We look for validation outside of ourselves when all we need is to provide that validation to ourselves.

Like everything else, it’s inside us. All that we need lives inside us – but we spend much of our energy searching for it elsewhere. We don’t trust ourselves. We don’t understand how to use the resources within. We are so used to being told that the opinions, judgments and acceptance of others is what matters … so we abandon ourselves for them.

I need to be near the water. It awakens all my creative juices and powers in a way that nothing else does – not the mountains, not the forest, not any of it – even though I love all nature. It’s just a different kind of inspiration for me. I can love and appreciate other environments, but they don’t fire my creativity the way the energy of water in motion does.

Though I’ve known this, in my bones, for quite a while, it was not until yesterday that I completely admitted it to myself. I’ve felt unworthy. As living near bodies of water, especially the ocean, is something usually reserved for the rich in our current world, I felt ashamed of my need. Did this make me entitled, selfish, spoiled, to declare that I need such a thing? So many people don’t even get to visit the ocean, let alone live next to it. I stuffed it down and made myself small because I feared what others would think of me if I voiced it.

As with any intuitive need that gets suffocated, the restlessness and yearning got progressively stronger. When I finally moved near the ocean, but remained trapped in a thankless and soul-sucking job, I became unbearably dissatisfied. I now believe that was because my proximity to the water took my truth and pulled it out of me, no matter how I wanted to hide it. That lost creative voice got louder, more insistent.

After years of actively noticing how everything in me shifts when I’m near the water, I’m finally granting myself validation. I need to be near the water in order to be my best self. It’s the truth. As long as I continue to deny that, I suppress my authentic nature and creative spirit. It’s time to own and validate what I need to live most purposefully and joyfully, in my energy flow. I crave the water, and when I’m away, I feel creatively stagnant. Life just isn’t the same. I feel the lack keenly.

Obviously I understand that validating your own needs is incredibly hard sometimes. You might not even know what that looks like. Maybe no one in your childhood validated your needs for you, or modeled what it looked like to validate their own. Maybe you’ve been torn down and undermined throughout your life journey. Whatever the reason, know that you and every other person deserve to have what you need. You deserve your own love, compassion, and validation. There is nothing shameful, selfish, or entitled about needing what you need. If you have a habit of making yourself small to please other people, it’s imperative that you work on healing your relationship with your own soul.

You’ve got this. I love you.