How To Internalize That You Are Enough and Stop Seeking External Validation

Marisa Peer is a world-renown therapist and speaker. She, of course, is not the first one I have heard speak about the topic of people not believing in their own worth. Something she always shares is that (and she works with some of the most successful people in the world) one of the most common issues for people is that we feel that we are not enough.

I struggled with this issue for a very long (and we all do at some points).
Even if/when we come to the understanding that we are... we still have our moments and that's part of being human.

But I want to share my experience with you about how I finally came to understand and internalize that I am truly worthy and enough to be happy with who I am, and accept all that I am and am not... because perhaps it will give you some clarity into your own journeys.

I want to start off by saying that you don't know what it means to truly accept yourself until you have experienced the act and the consequences of not accepting yourself. You may not even realize that you do have low self-esteem. 

What got me started on this journey over the past several months was listening to experts in the fields of law of attraction, brain and heart coherence, and mindfulness. These include Dr. Joe Dispenza, guests on The Concept Theory Youtube channel, Aaron Doughty, etc. Though I had heard of these concepts before, the way they explain them all really clarifies these concepts for me.

Something they discuss is becoming aware of your thought patterns and beliefs. It didn't take me long to realize that mine weren't that great. It's not that I didn't realize that I was focused on so many wrong things and cared too much about things that didn't matter... it's just that I realized just how bad my self-esteem really was and how it was getting in my way of being happy with myself and what I was doing with my life. 

You see, these past several months have been quite challenging in a painful yet amazing way. I use the word painful because internal growth requires so much work and the emergence of truths we don't always want to face though we must. After coming back from studying abroad, I had almost 7 months looking for my first job (you won't believe what happened at the end of this all). The craziest things were happening- the most ridiculous reasons why this and that weren't working out and I could have sworn that the forces were against me. I was going above and beyond and nothing was happening for the slightest of reasons. And everything was taking so long. It felt like everything was happening in slow motion (now I understood why- wait for the end). Though it was hard for me to swallow the fact that I couldn't get a job easily (though many people go through this), I made the most of my time as a "free" person. I studied a lot about how to improve myself, started working on passion projects a lot more, and worked on some other things in my life that I had been pushing off.

This entire time I kept asking G-d why I couldn't find a job. I was really hurt by it because I had given up an amazing opportunity at one of the best hospitals in the world (and it took a lot of time for me to build connections with their recruiters) to go study ethics and morality, and become closer to G-d in the holy land. Upon returning, the hospital wanted me to have some more experience since I was a year out of school. Understandable. But now I was stuck without a job.
I came to understand it all in a single moment.
Getting to that I promise, but I need you to understand this entire story because you can only appreciate the endpoint when you see the process. 
Lesson #1- everything is a process. 
Lesson #2- everything needs its own amount of time to happen/unfold in the way it is meant to.
Lesson #3- often times we get frustrated when things don't go our way, without remembering that we don't know the whole picture. We classify things as "bad" but do we really know if it is? I thought this struggle was all for naught until I actually got the job and everything became very clear to me.
Lesson #4- have faith. Even if you don't believe in a higher power, just tell yourself things happen for a reason. When you see things from that perspective, it opens new opportunities for you. 
You will see what I mean.

Another concept I was delving into was the idea that your childhood is the root of many of the internal issues that you face as you grow older.
I had an amazing childhood. Loving family and all the support I needed.
But I knew from where a lot of my lack of self-worth stemmed. Even when I no longer faced chronic anxiety, I knew that anxiety turns up in different forms in your life and that there is still a pain that lasts from the experiences that one had in anxious states.

Those experiences I'm referring to are in that very long period in my life when I was quiet, felt alone and unseen and unheard, I didn't have real friends, didn't know how to make them, was socially awkward and paranoid that people always hated me or were out to get me. And even though I know now all those things about people hating me and out to get me were false, that extreme sensitivity and emotions were very real to me at the time.

I don't know why I had so much anxiety. I am not sure from where it stemmed. But it was a huge part of my life and I spent a lot of my childhood and teen years overcoming it. I'm really just getting over all those challenges (some people never face them, unfortunately). It may have been partially due to the fact that I was quiet and often felt overlooked and invisible. Because of that, I felt unworthy and that no one really cared.

As I grew older, though I had built a lot of resilience and overcame anxiety so well that I am 1000% a different person in so many amazing ways, a lot of that pain and hurt were buried inside me (by me). I became capable of facing my greatest fears, but that came with a price. I had to toughen myself up to get out of the anxious and paranoid states. The way I built up all that resilience and ability to confront my fears was by being very hard on myself.

And it worked. I got over all that fear and am able to do all the things I once feared.

I had the belief that if I could be my worst critic and use the voice inside my head to toughen myself up, then I would be able to face everyone else and everything that came my way that scared me (which were many many things). 

I remember thinking to myself that I would take myself to an extreme and overdo it... and I did. There was a period of several years when I actually did not cry. Even when I wanted to I couldn't get myself to because I had trained myself not to during that period of my life when I was always crying and couldn't hold it back.

Lesson #5: in order to overcome a challenge in our character, when we train ourselves to overcome it... sometimes we can go to the opposite of that characteristic. Many times this happened to me with different things I worked on and had to go back and find a healthy balance. Which I did.

I couldn't understand why I felt so stuck and had a lack of clarity. I started questioning everything I was doing. And I was doing sooo much. I felt like I had to be a lot and do a lot to be worth even a little bit. I was starting to drive myself crazy. As I was working on all of these buried issues, it all started to boil out of me. I kept questioning why I feel so lost and am struggling to find simple answers when I am trying so hard... and getting to a point that I feel like no matter what I do I won't be happy not because they aren't great options but because I want it all while at the same time deep down knowing that if I am not happy now with all I have and have accomplished then I won't ever be truly happy. It would just be a cruel cycle of needing more and more and never feeling worthy.

Lesson #6: you must choose to be happy with where you are now. Or else you will always have a reason not to be. It will always come down to having one more thing or reaching one more goal. This is not to say you shouldn't try or work hard, it just means you need to stop trying and working hard FOR happiness. Do it all WITH happiness and know that even if you don't reach your highest goals you are still worthy. Stop looking at all these goals as a reason to make you happy and worth anything or everything. 
Lesson #7- External things won't make you truly happy. You must be happy with yourself first. That is the core of all happiness. 

Even when it comes to love and relationships. I know that I can't love anyone or be in a healthy and happy relationship until I love myself. That was something else that concerned me. I was afraid that I was turning people down because deep down I couldn't even accept myself.

Lesson #8: when you choose to be happy with your current situation and yourself, you stop being vulnerable to everything else around you. You stop being jealous of others, comparing yourself to others... things can come and present themselves to you but you don't feel the need or desire to run after it all. You can make decisions based on what feels right to you because you start to trust yourself and become proud of who you are and what you are doing. A part of me felt like a child who couldn't differentiate between right and wrong. 

And I realized that I didn't want it all... I needed it.
And not actually.

I "needed" everything to show me I was good enough. And I came to realize that with this way of being, I could have all my dreams come true and still be miserable.

Because I was looking for external validation.

The whole damn time.

I was looking at everything outside of me to bring me fulfillment and satisfaction. I start "wanting" to be like everything and everyone and it was all so confusing. Generally a very grounded person, I felt more lost than ever. For the first time in my life I felt like I had no direction.

My dream of even being a doctor did not excite me. I didn't even really celebrate or get excited over my acceptance to the graduate program I have been working towards since I was a kid.

And I knew I wasn't depressed. I was happy with my life... but I wasn't happy with who I was. And that scared me because that was causing so many issues for me.

And I realized that the reason I was looking for external validation was that I didn't have validation from myself. 

Why?
Because I am a perfectionist with insecurities over things that
1) Don't matter and
2) Are out of my control

And in this moment of realizing this all (the day of my interview for the job I got after breaking this all down to my sister and breaking down crying because of final freedom)... I realized that I finally wanted to let go of all these "needs" to be this and that." I finally could say I CHOOSE to be happy and satisfied with who I am.

I don't need a certain degree (though I am getting my doctorate because I truly want to) or to be famous or rich or look a certain way or anything...to be satisfied with myself.

I choose to be happy.

And even though I had known of this concept for so long and heard it like we all do... this time I felt it.

I felt so much lighter. I felt a weight off my shoulders.

I let go of all my needs to be validated. That led me to the clarity I had been losing and needing. And that led me to the belief (and not just the understanding) that I am ENOUGH.

And at that moment, I looked at my phone and see that after 7 months I was accepted for the job I interviewed for earlier that day.

And all my questions were answered.

Why was G-d not giving me a job?

Because clarity comes through reflection. Working through your core issue comes through reflection. G-d wanted me to work through these issues because had I been working I wouldn't have had this time for reflection and growth. If I had gotten a job 2 months ago, it would not have been enough time for me to get to this point. Not only that, but I would have been miserable and probably crashed emotionally. I wouldn't know why because I wouldn't have worked through this entire process.

It was all in slow motion as I had felt it was because G-d was giving me time. I needed to be this person and overcome those internal problems in order to move onto this major step in my life.

I needed the time to reflect on all of this and come to understand my own psychology. And this is how I truly came to understand meditation- the practice of quieting your mind and things coming to you. WOW just WOW do things come to you. In time. But boy do they come.

That chapter of my life closed and with it an old version of myself. The version that was holding on to everything that was sinking me.

As soon as I came to understand how to truly be happy and find clarity... G-d gave me a job.
Because now I can handle it. Now I can be happy with what I am doing and my chosen path. Even if I don't make the right decisions, this is it and I can't hold on to all my fears that stemmed from my lack of self-esteem.

This also taught me that I have to stop doubting G-d. Just as I doubted myself and m choices and my chosen path... I was doubting G-d because I wasn't accepting that this was all for the best and that G-d has my back. I assumed along the way that this was all for a reason and deep down I truly felt it... but I was afraid that if I admitted it then I was running away from my issue of not having a job.

And its quite ironic because it was also not having a job that led me to understand true self-worth. I HAD to stop equating my worth with my school/career success. I absolutely had to. I had to look at myself and say I am enough even if I wasn't smart, in grad school, and even without a job.

As a kid, everyone always looked at me as the smart kid. My family, I mean. "Deborah is going to be a doctor," they would all say. And though I appreciated their belief in me... I had some serious issues accepting the fact that I didn't want to go to medical school (now I am getting my doctorate in nursing which I chose for so many reasons that it's a better fit for me in every way and am very excited about it). I even used to have temper tantrums as a kid telling my dad (a physician who didn't care about whether or not I would be a physician) that if I wasn't a physician then I wasn't anything at all. I know, ridiculous.
He, of course, told me I had to let go of this belief system because it's ridiculous but that was a whole process in itself. Now I have no such beliefs but it took me time. Maturity, I guess. Seeing more of the world, understanding that labels don't make people happy...

But that was how bad my self-esteem and lack of self-worth were.

 - - - - - -

I finished writing the above several months ago. I am publishing it today. I am now a practicing nurse for 8 months and so much has happened. These lessons speak even more to me now than they did then. I see even more than I did when I wrote this. That's how time works. 

Lesson # who knows??: Everything takes time. Give things time. 

And with this, I am closing this post and I will get to writing how much I see these lessons speaking truth to me as I move forward.