How to Stop Seeking External Validation

(air hissing) (mouse clicking) (gentle music) Headspace Studios. (gentle music continues) (gentle music) Hello dear friends, it's Eve here. Welcome to "Radio Headspace" and to Thursday. Thanks for being here today. So a friend called me recently to say she was leaving the company she'd worked at for many years. It wasn't her decision, and as you can imagine, she was pretty upset. She wasn't just upset because she'd lost her job, but she realized she'd built her entire sense of worth around it. She said or really pleaded at me, "If I were really that valuable, surely they wouldn't have let me go." In that moment, what she needed most was space to vent and feel her emotions, and that's one of the first things mindfulness and compassion teaches us, to allow what we are feeling to be there without judgment and to embrace with kindness what you're feeling. We've had several conversations since, and she's starting to see that her worth and value goes far beyond the job, but it's been hard seeing her go through this, and it's made me reflect on how much we doubt ourselves and question the value we bring to the world. And this kind of self-doubt shows up in all sorts of places: at work, in relationships, even how we speak to ourselves throughout the day. That lingering thought, "Am I good enough? Do people appreciate me? Am I making a difference?" Sometimes these thoughts run in the background of our minds like a loop of self-doubt we don't even realize is playing. I think one of the biggest reasons we doubt our value or self-worth is because we're often looking for external validation. We want our boss to tell us we're doing a great job, or for our partner and our friends to show us appreciation, or some form of proof from the outside world that we're enough. The problem arises though when we don't get that validation in the way we expect or hope, and we then start questioning and doubting ourselves. My friend who lost her job was saying things like, "Maybe I'm not as good as I thought," and, "Perhaps I did something wrong." None of that is true. Our value doesn't just disappear because things turn out differently than you had expected. Mindfulness helps us shift the focus inward instead of constantly searching for validation from others. Instead of asking, "Do they see my worth?" We learn to ask, "Do I see my own worth?" The truth is that other people don't define our value. You always carry it with you. Many of us tie our self-worth to things that can change instantly, whether it's a job, a relationship, or someone's opinion of us. When it comes to cultivating that inner confidence, it does start with vulnerability. Being willing to exist without those external validations, knowing that you're enough and that you have so much value in the world. I've talked a lot about self-compassion over the...