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

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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 validation or our need
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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
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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 I’ll get over it and ain’t gonna happen you’re not even going to approve of yourself all the
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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
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person you know I make mistakes I’m not perfect but I’m a good person and also surround yourself with significant others who validate you they may not say it and remember when we talk about love
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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
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means they enjoy being around you so we do need to you know 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 you know even though people are
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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 valid
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so for me for example 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
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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
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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
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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
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from is it your kids is it your significant other is it your parents you know who is it and why you know what what would happen you know just hypothetically what would happen if one of those people that you quote need
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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 you know sometimes you know I’ll take parents for example sometimes parents aren’t going to agree with the decisions
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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
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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
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was downright a mistake but they loved me and supported me anyway so you want to separate validation of actions from validation of person 4 1 and number 2 remember that not everybody is going to be able to for one reason or another
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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 alright where can you get it from you know so
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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
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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 you need that’s a relationship that nobody else is taking part in so
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you need to be able to have a good communication with that higher power or a feeling and 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
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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
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it practiced 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
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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
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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
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need to be able to validate yourself so what is validation look like we keep talking about this word but what is it you can have your feelings valid and force a lot of us who are feelers if you go to the myers-briggs we need to
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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
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they’re identifying how we feel and they’re going I got you 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 gonna set ourselves up for a world of hurt because
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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 friends experiences so where something might stress me out you know it may not
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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 I love the little buggers there they’re great beneficial insects they’re really
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docile but I can understand her fear of them and so you know I validate the fact that she’s afraid of them and and you know I respect that I don’t say oh well you know puh just get over it it’s not that easy you know I wish she could and
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see how cute they were but that’s not how she’s wired so I recognized that is a part of her and I validate that we want to validate people’s thoughts and they’re gonna have different opinions my son has different opinions about things
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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 you know their thoughts are valid your thoughts your opinions your feelings are valid for you they may not
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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
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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
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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
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then then 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
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people like me and 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 tiddlywinks for them so what are some reasons we may not get validation
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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
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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
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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
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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
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besides me besides me being unvalidated all that this person may be acting this way and 99% of the time you’re gonna come up with a great big yes now why might we not get validation from ourselves well it’s really hard to
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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
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that in 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
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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
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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’m a good person because and one of the ways that I have clients do this sometimes is go
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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 stay things like honesty and integrity and compassion and yada yada yada and go through that list
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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
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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 and say to yourself you know what
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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 we are that you are only lovable if somebody else says you are
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and again that goes back to relying on other people to get their head out of their own stuff and 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
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life and 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
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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
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are all right 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
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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 and validation and everything we need to recognize that letting go and forgiveness can be very
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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
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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
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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
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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 you’re yourself they’re dragging you down in some way shape or
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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 cuz you know what to expect with that person and you don’t know when you’re gonna find somebody else and
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dating is a hassle and all that but letting go is a choice you make in order to be true to yourself inside your own you don’t your own head your brain and your heart are telling you this is a bad thing this is not where you need to be
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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
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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
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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 gonna make them we can’t change other people so when we let go
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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 my own thoughts and my own feelings I know that the right move for me is to move on forgiveness means letting go of
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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
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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
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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
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willing to change and you need to be willing to of 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
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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
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own stuff I’m not gonna forget I’m not gonna go back there but I’m gonna 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
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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 gonna validate you it’s it’s not their job to make you feel okay your job is to
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make you feel okay but there’s generally you generally will always have some people that you will about that will validate you you know whether it’s your parents or your best friend or whomever you’re generally going to have someone
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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 program why are you beating your head against the
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wall for that why do you keep going after something that isn’t 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 quote get it right this
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 gonna do and develop heartiness commitment
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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’s going
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for you what good things do you have yeah you know you’re gonna have some things that are not going the best you know nobody has a perfect life all the time that’s okay but too often we get stuck focusing on those things that
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aren’t going the best and then we start feeling unlovable and unsuccessful and undone 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
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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 loveable awesome person because if you’re exuding awesomeness other people are going to
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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 toward you so
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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
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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
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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 its being ripped out and
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it kind of is and you feel like you can’t take it well unhooking from your thoughts that 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
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it I’m having the thought that I’m gonna 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
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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
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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 helped me move toward the important things in my life and review this list every day because
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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
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old loves you know there’s a lot of things we do that waste our energy that could be used to 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
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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
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so you’re 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
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and to take you 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
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important in your life and acknowledge that that one well it had its benefits also had a lot of drawbacks and for your own health sanity and happiness you need to let it go
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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
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deserve to be happy I deserve to take a break I deserve to whatever keep that Bill of Rights going try to make twenty items that’s gonna make you really think by the time you get past ten you really start having to
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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 did they deserve what do your kids deserve they deserve to be happy they
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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 I
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if I 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
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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
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approve of you but they didn’t know how to communicate it so you didn’t 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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validation how we can get validation how we can validate ourselves and then we talked a little bit about letting go of control and admitting that sometimes you know somebody else just can’t or won’t validate us but a lot of times that’s
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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
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then we ended with exploring some psychological flexibility activities that we can do in order to learn about and and keep present in our mind how awesome we are and why we deserve love and respect if you like this podcast
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