what are you trying to prove?

on the beliefs that shape our lives

The Accolade by Edmund Leighton

My father is a kind man with a rigid comfort zone. He’s generous with his actions, in the areas he feels comfortable with, but there’s always been a limit, a wall beyond which he won’t cross. Like so many men of his generation, he has a deeply rooted discomfort with emotions. 

It’s not that he won’t try to support me emotionally, in times of crisis. It’s just that he lacks the vocabulary to do so, and is quick to retreat to more comfortable territory. He would prefer to avoid emotional subject matter unless it’s a crisis.

As a child, I internalized that avoidance as a form of invalidation. Since my emotions were not welcome, since they made him uncomfortable, I didn’t want them. I tried to shove them away or hide them. For a long time, I was quite successful.

But I’m a deeply sensitive person, and I couldn’t hide that forever. There were parts of me that yearned to be seen and validated by my father. I craved the feeling of true unconditional acceptance, the feeling that he welcomed all parts of me. I didn’t want to feel like what I felt was a source of discomfort; I wanted to feel whole and loved.

against invalidation

When our experience is invalidated, there’s a natural desire to fight back and try to prove its validity. If we can’t get acceptance as a matter of course, we try to earn it. An idea took root in me, at a subconscious level: if I could prove to my father that my sensitivity and emotionality were valid, then he would have to recognize and accept them.

Here, we have to pause and ask: what does valid mean? The answer will always be personal. In this case, I received praise from my father mostly for my accomplishments (in school, in sports), and so that became part of my inner narrative. If I could show my father that my emotions weren’t interfering with my achievements, that my sensitivity wasn’t a problem, then I would get the recognition I sought. Even better, if I could achieve success as a result of my intuitive side, then I would prove that he should recognize its value.

In other words, I had to be successful in a particular way, in order to be loved the way I wanted.

the inner narrative

Our most troublesome beliefs are always some variation on this theme. “I have to do/be X in order to get the love I want.” These kinds of inner narratives shape entire lives. They contort us into something we barely recognize, out of sheer desperation for a sense of belonging and love.

For me, this narrative shows up in two ways: through a hesitation to pursue what I really want, and through a drive to pursue external accomplishments. The hesitation is rooted in a fear that if I fail while following my intuition, then my father will be “right”; my emotions are a problem. The drive for external accomplishments, in turn, is rooted in a straightforward belief that more accomplishments = more recognition. These two combine to create an overexertion towards what I don’t want but think I need, and an underexertion towards what feels intuitively correct.

There’s a push-pull here: towards external accomplishment, away from anything that is meaningful but risky. I’m no longer orienting myself towards what feels good to me, but instead working hard to satisfy these two competing desires.

By trying to prove that I’m worthy of a particular form of love, I end up distancing myself from what is actually most nourishing for me.

“what happens then?”

My favourite question in my client work is “what happens then?” Often, we hold deep desires or fears without knowing what we want or what we’re actually afraid of. Doing inner work is a slow, patient process of uncovering what assumptions and beliefs are driving your behaviour. To do that, it helps to know what the core of those beliefs are.

In this case, I can start by asking “what happens if I do get the recognition I desire from my father?” What would that feel like for me? What would that allow me to do?

To answer this question, I need to sit with it for awhile. I need to ask my thinking mind to step aside, and make space for the unheard parts of me to rise to the surface. I need to give them the space and sense of safety to express themselves. I need to be patient.

The answer that eventually emerges for me is “freedom”. If I have that recognition from my father, then I no longer need to work so hard to prove myself as “valid”, and I’m free to pursue whatever is most meaningful for me. This freedom is accompanied with a deep sense of relaxation and joy. I can feel it in my body as I type this; I pause here to take a moment to breathe into it and let it expand within me.

You can see how funny these beliefs can be. In order to gain the recognition I need to be free, I deny myself the experience of being free. So it goes. But now that I’m clear on what I actually want, I can start moving towards it.

the felt experience

At no point am I going to try to convince a client that what they feel is silly or illogical. I’m not going to try to convince myself to not want my father’s recognition. I’m not going to try to talk myself out of it (in truth, doing so would be even more invalidating). Instead, I’m going to try to give myself the experience I desire.

I know I seek freedom. In your case, depending on your root belief, you might be seeking something like joy, or satisfaction, or relief, or peace. If we’re clear on the experience we want to have, then all we have to do is step towards it.

By imagining myself getting that recognition from my father, and feeling the ensuing relaxation, I am giving myself a felt sense of what I most want. My task is just to amplify that felt sense. That means paying attention to what in my life gives me more access to that feeling. That might include sitting with the feeling, validating my emotions, taking small steps towards goals that are in line with who I am, allowing myself to rest and relax… and so on.

The actual steps don’t matter. What matters is that you are working to create the experience that you most crave. Over time, as you practice amplifying those feelings, you’ll realize you have abundant access to them. They’re not scarce. They’re not something you need to “earn”. The feeling I thought I had to earn from my father, the relaxation and freedom and ease… I can access that right now, in this moment.

There’s still grief. There’s still anger. The core belief is still a part of me. But the urgency begins to lessen. I have more space to make decisions about what is actually meaningful for me, about what I truly want. I also have more space to appreciate my father for who he is, for all that he is able to give me.

Through this practice, you’ll realize you don’t need to claw and fight to get the acceptance or validation or love or recognition that you want. You can create it in your life and in your relationships. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone, not even yourself.

Some questions to start this work of uncovering:

• Where in your life do you feel you have something to prove? How has that shown up for you? How has it felt?

• What happens if you do prove yourself? What experience will that give you access to? What will it feel like in your body?

• How can you access that felt experience today? How can you create more of it in your life? In your relationships?

• If you imagine the version of yourself that had infinite access to the feelings you want, how do they move through the world? How do they feel? How do they relate to other people?

Feel free to share your answers in the comments; thank you so much for reading.

With love & appreciation,

Scott

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