A Valid Practice

but is it the best use of your time?

Seeking validation and reassurance from others is a practice.

There is nothing wrong with this, but it is important to see that it is an activity in itself.

Seeking the validation is an activity you engage in.

Responding to your seeking is an activity you request that the other engage in—you may think you are asking them to validate you, but you are first asking them to choose whether and how to validate you, which is a distinct activity that comes before the actual validation.

Offering you validation is yet another distinct activity someone might choose, in response to your seeking of it.

Again, nothing wrong with any of this.

However—

it may be valuable to note that the two of you could be doing *literally anything else* with that time and energy, with the connection in the relationship, with your available attention and your love for each other.

Seeking, responding to, and offering validation is a cycle of activities that takes time away from all other possible relational activities.

It also can cloud your ability to receive validation you were not seeking, both in that you have a habit of seeing/valuing only the validation which you specifically seek in your favorite form, and in that others are more likely to save their validation of you for the times you seek it from them, knowing you will come for it, so they don't have to offer.

These energetic dynamics are subtle and cocreative. What we expect of others shapes what we are capable of seeing in their behaviors and therefore receiving experientially from the reality of their offering. The way others experience us experiencing them influences what and how they offer to us in the future.

Our practices are the key to any shift we desire in our lives.