External Validation, Anxiety and Following Your Truth
Posting videos every Wednesday is a challenge. Especially now the initial fanfare over the launch of this project has worn off. As the external validation died down week by week — as expected -, I began feeling more and more anxious as each posting day rolled around. That brings up the important subject of my increased need for my own internal validation in the face of less and less external validation. In fact, now is the real challenge as it requires me to fall back on one of the main reasons I am even doing this work; my desire and need to live more authentically. Conversely, I am still quite new to following my own desires and guidance, hence the bombardment of anxiety and resistance I have felt to posting each week. So today I am going to go talk about motivation and why despite our brains best efforts to distract us from things it deems as stressful, ultimately, we must choose to pursue the things we truly want. I wholeheartedly believe that living in alignment and authentically is the route to true happiness and satisfaction in life. It just comes with a bit of challenge.
Positive reward reinforces behavior. That is a fact. Our limbic system serves that very role. To remember what it deems as positive outcomes — anything that releases dopamine — and ultimately create cravings for us to do it again. The opposite is true for what it perceives as negative outcomes. In light of what it perceives as stress, it will actively try to persuade us to avoid that particular behavior through creating urges for other actions it deems beneficial. Of course in my instance, my brain was very happy with me posting once it assumed I would continue getting a great reception following the success of my initial post. It was eager for the dopamine boost. That reflected in my mood which was quite optimistic and motivated when the following Wednesday rolled around. Needless to say, when it began to notice that the fanfare was not so readily available the coming week, it freaked out.
The rush of motivation to put stuff out suddenly turned to doubts over why I was doing this work. Eagerness turned into restraint and my anxiety went through a roof. “Why am I doing this work? Does anyone care? Is this all a waste of time? Do people think I’m weird?”. The high I got posting my first video on anxiety management had turned to overwhelming anxiety after the posting of my 3rd video on Men and Emotions. My brain no longer sensed an instant reward in my work.
The brain is wired for these instant rewards. Evolutionary speaking, it served a purpose. If you needed food to survive you needed it right now. If you needed shelter it was imperative you sourced it right now. There was no time for future thinking because you might not be around tomorrow to think about it. With the external validation waning I no longer had that source of motivation to power me through. The situation is made more complex when anxiety is concerned. As I said before, this area of the brain works opposingly with situations that are causing you stress and will work to pull you away from situations it deems threatening I.E me being myself. My core beliefs up until recently have been that there was no reward in my authentic expression. That there was danger involved in me speaking my truth. Without external validation I am faced with a battle between the anxiety of my conditioned beliefs demotivating me and the deeper, instinctive knowing that I have to do this work.
I knew this work would be a challenge and I also knew that there would be an initial hype and a lull thereafter. That is the process of building any “business”. When the support was not as strong, the struggle was always going to be relying on my own self-trust and self-belief to continue forward. Something I have very little experience with handling. That is part of the process though and this is the stage I have to go through. In that, I am not sure I have ever been in such a stage of expansion and growth before. Every time I am faced with posting a blog or posting a video I am faced with the dilemma between what I have always known — staying small, keeping quiet and pleasing others — or choosing myself. I choose myself. I made a promise to myself that I would never allow anxiety to rule my life again. The words “I can’t do this because I am anxious” are not a part of my vocabulary any longer. Authentically speaking, I don’t feel like I have ever been more aligned to who I truly am and ultimately, the satisfaction and true happiness that comes from that overshadows any resistance that shows up in the process.
The take-home message from this is that you should always be striving for authenticity even if you yourself are trying to stop you from doing that. Maybe speaking my truth served me a purpose and protected me from pain when I was younger but old patterns soon become maladaptive and need to be let go of. The challenge is ultimately a worthy one and one you will overcome.
See my latest video below, I post new ones every Wednesday on subjects surrounding personal development and mental health.
Originally published at https://www.abovethemiddle.org on February 16, 2021.
