Valadation, Is it a Good Thing?

Have you ever wondered how childhood experiences shape your quest for validation as an adult? Join me, Erin Anderson, as we journey through the intricate landscape of healing from betrayal trauma and the essential role validation plays in this process. We unravel Kalissa's poignant story to reveal how growing up with a narcissistic parent can condition one to seek approval from damaging sources, leading to a loss of joy and identity. We'll face the harsh reality of gaslighting and its impact, empowering you to trust your own perceptions and break free from the shackles of self-doubt.

In our pursuit of self-belief, we'll explore the transformative power of trusting oneself and aligning with a higher truth. Through the real-life struggles of clients like Felicia and Stacy, discover how external validations can hinder your true potential and why prioritizing connections with God and self is crucial for a life of purpose and confidence. Plus, find out how you can become part of a supportive community by joining my free Facebook group and following me on Instagram, where I share invaluable resources and insights to aid in your journey to healing.

Chapters

• 2:33 Healing From Betrayal Trauma and Validation
• 12:27 Trusting Yourself and Seeking Validation
• 31:32 Connecting Through Social Media for Support

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:33

Hey everyone, it's Erin Anderson with the Erin Anderson Betrayal Trauma Coaching. I am super excited that you have tuned in. Today. Let's get talking about how to heal from betrayal trauma. Welcome to the other side of the struggle trauma, how to heal it and then how to take it and use it to unlock your mission and your potential and to use it to live your very best dream life. When you're dealing with betrayal trauma, it can be hard to know how to heal it, how to stop the pain and to know what your next steps are to take in your own life, and these are the questions that we try to answer here.

Speaker 1: 3:36

Trauma has the ability to rob us of our joy and identity, which is why it's so miserable to experience. But with the right tools and with the right mindset, we can totally reclaim that joy and even use this trauma to strengthen ourselves. So that way, trauma does not knock us off of our joy again. Living your dream life should be a non-negotiable, but trauma tends to try to negotiate that with you. And even though trauma is not something that we will completely ever be free of in our life, the pain is negotiable. This is why I created Erin Anderson Betrayal Trauma Coaching and this podcast is because I want my listeners, I want my clients, to live truly live free from the prison that trauma can put you in. I want you to live on the other side of the struggle. Hey, my loves, welcome back to another episode of the other side of the struggle.

Speaker 1: 5:10

So today we are chatting about validation. Now, you know, let me just say that I do think that there is some merit to validation. We do want our beliefs to be validated and we don't want to just go about the world thinking that whatever we think is the final say absolutely perfect and that we don't need any external validation for that. We do want to know how our behavior and our thoughts and our feelings are going to, you know, be received in this world, and this is one of the things that we wish more people would do with us. I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, most likely you do have some type of struggle with a relationship and that struggle has led you to kind of maybe feel like you need to pull your hair out a little bit. Right, maybe it's with a husband who is deeply into pornography Definitely can make you want to feel like you really need to rip your hair out because that's a damaging action. What would happen if your husband actually came to you and was like, hey, how do you feel about this? What if he came to you and talked about his thoughts? How do you feel about these thoughts? Right, we do look for validation from others, because how we respond or how we show up does affect other people, and it'd be nice if more people would ask how their perceptions, their behaviors and the way they're showing up in life actually does affect us. Showing up in life actually does affect us.

Speaker 1: 7:15

But there is a danger in validation and this is a danger that I find a lot of my clients falling into and that is that we validate the wrong things. Let me explain this, okay. A lot of times, women come to me and they're like I feel so stupid or I feel so dumb or I'm so foolish, and the reason why they're saying these things is because they're being gaslit right. They have someone in their life that are telling them to disbelieve their own eyes, their own experience, their own feelings, and that's not a good thing, because if we can't believe ourselves, we are so easily manipulated, and it's through that manipulation that we feel that foolishness, that dumb, that shame, that guilt, that remorse for something that we didn't even do. This is where the shame comes in, and it's all because our insecurity is being validated by someone else, someone in a position of trust. For us, let me say if this is is you, it's not your fault. It is absolutely not your fault that you're feeling crazy. It's not your fault that you're feeling dumb. It's not your fault. You're feeling nuts and like what do I even believe? It's not your fault. Most likely, you are someone who has been taught to disbelieve, like I said, your experience and your beliefs for a very long time and therefore you choose, you're going to look for relationships that bring that to the table, because that's what you know or you see as normal. It's not even in our consciousness oftentimes how our beliefs actually create our relationships or how our experience have created the relationships we have. So let me give you an example of what I'm saying here.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Kalissa and I changed the name, by the way, to protect clients, but Kalissa was a client of mine and this was something I heard her say a lot. I feel so dumb. I feel so dumb, I feel so foolish. I fell for it again and as I listened to her, I could tell that she was trusting other people before she would ever trust herself. She would ask them down to the detail what she thought she should do, what they thought she should do, what they thought she should think, how they thought she should act, respond. And so she was doing their bidding and never once gave any thought or consideration to what her reality was. It was always living for someone else, and yet she felt all this resentment and couldn't figure out why.

Speaker 1: 11:08

As I got looking back into her history, she had a narcissistic father who would tell her to believe something or tell her to think something, and it was definitely about herself. If she ever brought to hear her father oh my gosh, I can't believe. I just made this mistake. I'm so dumb. He validated that she was dumb. If she brought to him that she felt foolish, he would validate yeah, you're foolish. He would validate yeah, you're foolish. And so the validation becomes a proof of a belief, and once something is validated so many times, eventually what ends up happening is it becomes a rock solid belief, a truth that we don't question anymore, and we don't move beyond the bounds of our truth.

Speaker 1: 12:27

Remember, people don't behave above their self-belief. They just don't, and their self-beliefs have often been validated to a detrimental point. So what do we do about this? Well, this is why one of the reasons I say one of the greatest things you can do is to trust yourself first. If you remember the relational tears again and if you don't go back and check out the podcast entitled the Relational Tiers, but we talk about our God tier and our self tier being the top two tiers, but everybody in general tends to live out of the others tier and the abundance tier. We're always worried about how everybody else thinks or how everybody else feels. We're always worried about money. Is something going to show up for me? But never are we wondering. I shouldn't say never, but it's not very often. It's not as often as it should be do we consider what does god think and how can I adopt his belief?

Speaker 1: 13:50

Let me give you another example here. Um, another one of my clients, again changing the name for privacy and safety, felicia. She really was struggling with money and her beliefs around money, and she didn't feel like money was going to show up for her. And so I talked to her about whether or not she felt like other people showed up well for her, and immediately there was a no. She had been so busy thinking about how everybody else viewed her, validating that through them, and had a belief that she didn't deserve anything. Very interesting how her money story showed up to reflect that belief. So instead we start talking about well, what do you think God wants? Does he see in you? She believed very deeply that she was a child of God, which is a good thing. I definitely want that belief in my clients and in my listeners.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Or if you don't believe in God, okay, at least believe that your highest form of love did something, a great work inside of you. And it is that great work that we need to understand. Because if we understand ourselves as a work of perfection, a work of art, a work of greatness, we are now validating a truth, a truth that we can act upon. Once we start validating that type of a truth, we start to look for the good that we can do, how we can actually serve the world, do how we can actually serve the world. We start detecting our gifts, our talents, our passions, our purposes and through that we tend to also trust ourselves. We trust ourselves to take action.

Speaker 1: 16:16

See, someone who doesn't trust themselves has actually had something validated to them a negative belief validated that does not need to be validated, it's not a truth. They do not actually believe themselves as a child of God or as a marvelous creation. Again, people don't behave above their self-belief, right? See what happens when somebody has this belief, this understanding that they are first and foremost a child of God or a child of love or a child of greatness, that we were put here to do a marvelous work, and that is validated by a previous belief of either I am a child of God or that the universe actually does show up to support me. If we already have that foundational belief, then every belief that we have, therefore, should build upon that foundational belief. If, however, you're waiting for everybody else to tell you to move forward because your plan is good, that is not. That is not believing that you are an instrument of good. That is still wondering if you have what it takes. And so we seek for validation and before we even often get very far into a good thing, we allow it to die because it has been validated in a negative, and our self-confidence takes a hit because we haven't ever shown ourselves to rise above a negative validation.

Speaker 1: 18:34

Now it is important, as I said earlier and previously, to make sure that what it is you're doing is going to bless the lives of others. Sometimes our missions and our purposes do require a lot from our hands, and sometimes that does require a lot from other people, because we do have a lot of responsibilities on us as adults, especially as entrepreneur women and, by the way, moms, if you're a stay-at-home home mom, you're still an entrepreneur in my book, because you were building something beautiful. You're still building something incredible. You're still building something valuable. You don't necessarily have to own a business to be an entrepreneur in my book, I should say, but it is important, therefore, if we are going to build something fantastic, that we do seek, first and foremost, validation from god, and what that looks like is does it, would God approve of what I'm doing? Does it match what he created in me? What would he really think about what I'm doing? Does it match a loving God? Does it feel like love what I'm doing or what I think about doing? And all of the sudden, we validate ourselves this way, because we check what we want to do or what we want to believe, based upon an already rooted truth, and then we can take this to other people and get their feedback as well, not to stop us, but simply to glean more truth.

Speaker 1: 22:28

So one more example Stacy, she was an entrepreneur. She had a multi-million dollar business and she could see a way that she could build something else with this business that would create healing, a place of healing, a place for families, a place for families to heal, individuals to heal, and a place of refuge and peace from her multi-million dollar business that she had already built. She wanted it so badly, but she had never taken action on it because she had someone in her life that had validated for her that it would be stupid for her to do that. That she should already. So she should just focus on what was already working. And, yes, she continued to build that under company, but her heart kept telling her that she wanted to build this place.

Speaker 1: 23:53

So, after some coaching, one of the things we did is we started talking about her gifts and her talents. Who did God create her to be? What did she see? What did she see? And we, we, I, I had her stop for a little bit and start envisioning that she had already built this place, this place of glory, this place of beauty, this place of healing for families and individuals, this place that could get people back on their feet. And she was running it and I asked her how she felt about herself as she was envisioning this process, and the first word she said was whole, and you could see her break down in tears Because she had been searching for this wholeness for a while now. Do you feel like God is ashamed of you? Not at all. He's so proud of me. I have people that are finally finding the answers to the things that they have been looking for. I'm creating a glorious work on this earth.

Speaker 1: 25:14

All of a sudden, she started validating that this was what she could do and what she should do. Then she took it to her family, because that did mean that she was going to have to put some more time into this business, which meant a little less time with her family, but that also meant that she was going to need to be more intentional with the time that she did put towards her family. She also took it to her team in her other company. She had somebody there that could absolutely take over and run things for her and keep in contact with her and run ideas back and forth, but they could take over her position there and all of a sudden she started to restructure things. She had people trying to validate for her that this was still a bad idea and she had previous voices, but voices from the past. That was also validating to her that this was a bad idea. That was also validating to her that this was a bad idea.

Speaker 1: 26:26

But every time that little seed of doubt continued to creep into her mind she would bring back up this image of her running this business, running this company and seeing people finally heal. And she would validate what was actually true inside of her. And she would realize that if she didn't do this, it was denying that piece of wholeness inside of her. And as she continued to validate this vision, this dream, and she continued to validate this vision, this dream, and she continued to build on it she did completely restructure things Her family, she built this healing place. She was able to heal relationships between her and her kids that had been fractured Because she was coming from a place of wholeness. She realized what she could do. She was receiving the gratitude for building such a place from those that were benefiting from her labors and the validation continued to the point where she started giving back even more glory to the people that she served, and both companies ran at an almost 300% profit increase. But what would have happened had she listened to the validation of the nay? That never would have happened and she would have consistently felt fractured.

Speaker 1: 28:34

So what does this have to do with you? If you are somebody dealing with betrayal trauma? Betrayal trauma is legitimately a validation of the negative. Betrayal trauma is legitimately a validation of the negative and it feels like a betrayal and feels like you have to betray yourself just to make somebody else happy. You have to put aside who you are just to keep something intact that may or may not even be working anymore, and it fractures you. This is why a lot of women come to me and they say I feel Detached, I feel separated from myself. The truth of the matter is Betrayal trauma is a validation of the negative and this is why trauma, especially betrayal trauma, tends to heal when we become dedicated and focused on the truth and we decide to seek out truth and we know it's truth, because it will build our confidence in ourselves and in our God. So, my loves, pay attention to what type of validation you are listening to.

Speaker 1: 30:04

This week, my hope is is you start to shift to the validation of love, validation of goodness and a validation of finding your mission and your purpose, because I promise you in that you will find yourself a better version than you ever thought possible. All right, my loves Again. If you would love some help with this, if you'd love some help finding out what type of boundaries you can set around yourself to receive the proper type of validation around yourself, to receive the proper type of validation, if you would love some help in healing your trauma, I do have spaces open right now for clients. I am taking them on. Feel free to click on the link below to schedule a free call with me. Let's chat back and forth and see if there's something I can do to help you heal your trauma and find your mission and purpose as well, to help you build the life that you've always dreamed of. And until then, my loves, I'll see you on the other side. Bye, okay.

Speaker 1: 31:33

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Speaker 1: 32:08

Go join my group the Other Side of the Struggle Healing from Betrayal Trauma. Come find me on Instagram, erin Anderson, betrayal Trauma Coach, and come follow me, because I always have something good there just for you, my audience, and I love connecting with you there. I also post anytime that I have groups going on. I talk sometimes about my programs. So if you guys are interested in working with me or even just following me and getting as much free content as you possibly can, getting as much free content as you possibly can, go hang out in my group. Go connect with the ladies that are there. Also, come and join Immune and Unashamed for those married couples that are following me, because in that group, me and my business partner, kyson Kidd, are also talking and offering some great content.