Validation – It Don’t Come Easy

In the chapter on individuation is a sentence – don’t manage their feelings. There is another sentence, all of your feelings are valid. And to sum it up, what you believe, feel, think is valid because it is your feelings, your thoughts, your beliefs.

What might seem ordinary to ordinary people is not for me. When I was young, my father would say Jump! and every one around him JUMPED. My mother would say – if your father says the sky is red, it’s red. Now say you’re sorry.

When the people who form your behavior tell you that your reality is not valid, your feelings are not valid, and your thinking is not valid – you grow to become someone who looks constantly for external validation to know if you are (in my words) crazy or not.

Today is my father’s birthday, he would have lived 102 years on this earth, having been born in Holguín, Cuba, east of Havana. I have to wonder about all of the experience in my father’s life, as well as his family life, that formed him into who he was. He was an autocrat. A jealous man. He raged till his face was scarlet purple. He loved guns. And he loved a uniform. He loved music and to dance. He loved food.

I’ve been mulling over certain incidents recently, where I have recognized that my core beliefs when challenged by someone makes me dig deep to validate myself. I’ve come to conclusions – full stops – and acted accordingly. But the other day, someone threw me for a wide loop. They insinuated that I have not put my affairs in the correct order, and I have left things flapping in the wind.

My first response was to believe I had done something wrong (I have not). I carried an emotional burden away from that conversation until I finally got to meet with my therapist who said the appropriate response would have been, “Get the fuck out of my life.” This sent me on a deep dive into one of my many maladaptive behaviors – to trust that someone else could be an “expert” on my life.

There have been many times as a parent where I sought out experts to help me raise Tin. And much to my chagrin figured out too late that I was the expert in raising Tin. I have sought out experts to help me out of binds or organize my affairs, only to find that the expert created a bigger chasm than originally existed. I’ve learned too late that I had been the expert and knew intuitively what to do.

So this incident that happened just the other day with someone much older than me was basically them puking up their fears into my lap and accusing me of what they fear most in their life and that is “being taken advantage of” – and I thought I had gotten good at detecting other people’s fear. But alas, in the moment, when this person was pointing the proverbial boney finger at me, it struck me, I must have done something wrong, I must not have figured this out, I must have fucked up.

My insides turned outsides, and I wanted to crawl in bed. I wanted to take action or reaction. I wanted to ask an expert what to do. I wanted to make sure I did not have scales on my eyes keeping me from seeing the plain truth that this person said was right in front of me.

Wow – I’ve lived over half a century and still don’t understand that I am the expert in my life. Well, Dad, happy birthday, I think that as I near the finish line, I am finally validating myself here on earth. Though sometimes it takes a minute.

The truth is that because of how I grew up, (crazy), I’ve been psycho about making sure my affairs are in order, about never leaving my own child bereft of security and resources, about making sure that whoever has to come behind me when I depart this physical plane, sees the order I have created so that they could execute my affairs with hardly any muss or fuss.

Nearing 67 years on earth, I am stepping out of my father’s large shadow, tiptoeing across stars that light my path.