httpv://youtu.be/_Y3wi4hLpt0

No matter how much love you get from others it will never be enough if you aren’t loving yourself.

Seeking love, validation, approval outside of yourself is a recipe for misery.

You are a love addict when you NEED the love, approval of those in your life in order to feel ok. When your sense of self worth is dependent on other’s loving you, you end up needing other people’s love like a drug.

When you think that you are lacking something inside or that you aren’t whole and complete, you end up seeking it outside thinking that person will somehow complete you.

This creates dependency since you have made the other person responsible for your sense of freedom and inner security. You will never feel free living this way.

The love you get outside yourself temporarily fulfills that unmet need deep within you. But ultimately it isn’t lasting. The more you need the love from outside, the less free you are to authentically be yourself.

A million likes on Facebook will never be enough if you don’t like yourself.

The whole world thinking you are amazing will never be enough if you don’t appreciate yourself.

So what do you love about yourself?

It’s easy to focus on what’s not perfect and what you don’t like about you. But that serves nothing.

Stop waiting to love yourself until you are “perfect”.

Start focusing on what you do love about you right now, and then what you love about you will expand.

Focus on what is right about you rather than what is wrong.

The more you love yourself, the stronger you become within, and the less you will need love from people outside. Then it’s easier to NOT betray yourself, and instead, make honoring choices for yourself. Either you give love to yourself in a healthy way, or you will seek it outside in unhealthy ways that cause you pain.

As you do this, the fear of abandonment and patterns of self betrayal falls away because no matter what, you have YOU!

You are then never alone.

Commit to you.

Reassure yourself.

Love yourself.

Be your own best friend.

Loving yourself is a choice. It’s the power that you have.

When you love yourself, you set yourself FREE.

Real freedom is an inside job.

Love.Now

Kute

P.S. If you are ready to share your gifts with the world and live your purpose fully join me at www.boundlessblissbali.com. Apply today for an interview! 

P.P.S. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

7 comments on “How To Stop Being A Love Addict and Seeking External Validation

  1. J E on

    What if you love yourself and know what your worth. Your husband does not appreciate you. He did in the beginning but now he has emotionally shut down. Great provider but emotionally distant.

    Reply
  2. Deborah on

    Are you a parent? Have you ever raised a child, cared night and day for an infant? I am curious, because if you ever have then you might understand how a child learns to love by being loved, held, responded to, mirrored. A child learns to love by the experience of being loved by another human being outside of him or herself. Do you have any understanding, for instance of breast feeding? The babies cries stimulate the mother’s milk to let down and her body releases the bonding hormone oxytocin (the same hormone that is released in orgasm). The baby then nurses and is fed on the bliss/bonding hormone of the mother. It doesn’t happen alone. It only happens in intimate, consistent relationship. We are designed to bond and connect. We are designed from conception to be in intimate dance with another in order to grow and develop. If a baby doesnt get held or responded to , they cannot thrive, they can even die. We as humans are not independent but rather interdependent. So, for instance, when a person is abandoned at birth, not nursed, raised in an institution or abusive home where the only touch they get is violent, the only interaction they get is negative then, the developmental design gets all screwed up. Something that was meant to happen by design didn’t happen. It’s a total set-up for what is called “love addiction” which is a horrible phrase for a person who perhaps never has experienced true love from outside himself as was intended by design. There is something magnificent in the human search for love outside ourselves. To me it is the soul’s attempt to get the requisite developmental needs met through any available means. There is a certain kind of mad genius in our relentless search to get our needs met. So much of what passes for addiction of all kinds in our society maybe has to do with the lack of bonding, nurturing and love from the outside. As a “love addict” in recovery I know that a huge part of healing for me was to have a healthy mother surrogate to model love for me that I did not experience growing up abandoned by my mother and raised by a violent, alcoholic father. Yes, everything you have said in your video is true and there are more truths that need to be said. To be fully human is to be interdependent and to learn the dance of intimacy, bonding and connection.

    Reply
    • Kristina on

      Yes, sad to have experienced uncaring, even abusive parenting. I have been there. I have not found any mothering model or modeling of bonding so far, although I tried (even in psychotherapy ).
      Enjoy your healing experience, Deborah.

      Reply
  3. Lin on

    Dear Knute: I so enjoy your videos. I experience a peeling off off layers like a snake shedding it’s skin in all the areas you present. It’s an ongoing journey of always returning to love in every circumstance. I am happy you are bringing this to so many. I so appreciate your enthusiasm and truthfulness and cutting to the chase. It’s delightful and always makes me laugh. Wondrous and abundant blessings, Lin

    Reply
  4. Kristina on

    I am already enough, right now. Love it.
    No external validation can give me my inner validation, love, attention, support, help, the “enoughness”.
    This might be the reason why I attached myself to the idea of being a doctor, being “someone”, belonging to a social group with high acknowledgement, being good, to the extend that I felt as truly nobody, failure of my life purpose when I could have not made myself into a pretzel. I needed the validation. Huge internal suffering.
    I went through trash, one unhealthy job -educational relationship where I let myself put down so much by the supervisor for many years, until I started to think about “how did I manage to finish basic school” ? I have betrayed myself, compromised, stopped my mind evolution
    (I was not aware of what it is else possible, if I knew I´d made better, I only repeated my childhood mis-validation, but today, it feels like a self-betrayal when I´d be conscious).
    This experience left me broken for years.
    Until this experience, it was not conscious to me how much I undervaluate myself, but deeper down I see there is this lack of validation, attention, help, and abuse in childhood that is keeping it in place. If I will not learn to give the validation to me, I´d end up in some burn-out in job.
    Cure for me seems to be also to have compassion for this soul-seeking-hunger (for me it is concrete the intelect, support and some body knowledge, practicability) where I feel as not good enough, find it in myself and unhoop into freedom. I´d like to believe that it is possible to feel validated in myself no matter what !
    Is this honoring me right now, is this loving for me right now ? Great questions.
    For me, it means to have the relationship with myself and be my best support, best guidance, best doctor-healer, best teacher, best philosoph or best scientist, trust in me that I am enough, without the external validation, help, guidance, social systems, the right education etc.

    Reply
  5. Stephanie on

    Kute, thank you for this honest, heartfelt video. Sometimes you need to be reminded, that you are caught up in addiction and not true love. Thank you again for the wake-up call. Love your videos!

    Reply
  6. noname on

    I realized a few days ago and become aware that I seek validation.
    your explanation is wonderful, but you didn’t help with how to overcome this problem.
    Anyway, I will continue searching for solution and also I watch your other videos. Thank you.

    Reply

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