It’s a cooler Sunday where I am…

Bring on sweater weather!

I digress.

I want to share with you a bit of a conversation I had last week from someone who has found a new passion and has dived into it, and is finding success very quickly and thoroughly.

This was the question after telling me how great things were going so quickly, so suddenly:
”Should I be worried? Is this a fluke? I mean, I never got any of this kind of validation as an actor. Is this real? Is this really how I should feel?”

It broke my heart. The validation was so foreign that this passionate, intuitive, multi-talented, multi-dimensional artist was questioning her sudden success, and meaning in this new endeavor that she had discovered.

I have been thinking about that all week. The validation. The self-validation. The people pleasing.

As our industry continues on its longer-than-ever intermission, we, as artists within that industry have time to grieve many things. Validation might be on the crucial realizations in that grieving.

So many of us are people-pleasers on some level. Those patterns are deep and complex. I am still trying to figure out mine. As artists, our ability to be pliable is crucial in creating, and yet that pliability can be confused and woven too snuggling into our desire to please, and can be exploited by those who desire power and authority. The complexity of human nature meets the mold and dust & nasty underbelly of the business of show. Insecurity meets insecurity. Wanting to please meets frustration meets lack of boundaries meets exploitation meets…

You get the picture. Take a breath.

How has we twisted self-worth and self-validation with the outside validation (and often lack of it) and people pleasing to try to get that? When did it become a drug we didn’t know we were chasing and thought we needed?

Perhaps the grieving process has revealed that when the set is closed, when the costumes and makeup are off, when the lights are off, when the audience is gone, when a stage hand is sweeping the stage and you walk out and stand there with the ghost light: it’s just you and your voice. It’s just you. Breathing, standing in your own power of craft, of human experience, of present moment.

If we lean forward in that moment, there is nothing to do, there is no one to please. There is no applause. There is no dismissal. There is no ignoring. There is no “thank you”.

It is just you. It is ONLY you.

Guess what? That is the validation.

You validate from the inside out. You lean FROM that validation. You no longer need an outside stamp of approval to move ahead, to say it’s okay, to give you permission.

You are validated because you ARE. You breathe. You speak. You sing. You have built your craft. You are building your craft. You have experienced your life. You have created, you have grieved, you have. You are.

The lack of outside validation is rampant. Yet, we have still thought we needed it; thought we craved it;

Now it’s just you. We don’t need it. We are grieving, and maybe detoxing from the people-pleasing dependency that somewhere along the way, we thought was what we needed to do.

I’m riffing, I’m thinking, I’m exploring this too. I don’t have answers. I am a recovering people pleaser and slip up regularly. I apologize for things I have no business apologizing for. I am recovering.

Your voice is your only true validation. Are you listening to that voice? Or has that voice become distorted by the outside validation or lack of it? Have you leaned so far forward that you are merely a whisper?

Lean back into yourself. There’s time. The validation that you seek, that you crave, is within you. It is your birthright. Your goodness, your innate being needs no more validation than being present and aware from within.

Who you are remains intact.

The outer responses can have authority over whether you book that role, sing that concert, but they do not have power over you. Your power is yours. No apologies.

We are validated from within. We are given criticism from outside. If it’s constructive it allows us to pause and consider a shift in action, NOT in validation. If it’s hurtful, mean, or demeaning, we dismiss it. We run. We stand firm in our self validation. If it rejoices with us, we embrace it for what it is. We lean back into ourselves.

We learn to trust ourselves. We learn to listen to ourselves. We learn to evaluate, to discover, to embrace from within, and look to ourselves for the validation, and then share our pliability with our craft, with our colleagues, with our audiences.

Take a moment. We have that right now. Explore the self-validation by pleasing the self. When the behavior creeps in suddenly to change who you are for something or someone else, stop and ask why. Why was that necessary. Why is that still necessary? Habits are hard to change, but by creating a new behavior, we break the cycle.

Self-discovery. Self-Validation.

As we get closer to the core of that power within us, we DO see what we may view as outside validation. I prefer to acknowledge it as a mirrored reflection of what the truth is, and where it resides.

To each of us, on this journey of self. Take each step into your power. Validate that. When you are tired, sit in your power. Validate that too.

With fondness & fierceness,

Susan