Emotional Validation: How to Stop Going Bankrupt for Love
And Finally Start Funding Yourself
Let’s start with a definition:
Emotional validation is the experience of feeling seen, heard, and accepted.
It’s the opposite of being judged, rejected, ignored, or criticized.
It’s a feeling we all crave — not because we’re weak, but because we’re wired for it. Emotional validation is to the soul what oxygen is to the lungs.
But here’s the problem:
Most of us were never taught how to give it to ourselves.
And that leaves us constantly chasing it from others — often in ways that drain us, distort our boundaries, and keep us feeling like we’re not enough.
💸 External Validation Is Like Money
Let’s use a metaphor I often share in sessions:
External validation is like money.
We all have a validation account — a kind of emotional bank where self-worth, approval, and reassurance live.
And for most people?
Other people are their only source of income.
That’s a dangerous place to be.
Why?
Because if your emotional bank account depends entirely on how someone else looks at you, texts you back, or smiles at your joke — your self-worth rises and falls like the stock market.
You become dependent.
Desperate.
Codependent.
You start violating your own boundaries — saying “yes” when you mean “no,” staying when you should walk, giving when you’re already depleted — all for the hope of a few coins of validation.
🧠 Why This Pattern Starts
Most of us didn’t get enough emotional validation growing up.
Not because our parents were bad — but because they were human.
Maybe you were ignored when you cried.
Maybe your needs were too much.
Maybe you got approval only when you performed, smiled, or made others comfortable.
So you learned:
“I feel good when others approve of me… and I feel worthless when they don’t.”
And that wiring never got updated.
⚠️ The Problem With External-Only Validation
When we rely solely on other people to feel worthy, here’s what happens:
If they smile at us → we feel valuable
If they frown → we feel rejected
If they compliment us → we rise
If they’re upset → we collapse
It’s like earning a dollar and losing ten — over and over — all day long.
No matter how hard you work to please others, the account never fills up.
🧘♂️ Learning to Validate Yourself
Here’s where the shift happens.
You have to become your own source of emotional income.
You can’t control how others feel, think, or act.
But you can learn to speak to yourself with kindness.
To pause and say: “That was hard, and I’m proud of how I handled it.”
To give yourself reassurance before you beg others for it.
That’s emotional independence.
That’s self-sourced validation.
It doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy approval.
It means you’re not enslaved to it.
💡 When You Learn to Self-Validate…
Criticism doesn’t collapse your entire sense of self
Someone’s bad mood doesn’t send you spiraling
You can say “no” without guilt
You can fail without falling apart
You can walk away from draining relationships without begging to be loved
Because the account is full.
Because you are funding your worth — not waiting for someone else to write the check.
🧠 Try This:
Catch yourself in the act of people-pleasing.
Pause and ask: “What am I hoping to get from them right now?”
Start validating yourself in small ways.
After a hard moment, say to yourself: “That was tough. And I’m proud of how I showed up.”
Don’t wait for someone else to notice. Be the one who notices.
Use a Feelings Chart.
When you’re upset or craving validation, name what you’re feeling.
Giving language to your experience is a form of validation.
💬 Final Thought
You can’t always control what others give you.
But you can start giving yourself the one thing you’ve been chasing:
Permission to feel worthy — without earning it.
That’s emotional wealth.
That’s security.
That’s freedom.
And it’s not something you wait for.
It’s something you practice.
Every time you pause… feel… validate… and choose yourself,
you’re making a deposit into the most important account there is.
Your own.
🔒 Want to Go Deeper?
Inside Permission to Be Powerful: VIP, we go deep into rewiring your emotional economy:
🧬 The Trigger Method Workbook – Learn how to identify unmet needs and reparent the part of you that craves approval.
🧘 The Daily Practice – Grounding habits that build self-trust and inner stability.
🧠 The ADHD X Factor – Why you overthink, overgive, and over-attach… and how to stop.
🎁 Scripts, prompts, and tools to help you validate yourself in real-time — no therapist required.
👉 Start your 30-day VIP trial here
You’ve earned the right to feel worthy.
Let’s build the bank account that reflects that.
—Zalman, LCSW
Test-ride Your Permission to be Powerful VIP Membership FREE for 30 Days.
 | A guest post by
|