F*ck Healing, & Other Stuff About Validation

I'm really so over this.

I think we lost sight of the mission.

The goal of healing isn’t to feel better about your circumstances, it’s to be more comfortable in your own skin. It’s about growth and understanding through a lens of curiosity and forgiveness. It’s about creating an opportunity to unlock the realest version of you, without crumbling under the expectations of others.

I think a lot of people are getting this wrong.

Over the past couple of days I went on a little bit of an anti-healing tear, but you know, in a very Leffler type of way.

I’m not going to recap those videos, but you can watch them here & here on IG or here & here on TikTok. Also, if you’re not following me there… what are you doing?

The response to these videos was overall, pretty great.

But of course there were also some haters.

Behind door number one was the “how dare you tell people how to heal” types of hate.

Behind door number two were the folks defending how they healed, particularly through… watching videos.

And yes, I am very aware of the irony of this. Me, being a content creator, telling you to not consume my content.

Here’s the thing…

You can’t heal through information alone, you have to heal through feeling. If a video, podcast or book inspires you, that is fantastic, but then put it down. Go out and live your life.

If you really want to heal, you need to take action.

This is the number one thing that annoys me the most with a lot of the bigger creators out there. Everyone’s being too nice, too vague, relying on making you FEEL better, than actually giving you the tools to be better.

Honestly, this keeps me up at night, because it’s a critical reflection point of how I want to serve YOU, my community. It’s not about standing out for the sake of standing out but it’s about giving you the power to change your life. Whether that’s my free e-book, my digital course, or working with me 1:1 in private sessions. I want to make sure you have the tools that are actually going to make an impact in your day-to-day, so you can really begin this journey that you’re on.

Again… that’s healing.

But there’s another aspect to this, and that’s the validation you’re getting from consuming all of this content.

When you feel like nobody understands you, nobody gets you, you’re feeling all alone and then you scroll onto a video and the person is saying the same thing you’re thinking and feeling…. what is that?

That’s validation.

And then you move on. You keep scrolling until you find another video, and then you’re hooked, feeding one addiction (validation) with another (social media).

I don’t want to knock you down if you need to feel better and it’s helping. Keep going. Life is about survival so whatever you do, just keep fighting.

But you can stop calling that healing.

Cause if you were, you’d be trusting yourself more. You’d be listening to the voices in your head that are crying out to you. You’d realize you don’t need to hear something on social media that you already inherently know yourself.

That’s where you find real freedom.

Free from the need for validation because you’re so unsure of yourself. A freedom that is defined by knowing you’re good enough just the way that you are and that you are fully capable of meeting your own needs, and making yourself happy.

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Taking a step back, I see this “healing” space falling into one of two categories.

There’s the Mel Robbins approach… direct, but still warm and motherly.

Or there’s the David Goggins approach… tough love, no-nonsense.

And there was a time in my life when I would go HARD for either of these individuals, but then I outgrew it. Because again, I’ve been where you’re at. I’ve consumed all of the stuff, and nothing changed. Nothing changed until I got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired and decided to DO something about it.

Action.

You need to hear the hard truths because without them, you will stay stuck in the same routine, even if that’s a “healing” routine. And in the same breath, you need to balance your self-love and self-kindness with radical accountability.

So yeah, I’m done talking about “healing” in this way.

Let’s focus on action. Let’s focus on community. Let’s focus on getting back to you.

Who else is with me?

3 Non-Heartbreak Things I’m Thinking About

1. The White Lotus update - The Walton Goggins/Sam Rockwell scene is my new “Roman Empire”.

2. Does anyone else get super excited over new plant growth? I live in the northeast parts of the U.S. and we’re starting to get more daylight and my plants are, once again, thriving.

3. If you’re having a bad day, go out of your way to do something nice for someone else. It works every time.

& On a Personal Note

There’s a saying that if you create for yourself, it’s art and if you create for others, it’s content.

And every time I sit down to write anything, this newsletter, my silly little TikTok videos or my IG stories I fight this battle between art vs content, ‘for me’ vs ‘for them’ and those are the good days!

On the bad days, I have a mini meltdown and rage against my limiting beliefs as an individual. But it’s that discomfort that keeps me going.

So I’m not sure if this is art or content, but you can let me know (literally tell me in the comments).

With Love,

Eric