How to Self-Validate

(pleasant music) Headspace Studio. (gentle music) Hi everyone, it's Rosie. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Friday. So when I first started teaching meditation, I was certain that everything I was doing was wrong. And one time, I was subbing a class and a student asked if she could stay afterwards to give me some feedback. And spoiler alert, it was not good, but more on that later. Suffice to say I had a lot of feelings that could have held me back at that moment, but I kept going, and over time, I was able to see that one round of tough feedback didn't define me or my abilities. I think we all seek validation. We like to have our feelings affirmed and we like positive feedback, but when we can self-validate, we're not putting as much stock in what others think. It's more about encouraging and accepting ourselves. So let's talk today about how to self-validate and some ways to find that affirming voice within. Self-validation means our ability to trust ourselves and our abilities, and to know that everything we need is right here, right now. When we base whether we're good or not good on what others have to say, that can be extremely insidious for our mental wellbeing. So for example, if somebody tells you you're really good at something and you've put so much stock into what this person had to say, the minute that they don't give you that validation, you're gonna think that you no longer have value. So that's where the issue lies. If you're able to validate yourself, then you don't actually need to have the feedback from other people, you're not basing your worth or value in what other people have to say. Case in point, the student that was waiting for me after class to give me her feedback. When I went outside the class, she started to list how I did everything wrong, how I had instructed this specific meditation the wrong way and I had left too many pauses in between. This made her feel really distracted and so she did not have a good meditation experience. She also added that the teacher I was subbing for was so much better than I was and that I should probably go back to school. Obviously, this was an extremely upsetting experience but fortunately, I'd had really great teachers and they had told me from the beginning that you're not going to make everyone happy. However, for this particular situation, it was particularly difficult to hear because it was something that I really loved to do and I really wanted to do it. I felt completely insecure about what I was doing, and I could feel my inner critic come out and say, "See, you're no good, you should stop doing this." So in that moment when I got in my car, I just took a few deep breaths. I remembered what my teachers had said, that you're...