Ego feeds on external validation…Are you feeding your ego?

Disclaimer: This article was posted in its original version in December 2019 to my previous blog and this updated version includes some additions and edits for clarity and accuracy.

Be it hoarding, shopping, couponing, smoking, eating, working out, body modifications, drugs, alcohol, relationships, sex, porn, superficial friends, likes, etc., whatever your “drug” of choice may be, ALL destructive, distractive, and obsessive tendencies point back to this loss or lack of internal control.

So, are you feeding your ego? Or are you fulfilling yourself from within?

Do you have a deep sense of unfulfillment that feels like it constantly lingers below the surface? And you can’t quite grasp or satisfy it??

To preface this article, the first half focuses on the reasons and ways many of us use or have used external vices to fill that inner void and unfulfillment. The second half is an overview of a significant part of my journey pre-awakening. I describe how I unconsciously fed my ego to validate myself as I was simply operating from childhood conditioning until I started to question how I was operating. The hope is that it will help you to understand how you are operating and whether there is something deeper that needs to be explored.

This article also sheds light onto where that unfulfillment comes from and how you might start to begin to unpack it and satisfy it once and for all.

Spoiler alert: internal validation and allowing your truth to surface is how you can fulfill that need once and for all. Keep reading to find out more!

A Note On Modern Society

If you take a good look at today’s Western society and other assimilating societies around the world, it appears most people are feeding their ego with external band-aids including sex, food, partners, money, drugs, shopping, attention, and much more. It is as mind-blowing as it is heartbreaking, especially when one wakes up to how powerful we truly are as infinite beings, with the power to create and believe as we so desire. Instead, many of us are trapped in the same childhood thought cycles that were designed to keep us “safe” then, but now are dramatically hindering our ability to tap into our potential. 

This desire for external validation is due to the subconscious programming from deep childhood wounds and their respective coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, these wounds including rejection, abandonment, humiliation, and others, are all too common. And yet, it is extremely disheartening to know that mainstream Western society has not only not encouraged us to look within and heal these wounds, but certain societal structures have been intentionally set up to actually move us away from feeling whole just as we are in many aspects.

Some of these include:

•  being guided to place our trust into the hands of “professionals” who have ulterior motives and agendas i.e. extremely profitable pharmaceutical companies, 
• to dull our curiosity & creativity and ability to think critically via the maddeningly restrictive education system, and
•  to constantly be searching for something outside of ourselves to make us happier, better, more productive, more beautiful, etc. which allows product sales to continue, no matter how bad they are for us.

The media of Western society constantly feeds us imagery, advertising, and messages that we need x to be beautiful, we need y to feel good, and that we are simply not enough. So, essentially, Western society is adding to the traumas and feeding our ego exactly the things it wants to hear to keep perpetuating it’s need for external validation.

Where The Ego Gets Its Muscles

Our ego develops out of survival and we develop these toxic habits as a child to cope with the injustices around us. Our need for love and protection as a child is so deep and important that, if those things are not given, or they are given with conditions, we develop really backwards ways of trying to get that love, validation of our worth, and protection (when in reality we should not be made to feel that we have to do anything to get it because we are inherently worthy of receiving it). 

Examples of this include:

• Children whose parents left or who made them feel like they weren’t good enough and only had conditional love to provide to them when they did something right or behaved in a way they were “supposed to.”
• Children who were humiliated in some way, perhaps by having to wear ragged clothes to school or by having a physical “defect” such as a lazy eye.
• Children who were sexually abused by their relatives and perhaps even adding to that, the parent took the perpetrator’s side because the parent was co-dependent on the perpetrator due to their own inner wounded child and was afraid to be alone.
• Children who were neglected and/or abused on some level whether verbally, emotionally, physically, sexually or all of the above.

The origins do not even have to be so extreme or constant! It might have also been caused by a singular incident that happened involving someone you deeply admired or looked up to and they made a negative comment or took a negative action towards/against you and this situation was never properly handled emotionally. These things can scar or negatively impact you as well and stick with you without you even fully remembering or realizing. And not everyone will be affected equally. Trauma can happen easily, especially when no one is asking the child about their feelings or acknowledging them for who they really are as a person while the rest of the environment directly or indirectly supports these negative thought patterns.

Additionally, even just making a child behave a certain way or follow certain norms, expectations and standards can also deeply harm or limit a child in the long run. If a child is constantly being pushed to excel at things they may not be interested in, they get it in their head that only if they are successful at it, will they be accepted and rewarded and feel worthy. To dive deeper into self-worth, check out Why Achievement Has Nothing To Do With Self-Worth.

Often, the parents have unresolved trauma and subconscious conditioning that energetically affects the child without them realizing it. For example, if the parent is constantly focused on dieting and/or body image, children can often pick up on that even just energetically and start exhibiting similar behaviors without what may seem like an obvious cause. This can often then show up in adulthood as body image issues, disordered eating habits, and obsession with working out, for example, in order to feel worthy and validated.

Likewise, a child who is constantly around a parent who is aggressive in nature, will often pick up on this energy and tendencies as well and the child’s “vice” may become starting fights or being violent later in life. Nonetheless, the child would want same thing as a person with any other vice: some form of unconditional love and acceptance.

As you can see, there are many ways trauma can be caused and there is no one formula to know how someone will be affected. 

These traumas create voids in us that make us feel we are not enough, or we are not worthy of love or valued in any way. These events and situations can crush our self-esteem and skew our sense of self-worth for years to come.

How The Ego Uses The External World to Validate And Perpetuate Itself

As discussed above, voids are created within us as children whenever we are invalidated in some form or another or treated with conditional love. This is because we only feel worthy or adequate if we meet those conditions or we don’t feel worthy and loveable at all. We, therefore, don’t feel worthy “just because” or just by being ourselves, just as we are, whatever that may be.

Once that happens, our ego looks for ways that the external world can fill those voids that were created. Our ego searches externally to make us feel loved, worthy, and accepted. We learn to look externally because we have been made to feel deep down we alone are not good enough in some way, or that we don’t deserve love and acceptance, or that we are incapable of love. That we need something else to make us whole or complete or of value.

These backwards ways follow us into adulthood and we seek love and safety from external sources to attempt to make our inner child (the child that had not felt pure love, acceptance, or safety for just being themselves) feel loved and protected. However, those methods will be fleeting, as they are conditional and purely based on whether or not those conditions are being met. One moment you may have it, but when you don’t you go back to feeling unloved/unsafe.

Examples:

If you are filling your void externally instead of internally:

• You may be a star athlete and feel great and successful. Then, you suffer a severe injury and now you don’t have that star athlete “status” to fill your void. (This is not when someone is sad or depressed because they can’t do the sport they love anymore, this is simply when the “status” was the most important aspect.)

• You may feel powerful and successful because you are a high-ranking member of a company with a large salary and with many people that report to you. Then, you are laid off and now you feel worthless and unsuccessful.

Of course, these are just examples, however, the idea is clear. If you rely on something externally to feel worthy but without it, you feel unworthy in some capacity, then it is a temporary fix and it’s time to start going inward to fill your void.

We Live In A World Of External Validation Due To A Widespread Internal Sense of Unworthiness & Unfulfillment

Once you become aware of this egoic need for external validation, you begin to see it in all of society, at least here in the West. Addictions of all kinds be it hoarding, shopping, couponing, smoking, eating, working out, body modifications, drugs, alcohol, work, serial dating, sex, porn, superficial friends, etc. Whatever your “drug” of choice may be, ALL destructive, distractive, and obsessive tendencies point back to this loss or lack of internal control. Once internal control is lost (or never nurtured) and deep wounds remain, external control is attempted. By engaging in activities like these excessively, we are attempting to supplement our ‘self’ to make ourselves seem “better” or more “worthy” to the outside world, to be accepted or to fit the idea or identity that has been created about us, and to fill that internal void.

This use of external vices falls into two main categories:

1. Actively trying to fill the void externally.
2. Avoiding the inner void entirely (numbing).

Using external vices to avoid going within is a form of numbing ourselves to the inner pain or void. We are aware of the void on some level and we are attempting to avoid feeling it or dealing with it.

Usually, it is a combination of both.

We often have no control over this loss of internal control when it happens because it usually happens when we are children and we are not aware it is happening.

The inner void is often emphasized by that inner voice or inner critic that stops you from doing things you want to do, that tells you you aren’t good enough, that you don’t deserve love, that you aren’t worthy, and all of those unhelpful and limiting stories.

Generally, we do not overcome this conditioning until we are somehow prompted to do so, usually by some form of pain.

Pain is what forces us to change, whether by our world crumbling around us, asking ourselves why things do not seem to be working, or by a severe incident that pushes us over our threshold of tolerance, sometimes a near-death experience or a profound loss of some sort.

Either the discomfort of not feeling fulfilled becomes too great to bear any longer, and the journey inward finally begins, or there is actual pain and suffering caused by an event or situation that forces us to start looking at things differently.

I am including a personal example next of how this can, and often does play out.

My Personal Experience 

I would like to preface this briefly by saying that I love my parents and I have healed all of this stuff and they did the best they could with the tools they were given, as we all do. I am merely describing the dynamic that existed previously to demonstrate how this wounding came to be. I have since drastically improved my relationships with them by healing my emotional trauma.

Brief Summary of Emotional Wounding During My Childhood

In my own experience, my need for external validation was due to my inner child’s deep fear of rejection.

In my childhood, it felt as though I could never do anything that was good enough based on the words and actions of my parents. It didn’t matter if I said yes or no, hot or cold, etc. the answer would always be used against me and it would always be wrong. It was like walking on thin ice in my parents’ home. I never knew when someone was going to explode. Often, I was laughed at, ridiculed, or criticized for just being myself. On top of that, I was told things like “you’ll have a hard time finding a partner if you’re overweight”, “you’re too sensitive”, “you’re too this…you’re not enough that…” This all then translated to me desperately seeking acceptance outside the home.

How it played out in early adulthood…short answer: MAJOR CODEPENDENCY

I wanted to be wanted. I sought acceptance, by almost anyone who would give it. I just wanted to be loved and appreciated for who I was and for what I had to say.

I spent a lot of my college years seeking love and acceptance in other emotionally wounded people who fed my ego and gave me what I thought I wanted. I sought love and validation in romantic partners. But it never scratched the itch, it was always fleeting, as external circumstances are.

In college, my naivety and skewed subconscious patterns had me thinking things like: well, guys want sex, so if I am very sexual in nature, I will get their love and attention. I often tried to find ways to be ‘perfect’ in order to be accepted by others. I showered others with my attention and effort. I even bought gifts or baked things for various “love interests” who showed almost no reciprocation and did not treat me with respect but gave me some attention. But the lack of reciprocation did not stop me, because I just felt I needed to do more or better and I needed to “earn” love, as I had been taught in childhood.

And then when the love or attention wasn’t there anymore, my ego would go on overdrive and send long messages to these “love interests” describing their rude behavior and how it was disrespectful. I was attempting to convince them to treat me better, essentially blaming them for why I did not feel loved or accepted instead of me simply walking away from treatment I did not deserve.

I gave my power away by placing my fragile sense of self-worth and validation into the hands of others and when disrespectful people tossed what I perceived was my self-worth into the garbage with their words and actions, I would spiral and feel worthless, lost and confused.

I was attempting to fill my inner void with sex and guys who I thought were into me. I would tell myself I just needed to do more and then they would love me, and then I would feel loved, accepted, fulfilled, and validated.

Taking a MAJOR step towards healing

I also used alcohol and drugs to numb the pain and the void and turned to food to ease the discomfort and unfulfillment that continuously bubbled below the surface. Fortunately, my active interests and my discipline never allowed me to get out of control or to become obese but had those not been present, I very well may have.

After moving halfway across the country after college graduation to get away from everything, start fresh, and put myself back together, I unfortunately continued the subconscious pattern of seeking out romantic partners to fill that inner void. It wasn’t as reckless as before but, still, it was there. I was not even aware I was doing it as my toxic subconscious programming hadn’t been cleared out yet and was still driving the bus.

The tides starting to turn

By 2016, however, I had done a great deal of soul unearthing because I had finally committed to figuring out why certain things hadn’t worked, like finding a great guy who wanted commitment. For the first time in my adult life, I began to draw real boundaries with toxic people in my life who I was not yet ready to fully let go of. I was committing to goals again and felt great about myself and where I was heading. I got myself into shape and upheld regular self-care habits, so confidence was high.

I had also just experienced a rapid-fire concession of friendships/romantic partners that put me on the fast track to unlearning the toxic, learned subconscious programming i.e. these were major life lessons that basically smacked me over the head. Through those relationships, I had observed and quickly realized things weren’t working and I became a devoted and curious student to how healthy, loving, and respectful relationships and friendships worked.  This was the beginning of truly overcoming my emotional wounds that had followed me all the way from childhood.

You will find a lesson for growth and healing inside everyone and everything you meet once you know to look for it.

The awakening journey when I least expected it

After learning some important lessons about relationships, the universe decided I was ready for more. That year, I was thrown into my deep spiritual awakening journey brought on by meeting my twin flame (eternal soul connection). It is an insanely crazy ride in itself and is a topic for another post. Essentially, that experience forced me to overcome a large part of my unhealthy subconscious programming that was left because it was a sort of condensed, deeper awakening. To put it simply, it triggered forced out of me most of the toxic programming I had left because of the pain and suffering.

Sidenote: An awakening journey is not a comfortable, zen experience, especially in the beginning. It is extremely uncomfortable and often painful because it triggers all of the pain and void within you right to the surface to be cleared once and for all.

Relying on external factors to fill the inner void is unsustainable and flimsy. When those factors cease to exist and conditions are not being met, without a strong inner validation and sense of wholeness, our world can crumble quickly and easily.

How I Validated Myself From Within and Had The Ego Take a Backseat

I began to fulfill myself internally by:

• healing my emotional wounds (infinite number of ways to do this)
• figuring out what the heck unconditional self love is and working on that
• pausing the mind-chatter and becoming present through meditation and mindfulness
• validating and accepting myself unconditionally by changing or removing harmful thought patterns (first becoming conscious of them through discomfort or being triggered i.e. every time I got triggered, I asked myself why I felt triggered and what was it trying to teach me
• following my intuition, heart and soul and not being afraid of all those inner demons and the effort it took to understand and befriend them

Now, I feel fulfilled in life because I internally validate myself by knowing my worth, following the truth of my soul, and living my true purpose. I accept myself unconditionally for all that I am…and believe me, there was a lot of “weirdness” and “imperfections” I had to figure out how to accept =p. I feel worthy and complete and the love that fills and surrounds me from within is all that I need. Everything else is a bonus.

This is just a brief summary of the journey of filling your void from within but it is a good place to start.

The only way to fully and sustainable fill the void is from WITHIN. You, yourself, must learn to feel whole and complete JUST AS YOU ARE, without the “perfect” body, the financial success, the fame, the relationship, or the brand-name clothing. It does not mean you become complacent in your life, but it does mean that you will feel happy, fulfilled, and worthy whether those things exist in your life or not.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Now that I have largely overcome these deep wounds of rejection and my perceived need for external validation, I wish to help others on their journey of self-love. It took years for me to really not only grasp but also apply all of these lessons so if sharing my experience can help you make your journey a little easier and less painful, I am so grateful to do so. Articles like this helped me tremendously and now it is my turn to spread the love. The world would be a totally different place if we all healed our deep inner child wounds with our own self-love.

Peace & Love,

Bri

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