Self-Care: How to Validate Yourself
Self-Care: How to Validate Yourself

Inner Bonding

Dr Margaret Paul explains why self-validation is a crucial part of real self-care and how childhood invalidation can fuel anxiety, shame, addictions, and relationship struggles. She offers simple practices to value your inner child, reduce approval-seeking, and build calmer, more authentic connections.

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12:09•1 Jun 2026

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Self-Care That Actually Heals: Learning to Validate Yourself

Episode Overview

Self-care is more than baths and rest; it includes validating your feelings and inner experience.
Self-validation does not mean excusing harmful behaviour or insisting you are always right.
Many people were not emotionally validated as children and become dependent on others for worth and approval.
No amount of outside approval can heal the pain of self-invalidation; that healing starts from within.
As you validate yourself, you feel safer, less reactive, and your relationships become more genuine and less approval-based.

“"No amount of external validation can heal the wound of self-invalidation."”

What drives someone to seek a life that feels genuinely safe and kind on the inside? This talk with Dr Margaret Paul circles right around that question by focusing on one core skill: learning how to validate yourself. Instead of treating self-care as bubble baths, holidays, or a fancy treat, Dr Paul frames it as a deep inner shift.

She explains that while those external comforts can be "lovely and supportive", they don't meet the basic human need to be "deeply seen, understood, and validated". Growing up, many people heard things like "you're too sensitive" or "you have no reason to be upset", and she shows how those messages can lead adults to constantly chase approval from partners, parents, bosses, or social media. You’ll hear a clear breakdown of what self-validation is and what it isn’t.

It doesn’t mean "excusing harmful behaviour" or telling yourself you’re always right. Instead, it means "compassionately acknowledging that your feelings matter" and treating your inner child as a "multifaceted diamond" whose many qualities deserve attention and care. Dr Paul links this directly to emotional health issues such as anxiety, depression, shame, addictions, and relationship struggles, stressing that "no amount of external validation can heal the wound of self-invalidation".

She offers simple, practical ways to start: naming your feelings without judgement, getting curious about what they’re telling you, and mirroring your essence with phrases like "your creativity is such a gift" or "I just love your laughter". Her style is gentle, spiritual, and very direct, ideal for anyone in recovery or trying to break free from people-pleasing, emotional dependence, or self-criticism.

By the end, you’re left with a strong message: self-validation is "foundational and deeply restorative" and can make relationships calmer, more genuine, and far less draining. Ready to stop outsourcing your worth and start backing yourself from the inside out?

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