people pleasers,

And so many of us.

And I hate labels.

I truly cannot stand labels,

But so many people relate to them.

So I'm going to just say them right now quickly.

But we seek validation out there.

Can you tell me I'm good enough?

Can you tell me I'm lovable?

Can you tell me I'm worthy?

Can you tell me?

And if you don't tell me,

Then I don't know who I am.

And that happens when we're raised with someone that didn't validate us really well when we were growing up.

You know,

As little kids,

We come into the world and I need my parents out there to validate and reflect back to me who I am.

And then I feel self-assured and I have higher self-esteem and I'm worthy and all these things.

But so many of our parents didn't,

They don't know how to do that.

And that's okay.

Like who taught them,

Right?

Like we all need the adult chair book,

Honestly,

When we're like in middle school,

So that we can learn how to do this so we can do it and create healthy humans.

But we don't know.

We don't know how to do it.

So many of us.

So what we want to learn how to do when we grow up without that validation from others,

And then we start seeking it outside of self as we're adults.

And that's when we go into these codependent relationships and mesh with people.

It's almost like I think of codependency as an addiction.

I'm addicted to you.

I'm addicted to other.

And you become my life support.

You become my oxygen.

And without you,

That I don't know who I am.

So to separate from my oxygen is terrifying.

So it becomes an addiction to other.

I know codependency quite well.

I think my picture is in Wikipedia,

If you Google it.

However,

I worked through it for 20 years,

Thank God.

So I know it very,

Very well.

And something that you have to learn when you are working with and through your codependency is you have to learn how to have what I call a very healthy adult voice.

That's when we live in our adult chair.

It's having that really healthy adult inner voice that it becomes your biggest cheerleader that says,

Hey,

I did a great job.

I took the kids to school on time.

Hey,

I showed up to my job on time.

We celebrate the small things and then we go into bigger things.

Hey,

I made the bed.

Look how nice it looks.

Hey,

Guess what?

I made X number of dollars,

You know,

And we build.

Hey,

I really did well with my kids today.

I didn't yell or I didn't scream or I sat down and make sure they had a healthy meal.

And we just,

There's a lot of things that we can validate and become our best cheerleader over and for.

And we just continue that.

We build that muscle.

It's a muscle we do not have.

When we're codependent,

I need you to validate me.

And it's this,

It's a disease that we get stuck in.

Again,

The way we can break out of that.

One of the ways is to start cultivating this inner voice.

You know,

What would your very best friend say to you?

What would your very best loving grandmother,

Grandfather,

Aunt,

Uncle,

Say,

Parent?

What would they say to you?

You make a mistake.

What would they say to you?

When you do something great,

What would they say to you?

That's the thing.

I find that as humans,

We are very good at beating up on ourselves when we make a mistake or when we think or perceive that we did something wrong.

But we're not great at celebrating our wins,

Right?

It's kind of like when we have a comment on social media,

We'll look at,

We scan through all the positives and there's that one person that says something negative.

And then we ruminate on that one comment,

Even though there's a hundred that are like,

Oh my God,

Thank you.

That was so nice.

It's the ego always scanning for what's wrong,

Right?

But that's why we,

Even though we have an ego,

We all have egos,

It's okay,

Ego mind,

But we have to have that really strong inner conscious voice.

That's my adult voice that says,

Good job.

Good job,

Michelle.

You did really well,

Nicely done.

I gave a live talk today to this new group that invited me.

I got off and I said,

Good job.

You did really well today.

I didn't tell anybody.

I told myself.

And it's not a brag and it's certainly not narcissistic.

It's just,

That cultivates your inner worth and your inner value.

You are responsible to build up your inner self.

You can't lean on anyone out there.

It's an endless battle.

You will never,

Ever,

Ever,

Ever be able to build yourself up until you start doing it.

And if you lean on anyone else,

It's an endless game.

You'll never,

It's not going to work,

It's not going to work,

It's not going to work.

So we have to learn how to do it for ourselves and cultivating that,

Becoming your best cheerleader helps you to build up your inner value,

Your inner worth,

Codependency.

You start realizing,

Hey,

Hold on,

I don't need their opinion,

I have my own and it feels weird at first.

I speak from experience,

But man,

I got to tell you,

It's kind of,

It builds on itself.

It's like an avalanche effect in reverse.

Like,

It's not dangerous,

It actually feels good.

And then it becomes like,

Oh,

I really like,

I like myself,

I think.

This is weird.

I don't need anyone to tell me that I'm a good person.

I like myself.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Building up our inner worth and our value is really,

Really such a gift.

And unfortunately,

We're not taught how to do that in school.

You know,

We're taught all about history and science and math,

But gosh,

Wouldn't it be nice if our children learned how to build up their inner worth?

The other thing I got to tell all of you that are aging,

Are most of you aging that are listening to me right now?

I got to tell you,

That is a critical,

And I mean,

Probably one of the most important things that you need to learn how to do for yourself is internal validation when you're aging.

Because it is not a fun process if you're looking for external validation.

You've got to be internally validating yourself.

And here's what's beautiful about aging is you start realizing you're not what's on the outside.

It's not about how you dress,

What your face looks like,

What your skin looks like,

What your weight is.

True internal compassion and validation is what's going to build that self-worth and self-value.

And when you're aging,

And we're all aging,

My friends,

It will help you navigate that dance,

That process so much easier.

Really,

I speak from experience on that one too.

It is not an easy dance that we have to go through and an easy process,

But it's easier when we internally validate.

And I find that the internal validation goes from,

Like as kids,

And you see all these kids on social media and Snapchat and Instagram and all the things they're doing now.

And it's all about like,

Let me take about 300 pictures of myself,

They do all that thing.

It's like,

No.

That's great.

But let me tell you what,

If you're so concerned about only your looks,

You're going to have an issue with aging.

Yeah,

You got to really learn how to validate yourself for who you are as a human.

I claim,

And one of the ways we do that is to claim our incredible selves.

And it's uncomfortable because we're not taught how to do this.

We're not.

We're validated for our intelligence.

That's awesome.

We're validated for the outfit,

The shoes,

The purse,

The hair,

The whatever on the outside.

Well,

What happens if you're doing great at your job and then you leave your job and you're not getting validation from your job?

What happens when your face starts to fall?

Because it does,

Damn it.

It's like,

Oh,

Shoot,

Who am I now?

What the hell are these jowls?

Like I had to go,

Wait,

What?

And that's when,

You know what I did?

I started doing even more internal validation.

I'm like,

I'm really funny.

I'm freaking claiming that.

So we want to start,

The way we build up internal validation is to claim,

Like claim who we are.

I'm funny.

I love to have fun.

I love to laugh.

And you know what?

Those three things,

It doesn't matter if I'm 90 or 20.

It doesn't matter what I look like and what outfit I'm wearing.

I still have those things no matter what,

Right?

I love the water.

I love to be on the water.

I love to be in the water.

I love to look at water.

I love to sit by the water.

I love to fish.

I love to kayak.

I love to ski.

I love to be in the boat.

I love the water.

I don't care if I'm 90 or 20,

I still love the water.

And I talk about the water.

I love nature.

I love hiking.

These are things I just claim.

That's my sense of self.

It's just who I am.

That's who I am.

Some people don't like those things.

I have a friend that hates being outside.

She's like,

I hate the bugs.

I hate the bugs.

I go,

That's what's so cool.

It makes you you.

But me,

I'd rather be outside living in a tree house,

Honestly,

And just listening to the orchestra of the insects and the birds.

That's me.

So when you think about internally validating yourself,

Who are you?

Only you know.

I love tending to my garden.

Oh my God.

My husband,

It's so funny.

My husband plants the garden.

He does not let me help him.

He wants to plant the garden.

He does the whole thing and he waters it for about two or three weeks and then I take over when everything starts to bloom and sprout and all the tomatoes come out and the peppers and I've got the cucumbers and the zucchini and then I love that garden up for about two or three months.

And I go out there and I talk to those tomatoes and I have so much gratitude.

I love gardening.

I love tending to those plants.

I had to give away,

All these tomato plants came up from last year,

All my midnight cherries that I love and I put them all in little buckets.

There were 15 of them and they were like my children.

I had to donate them away.

But anyway,

I loved it.

I was like,

I love these little babies so much.

So these are all little silly things.

I love to make a good mud water in the morning.

It's what makes me,

Me.

And when I make a good water,

I'm like,

Dang,

Michelle,

You nailed it today.

So internal validation,

Internal sense of self,

Internal building up of who I am.

That will help you as you go through life,

Whether you're again,

20 or 90 or you're aging,

Because we're all aging.

But even if you're not aging,

If you're just someone that kind of doubts your sense of self,

Your sense of worth,

Start validating yourself,

Please,

Please,

Please.

Start small because people always say to me,

I don't even know where to begin.

Make the bed every day and turn yourself around and go,

Damn,

I did a good job with that bed.

And it's really wild because every time you walk in the bedroom,

You look at the bed and you go,

I did that.

And make it well.

I fluff it up.

I put all those pillows on,

Like who cares?

No one's coming over to see it.

I see it.

And when I walk in that bedroom,

You better believe it,

I look at myself,

I say,

I did that today.

Look how nice that bed looks.

I'm not putting it on social.

Who the hell cares?

But I do say that.

That's building up and claiming,

Claiming,

Claiming,

Claiming all of our goodness,

All of our uniqueness.

We all have a unique energetic signature that we carry.

Every human does.

There are no two humans that are exactly the same.

We are unique and we got to celebrate it and love it up.

So yeah,

I know this was a lot of talking about the validation,

Codependency and measurement,

But all of these things in order to,

Let's wrap it up.

I'm going to drive it home and I'm coming in for that home run.

Here we go.

Let's wrap it into codependency at the end and people pleasing and in measurement,

All the things.

It's just because we don't know who we are.

So if you want to dismantle codependency,

This is the most brilliant way to do it is to start that.

Start validating yourself.

Stop looking for it out there.

Bring it home.

Bring it home to yourself.

And it's foreign and it feels weird and it feels wonky and it doesn't matter.

Just do it anyway because it will change your life.

All right,

You guys,

That's all I got for you today.

Your homework is start today validating yourself.

I'm not kidding you.

I would be curious to know this.

Validate yourself as many times as you can today and the next few days and then notice how you feel about yourself.

This does not take years,

My friends.

This takes days,

Days.

And what will happen is you're actually rewiring your brain because right now your brain is saying I got to go out there.

I got to go out there.

I got to get validation from so and so.

I don't know who I am unless they tell me.

I don't know who I am.

No,

No,

No.

When you choose to start internally validating your sense of self,

Yourself,

This is what healthy adults do.

This is what we do when we're in our adult chair,

My friends.

It will rewire your brain and then it becomes habit.

It becomes natural.

I don't have to think anymore.

Oh,

Wait.

I got to make my bed so I can validate myself.

No.

It's just natural.

Last night I decided to make homemade chicken noodle soup.

I did that and I also made homemade meatballs and I made all this stuff and I'm like,

Dang,

I love cooking.

I'm really good at it too.

Now,

I'm not like a five-star chef by any means,

But I'm really good at a few things and I validated myself and it feels so good.

It feels great.

So start today.

Start today.

Start looking around.

Look around your house.

Think about your life.

How can you validate yourself?

Start small and watch your life change.

Okay.

Hey,

Everybody.

Have a great week.

I'll see you next week.

Bye.

Reviews

Awkwardly comfortable...this s lf validation. But a great concept

Refreshingly informative with many examples in case you were not sure what some of the nuances of this looks like. Michelle gives everyday examples of many simple, actionable ways you can begin to help yourself breakout of this habit if needed. Well done and very practical. What a great resource to listen to if you'd like to work on improving this aspect of your life. Well done😊💖✨️!