We say we’re crazy; or “I’m going crazy” but what we really mean to say is… “I’m really frazzled right now, I know I’m stressed… I just don’t know what to do about it.”
Crazy can be seen as a derogatory term… I have determined my personal self diagnosis to be termed…
“Definitionally Insane”
Why?
Because. Albert Einstein is credited as saying…
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
I believe now, I was caught inside some weird, personal, Twilight Zone episode, where I THOUGHT I was trying to do things differently… in life… but now as I process through my spaghetti bowl full of messy spaghetti mental state, using my daily journals, I can see it’s really been, only, in the last five years or so… when I started writing… that I have changed my mind enough to where I actually approach life differently now.
And lo and behold… I’m seeing different results.
This summer the topic that [of many] is making itself known is one of… VALIDATION.
I won’t lead ya on… here is “the answer” that has been revealed…
“Stop soliciting validation from others and… UNSOLICITED validation from others will find, and surprise you.
Ready for the long way around?
Thought so.
As human beings we not only “want” validation… I believe it’s absolutely crucial… to be validated.
For many of us, we have ghosted through life, feeling like an invisible soul, standing inside a full stadium of 80,000 people and feeling utterly alone.
When it does happen, we can remember the day when someone looks us in the eye and says, “I see you.”
They may not say those words, I do, now… but the feeling we get when someone NOTICES us, and makes us feel… NOT invisible… makes us feel alive… maybe for the first time… ever.
That’s unsolicited validation… usually found later in life… hopefully.
Healthy validation should start the day you are born.
Coming from your mom and dad. As a baby, all you have to do is goo, or gah, or crap your pants… and new, young, happy parents… can’t validate you enough. They [all of them] act like their baby crapping their diaper has never been done before, like the kids a genius or something.
I have five kids, all grown, and one brand new grand-baby… so I’m speaking from personal experience.
But there are lots of folks who never get that kind of attention early on.
And science has proven that an awful lot of a persons self esteem is SET by the time we are three years old.
So… validation, as a thing, is not a bad thing, in and of itself… I think we make ourselves crazy because we are chasing after it, if we need it, like a dog chasing his, or her tail… you can go and go and go… but your never gonna catch it.
You can try the same thing tomorrow… but you still won’t catch it.
And the next day… that’s where “the crazy” “doing the same thing over and over again” gets set as a habit.
Becoming healthy, mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally… provides us with a perspective that we have not grown up with, if we have come to those things later in life.
If we take the actionable steps in that direction, and we believe we are moving in that direction, and one of the healthy things we do is to stop “chasing” validation, our “new” behaviors, our “new” presence in the world… will garner you UNSOLICITED validation… which I am finding…
Is really cool; and can be a tad frightening… only because hearing such positive input, from a complete stranger… takes you by surprise. [so play it cool. it’ll happen some more]
And for them to comment… for a persons heart to be moved to say something positive to a stranger… just keeps reminding me that there is only one guy I know who can make a heart come alive.
And it is His validation, His love… that finally fills us up.
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