I recently released my first book, 50 Ways to Live Life Consciously, and true to everything in my life, this experience is giving me so many opportunities to ‘walk my talk’. It is also reaffirming my belief that one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and help our children learn is that of self-validation.

Many of you know already that one of my strongest and most consistent messages is to learn to validate yourself. This means that knowing who you are, valuing who you are, loving who you are and being certain of the information that is yours all comes from your inner-voice and inner-self.

Most people unconsciously seek outside of themselves for reassurance, for understanding and for recognition, but when you learn to do all of this on your own, you create a life of confidence, certainty and groundedness that is seldom rocked by the thoughts, comments or opinions of others. I say seldom, because, heck, we are human and we do carry old wounding that’s just hovering around waiting to be healed. But on the whole if you learn to validate yourself you can evolve to a place where others have little effect on you.

Stop and think for a minute about how much time and energy you or those you know put into thinking about, caring about and worrying about what others think. The reason we do this is because we unconsciously gather our sense-of-self through the reactions of others.

Learning to value yourself and teaching your child to do the same is one of the greatest gifts you can obtain because it creates true freedom.

As a child I was incredibly sensitive and in fourth grade the boys figured out that they could make me cry by making fun of my name. It became a daily activity to see if they could make me cry, and every day they succeeded. If I had the awareness today of self-validation, that never would have happened. Some kids are impervious to what others have to say or what others think and that’s wonderful. Others children need to learn to self-validate. As Conscious Parents it is our opportunity to help them learn this skill.

Let me get back to my own wonderful opportunity to walk-my-talk. I’m currently doing a blog tour for 50 Ways To Live Life Consciously. It’s a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Bloggers agree to host me on their site. Some simply promote the book, some review it, for others I answer interview questions and still for others, I write a guest posts. So in short it’s a lot of writing. In addition to the blog tour, people who have already read the book are starting to post reviews at Amazon.com and also at BarnesandNoble.com.

Reviews: in the past even saying the word would make my stomach jump and that’s because the value of what I offered was wrapped up in how people would perceive it.

Here’s where I get to walk-my-talk and why I absolutely love this process. Once we start to play with the notion of self-validation and we are ‘getting it’, it can be easy to dismiss a negative review because we can say to ourselves ‘that’s ok, because I am not my book.’ Where it actually gets more challenging is when someone loves your book. The opportunity comes in being able to hold that space of self-validation even when someone resonates with it so much and tells you it changed their life. What I have come to realize is that the book will create change for anyone who reads it – whether they love it or hate or are indifferent. It will change them because they have to decide if the information resonates as their truth or not and in that moment of decision they are further solidifying the path that is right for them.

By having the ability to validate myself I’m able to let the book stand on its own and let people experience it however they will. Whether they like it or not is not about me. It’s really about them.

And that is the point of this post today. What other people think about you, feel about you or say about you is ultimately about them. It’s about how you make THEM feel or how THEY respond to you. Love you or hate you, it only affects you if your identity is wrapped up in how others see you.

As Conscious Parents our opportunity is to help our children reach this level of self-validation, because if they can achieve this early in life, if they can be so certain in who they are and what they share with the world, their lives and the world they create will be amazing.

© 2012 Christine Agro

Christine Agro is a clairvoyant, naturopath, Master Herbalist, conscious mom and author of 50 Ways to Live Life Consciously as well as of The Conscious Living Wisdom Cards (Special Moms’ Edition). Christine is founder of The Conscious Mom’s Guide, a membership site where she helps support you on your own journey of living life consciously and on your journey of being a Conscious parent. You can also join Christine on Facebook. To contact Christine or to schedule an appointment with her please email her.