Freeing myself from the need
I often wonder why I have struggled so much with a seemingly innate need for external validation.
Praise from a family member, a friend, a colleague. Likes on social media. Being looked up to.
Being liked — loved — by all.
“Needing” these things in order to feel (dashingly) fulfilled isn’t something I want to be a part of me — of who I am — because it’s not.
I know that the best, most real me is someone confident, balanced, and fulfilled in her own right.
“Needing” others to make me feel worthy is not who I am, it’s just something that came into my life for awhile.
Why?
Growing up, I had a lot of aspirations.
Growing up, people had a lot of aspirations for me.
You see, ballet was my life. Ballet was what I did after school, on weekends—in my dreams.
Ballet was my first love.
And I was good.
I worked myself hard to pursue this dream, and pursuing it professionally was seemingly in the cards.
The thing is, in order to pursue ballet, or really anything else in that realm, you generally have to make a lot of choices. You have to give up a lot of “normal” stuff — or at least that what it seemed like for me.
And while I had the drive, the talent, and the support to continue on — I’m not sure I ever had the heart.
While I lived and breathed ballet — I’m not sure I ever loved it enough to make it my life.
I’m not sure I ever loved it enough to sacrifice a lot of the “normal” stuff.
And so, choice after choice, I slowly, without even realizing it, started to not choose ballet.
Ballet would always be my first love, but, over time, it became evident that it wouldn’t be my last.
After choosing this, I went on to live an amazing life in my late teens and early twenties. I continued to dance, and while it was a bit difficult and conflicting to have ballet in my life while not fully pursuing it — life was better with it than without.
I did the normal high school and college experience. I met lifelong friends. I found writing and my calling in my career. I found confidence in myself in a new area of life — I found a new dream to dream.
But somewhere along the way, somewhere between giving up the dream of ballet and beginning to pursue new endeavors and chase different heights — I developed a “need” for recognition, for validation — for external love.
And I didn’t fully realize until the other day, that when I decided not to pursue ballet however many years back, I also placed an immense pressure on myself to “do big things”, to make a name for myself, to receive the admiration I had received for ballet, in all other areas of my life.
I did this without realizing it because I didn’t understand that once I stopped dancing, those highs from pursuing it for years were gone. I didn’t know how to live without it. To me, what I was doing wasn’t worthwhile unless people took notice.
Add in me going into marketing which revolves around being noticed, and the boom of social media…. and there I was.
Someone in need of external validation, recognition — love.
Someone that needed to be well-liked— loved—by all.
And so I chased it. For years, I chased it. I chased it in business plans and changed ideas. I chased it in career moves and awards. I chased it in diets and workout plans. I chased it in trying to perfect every area of my life.
And the more I chased, the further away it got. Because the more I chased, the more I needed. And the more I needed, the more I couldn’t sustain.
The more I felt empty, because as hard as I tried, I could never seem to find it.
This year has been transformative for me in many different ways. The biggest being that I have finally realized, through a multitude of different failures and lessons, that the only way I am going to be happy is if I learn to find my love from within. That I must do things, and I mean truly do things, for me.
What I realized the other day, is that the final piece in solving this issue for myself, the final piece in finding true peace and love for who I am and who I’m growing to be, the final piece in letting go of my need for external validation, is taking off the pressure that I placed on myself so many years ago.
The final piece is removing the weight of the expectation of being someone that is perfect in every way.
The final piece, after all of these years, is letting myself free.
Freeing myself from needing to be perfect in every area to make up for letting go of my life in ballet. Freeing myself from needing to do things in my life that receive praise. Freeing myself from the weight of that decision.
Freeing myself from the pressure.
Letting myself be me.