Episode 99: Broken Relationships, Resilience, and The Danger of Validation
Would you consider yourself the kind of person that goes in and out of relationships? Are you the cause, or would you say it’s the other person? If it is the other person, why is it that you find yourself staying in the relationship? What need is the relationship providing? Perhaps it’s validation. And if it is, the need for validation can easily lead to burnout. Ask Moses. Find out about this and more when you listen to this week’s episode: Broken Relationships, Resilience, and The Danger of Validation.
Topics
- Broken Relationships
- Resilience
- The Danger of Validation
- Why are people leaving?
- Why are you leaving?
- Are people tired of you?
- How the Need for Validation leads to Burnout
- How Margin and Stillness Helps with resilience
At Valley of Grace, we believe in thriving. In order to thrive, we have to begin grounding ourselves in our identity. The first step in making this happen, is dealing with the effects of our childhood wounds. Click here to get started in Online Therapy today.****This is an amazon affiliate link where a commission is paid to offsite the cost of providing this information to you.
Podcast Transcription
Speaker 0 00:00:17 Music plays. Valley of Grace
Speaker 1 00:01:17 Welcome to the Healing Our Brokenness podcast where we dissect problems and solutions that exists among broken people, living in a broken world. And we also believe here at Healing our brokenness, that we’re going from broken relationships to resilience and flourishing. Today’s episode is episode number 99. And the title of this episode is broken relationships, resilience, flourishing, and the dangers of validation.
Now, when it comes to relationships, it takes a while to get to know people. And then after that, we have the time period, of getting to know them. We can pretty much tell if that person is going to work out for us. And this is whether it’s a romantic relationship or it could be a friendship or all of the above. And so, sometimes we get to the point where we are staying in our relationships too long and, they could be for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1 00:02:45 And one of the reasons that we can stay in relationships too long would be simply just being in denial. We see the writing on the wall, so to speak and we are still trying to make a go out of it. Either the person is not treating us, right, or we’re not able to meet their needs, and there are consistent patterns of inconsistency.
For whatever reason, it’s not working out, and we are refusing to accept reality for the way that it is. So a lot of times we will stay in broken relationships longer than we really need to be doing. Another reason why we may stay in relationships would be for the simple fact of it fulfilling a need that we have. So we know that the relationship is not good.
Speaker 1 00:03:53 We know that this person is not good for us. They had not bringing out the best in who we are as individuals, not helping to bring out holiness in us. They are not helping us to bring out the qualities in us that, would basically help to elevate us in our calling in our worship of God and our walk with God. But we are in every toxic/incompatible relationship because we have woundedness inside.
And what is happening is we are having a need being met through that particular individual. And that’s why we are staying in something that we should no longer be in, indication of woundedness that has not been taken care of. But we are blinded to seeing that because we are addicted to having that need met at all costs.
Speaker 1 00:04:55 So either we are being a savior to someone enabling them in areas of their irresponsibility or it’s something within us that is satisfying us.
That’s keeping us in that relationship. And sometimes it takes someone on the outside to come in to say, Hey, I noticed, you know, you keep telling me about the same thing where I notice you keep doing the same thing in response, or to initiate. Is there something else going on here that you want to talk about ? And so today I want to talk about Moses, who got to the point where he was standing and being judge over the people from morning, all the way till night. And we all know that if we’re doing something from early in the morning, all the way to night, nighttime, eventually that’s going to lead to burn out is definitely not going to help us to be resilient individuals.
Speaker 1 00:06:04 Because if you’re trying to develop a resilience emotionally, mentally, and physically, we have to have boundaries in place according to when we know our energy levels are at their best. And so what he was doing by wearing himself out, standing there and advising the people, he was not allowing himself time alone with God , to get his overflow so that he was be able to overflow and pour out to the people, but his need was being validated. He needed to have that approval. And that’s why he was in it so long. And I’m quite sure he was tired himself, but that need, that inner turmoil that was inside of him, that woundedness of having been rejected as a baby, those seeds and a spirit of rejection was already sewn into him.
Speaker 1 00:07:12 He also didn’t feel in place where he was because he knew that he was not an Egyptian. And it happens sometimes like this with people who are trying to get their identities and ethnicities figured out where, if they’re the child of parents, of two different races or ethnic groups, and sometimes they don’t feel at home in one group. And sometimes they don’t feel at home in another group and them trying to reconcile all of this. So Moses was having some issues with that need for approval and validation from these people, just from people in general.
And so their need to seek help and want guidance and want to judge over them was actually feeding into this need for him. So that means he was getting approval all day long from morning to night. And that could not have been good for his inner ego. And when we are in situations like that, it is so good that we have an inner circle. We have a support group or both. We have friends that see what’s going on, or either hear from what we’re telling them. And they’re coming to us and saying, you know what?
Speaker 1 00:08:43 I don’t think that’s good. Do you mind if I talk to you? You know, if we go out for coffee and we talk and this and that, the other, you know, I’ve been listening to you, and I feel like there are some missing pieces. Tell me about the situation.
One of the things about Moses, as far as trying to develop resilience, is that his body needed to rest, poured into, with the word of God, developing emotion intelligence, and to have emotional intelligence, you have to be able to be developing emotion skills. Because when you are talking to people all day long from morning to night, and you’re not taking a break to rejuvenate yourself, their issues end up weighing down in your spirit and soul.
Speaker 1 00:09:41 And so what happens though, we’re wounded and broken and that area needed validation and approval. We don’t even have time to think about that. We just try to fulfill that or whatever needs, which has to be addressed, or the cycle keeps continuing. Thank the Lord for Moses’s situation that he listened to his father-in-law. And this is what it says in the scripture. I’m going to read it for you guys. When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, right?
What is this you are doing for the people? Why all these people stand around you from morning. So evening, Moses answered him because the people come to seek God’s will, whenever they have it, dispute is brought to me. And I decide between the parties and informed them of God’s decrees and laws. Moses’s father-in-law replied.
Speaker 1 00:10:41 What you are doing is not good. You people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too hard. You can not handle it alone.
Listen now to me, and I’ll give you some advice and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him, teach them. .. select capable, men, from men who fear God, trustworthy, men, who hate dishonest gain and appoint them officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you. The simple cases they can decide themselves that will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this God so commands, you would able to stand the strength and all of these people will go home satisfied.
Speaker 1 00:11:53 Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything. He chose capable men and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. They served as judges for the people at all times the difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones, they decided themselves. So like I said before, praise the Lord that Moses listened to his father-in-law.
And that was the beginning of ability to be able to be resilient is that he was able to take advice. His father-in-law served as a guide for him. And when we are going through our trials and tribulations, and our stories, we need someone to serve as a guide for us. This is what, his father-in-law DID for him. And that gave him space to be still, have that margin of space and time with God, to be able to deal with his own wounded business of validation.
Speaker 1 00:13:03 Because what happens is if we do not deal with that woundedness, then what happens is we’re always depending on other people to validate us, we’re always dependent upon other people to help us to feel worthy.
We’ll always dependent upon other people to help us to feel that approval when the only one that could give it to us, and that will fill us up is God. And every time we feel like, you know, we have arrived at a certain level of healing, there might still be times where every blue moon, that brokenness area will come up, we can say, dear Jesus! God help me! You have already validated me with your son’s death on the cross, I am worthy. I am valued, redeemed, the righteousness of God in Christ. I do not need anyone else’s validation to approve I’m yours Lord.
Speaker 1 00:13:51 So it’s not saying we’re not gonna continue to struggle. It won’t control us as it was doing with Moses. But as I said, thank God. He listened in the cases where we don’t listen. And we continue in what we’re doing that after a while, people will get tired of us. We’re human beings.
We’re not God. And they’ll say, you know what? You keep telling me about the same thing over and over again. We’ve given you our advice. You won’t take our advice. You keep saying the same thing over and over again. And it wears them out is what ends up happening. It just literally wears them out. Self pity is toxic and it wears people out. Victim mode can be toxic and wear people out.
Speaker 1 00:14:46 And so what happens is either we will leave because they won’t keep validating our brokenness, or they will leave because they’re sick and tired of hearing us. And we ended up having to come to the end of our ropes in a situation of languishing. Literally, before we get a clue, like something is wrong here, people keep leaving. My emotional, mental health is going downstream.
And when it comes to validation, it will go downstream because we have to keep constantly seeking that approval. And that addiction for approval. One while, I cleaned all day long to make sure that the house looked a certain way. And it was like, no matter how clean it was, it still wasn’t enough. I had to have it as a museum and I had to seek approval and validation and my self worth from my ex-husband and not realizing I was turning that into an idol. I was turning cleaning into an idol.
And the bigger problem was me and my identity. And knowing that God is enough. That was the biggest problem I had. Knowing he was enough, and that I did not deserve certain treatment, and have to prove anything different. So I hope that something that was said here today would resonate with you. I want to thank Timothy Horton for bringing our intro and outro music to us every week. And I want to thank you guys as my listeners for coming in and tuning in to Healing Our Brokenness podcast.
Until next time!
Speaker 0 00:16:21 . Music plays. Valley of Grace.