How to Go from Neediness to Fulfillment: Let Go of External Validation

[Barb Nangle]

Reflecting on my journey through the 12 steps of recovery, I can see that I previously expected the world and the people in it to meet my needs. I mean for things like validation, love, and acceptance. That seems pretty normal. But what I’ve learned is that if I give those things to myself first, I don’t go to the world to get those things in a clawing, needy way. I want your validation, love, and acceptance, but I don’t need them like I used to. Because I give them to myself

I also wanted the world to adapt to my ideas of how it should run. I thought people should be kind, thoughtful, trustworthy, dependable, and follow through on what they say. It’s fine for me to have those expectations for myself. But I’m going to be continually disappointed if I expect that from everyone, especially people who have shown me they are not those things. 

Very early in my recovery, someone said to me, “Barb, the world was not created to meet your needs.” I couldn’t even wrap my mind around that! I had no idea what that meant. I wrote it on a sticky note and left it on my coffee table for about a year so I could contemplate it from time to time to try to make sense of it.

Now I understand it. Deeply. I was going out into the world to meet my needs and because it wasn’t created to meet MY needs, I was disappointed, let down, resentful, angry, and frustrated. I was full of all those difficult feelings, which I then brought out into the world. 

I tried to hide all that stuff, of course, being the people-pleaser I was. So I kept it all to myself, which meant from time to time I’d explode. My explosions typically happened at times like driving alone in the car when someone wasn’t going fast enough for me, or someone pulled out in front of me. I’d spew out all those shitty emotions while alone in my car, which meant I was the only one affected by then. In fact, thinking back, I think I sort of kept all this FROM myself, not just TO myself. I really didn’t know how much anger and frustration I had until it was gone. 

When I got into recovery and went through the 12 steps, I was able to clean up the wreckage of the past. I learned how to manage my life going forward in ways I just wasn’t taught growing up.  I took full responsibility for my actions and was no longer blaming the world, the people around me, my family, or anyone else for my difficulties.

All that crap that had been spewing out of me is no longer there. I'm emptied of it. Now have peace and serenity most of the time. Most of the time I’m happy, joyous, and free. Which means I'm no longer looking to the world to meet my needs. I now understand it’s up to me to meet my own needs.

I have a quote (on yet another sticky note) on the mirror in my bathroom: 

 

“It’s a delusion that the outside world could give us satisfaction
if only things went our way.”

 

It's not the outside world that's going to get me the things that I want and need. It's my internal world, what’s going on inside of me, that will do that. How I treat myself matters. My relationship with my Higher Power that matters. Those are the things that are really going to transform my life. And they have, dramatically. And they’ll continue to do so. 

Now, instead of trying to go to the world to get my needs met in some clawing, desperate, needy way, I go to the world to give. My codependence, which looked to the outside world like giving behavior, was really about getting: getting affirmation and approval. But now that I give those things to myself, I don’t need them from you. I want them, but I don’t need them.

I now give from a genuine place of caring rather than from a desire to get your approval, feel like I matter, and belong. Now that I have love, happiness, joy, peace, and serenity inside of me most of the time, and I'm able to give that to the world. 

I can go to the world and give to the world without needing something in return. I can be of service to God and my fellows which is my purpose here. Thank you 12 steps of recovery and thank you Higher Power!

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