Validation-seeking is a very common psychological pattern that is often admonished in the name of disseminating wisdom or being helpful. The imperative to stop seeking validation is given without any better alternative or explanation of how to change, as if one had never considered that seeking validation is problematic and can just turn it off at the drop of a hat.
The dictum comes from a place of seeking imperfections in others and trying to fix them in the most facile manner. It also comes, on an unconscious level, from a place of wanting to appear to be wiser than others, to have one’s sh*t together, and trying to glean psychic energy from people they imagine will take their advice.
In truth, people are wiser in their decisions and actions than we think. People tend to do the best thing they can, given their own circumstances and psychological context and conditioning. In the case of validation-seeking, it’s a primal, natural drive to constantly seek wholeness in the only way one knows how.
It may seem futile on the face of it because most of the time one can’t get enough validation: every time one receives it, it boosts their self-esteem for a minute, then the next minute they’re in the same place they started, looking for the next nugget of validation to come their way. But to assume this is the long and the short of it is only cynicism, or at least black-and-white thinking; it’s not that simple. When validation hits just right, it has the potential to melt a person, thus giving them the opportunity to rearrange their insides and truly let in the self-worth. That’s what the validation-seeker is looking for.
Or maybe I’m wrong? Either way, may the very idea of this inspire you to engage in more nuanced, less absolutist thinking and to be less condemning in general.
