The New BASE Sub

[Shannon]

Ok well, I didn't mean to "challenge" you or anything, it just seems like someone who's self-validating could easily lose touch with reality. When I hear self-validating I think of someone who's an asshole or a douchbag. No one man is an island man, sometimes the people around you have a point and sometimes they don't. You just have to know who best to surround yourself with.

But whatever, self-validate away.

How do I know who I can trust? People who have the same goals I do, or people I look up to or admire.

I never had a positive male role model in my life, but that doesn't mean I'm going to obsess over being alpha, I'm going to learn from the people that I know I can trust.

I'm not taking it as a challenge. :-) It's just very important to understand what self validation is.

When you think self validating, you should be thinking "healthy emotional state". "Assholes" and "douchebags" are by definition NOT self validating, because they are such as a response to an inner fear that they are for whatever reason not good enough. Assholes and douchebags are such because they are drowning in false ego and self awareness usually, as well as false self-valuation (valuing themselves above everyone else without restraint in an effort to hide from fear of not being good enough or worthwhile), but not self validation. If they were self validating, they would have neither need, nor desire to be assholes or douchebags because that would not be necessary as an ego defense against insecurity about their value.

In effect, the outer display is usually a reversal of the inner truth. Arrogant and egotistical people typically feel insecure and unsure of themselves internally, for example. Jerks are afraid they're not liked, not likeable, etc.

So to perceive oneself as valid makes one secure in themselves, and that relieves a lot of the false ego, game playing and other BS we see from the average person. It doesn't mean that one cannot listen to the points of views of others, just that a self validating person does not need those points of view from others to be valid in and of him or herself. I don't need my neighbor to tell me my clothes are nice for me to believe my clothes are nice, for example, because I am confident in my ability to pick out clothes I like, and I don't need anyone else to decide f they're "good enough" because I like them and that's valid, and I understand that.

In my experience, "people who have the same goals I do" has nothing to do with trustworthiness. In fact half the time, that's gotten me stabbed in the back or betrayed because they were either competing with me for the same goal, or because they believed that such was necessary for themselves to succeed. I have also been betrayed by people I looked up to and admired. Those are not indicators of trust. You have to be able to validate what is worthwhile for you to accept for yourself and what is not, from those sources. Which is self validation.

Being self validating would have nothing to do with losing sight of reality because self validation simply means that you can make and accept your own choices for yourself. Is it losing sight of reality for me to choose one type of car over another, because I happen to like the style, even if my best friend thinks it's ridiculous? Is it losing sight of reality for me to fail to feel bad when a woman I encounter at a bar shoots me down, whether or not I was actually hitting on her, because I don't need her approval or acceptance to be in my natural state of emotional calm, health and balance? Is it losing sight of reality for me to choose to not drink alcohol when everyone around me is, because I don't particularly care for how it feels to be drunk, or need it for dealing with social anxiety? All of these things are things a self validating person would do.