12/17/2025
We live in a world obsessed with being seen, liked, followed, praised, approved. But underneath the scrolls, comments, and micro-reactions lies a deeper human pattern. A patten so subtle it often goes unnoticed until it quietly shapes our entire identity. Then we question, how did I even get here?
I call it valudation.
A blend of value and validation, valudation is the process of confirming one’s personal worthiness as true or accurate through other people’s approval. It’s the emotional math we do without thinking:
If they approve → I am valuable.
If they don’t → my value is in question.
Valudation is not weakness. In fact, it’s the nervous system’s inherited pattern of outsourcing internal truth.
Where Valudation Comes From
Valudation emerges when our worth becomes a moving target shaped by external conditions: childhood roles, cultural expectations, achievement-based love, or even deeply sensitive nervous systems wired to read the room before reading themselves.
Highly sensitive individuals, especially, feel the sting of disapproval more intensely — not because they lack confidence, but because their bodies process relational cues with greater depth.
Approval and disapproval becomes data.
Which one feels better? Which one feels safer?
Over time, we learn to chase the soothing dopamine hit of being validated instead of cultivating the steady flame of being valuable.
Valudation as a Catalyst
Naming this pattern is the first step to transforming it. Once you see where valudation runs your choices, you also see where your power is waiting to be reclaimed.
The moment you stop spending your worthiness on borrowed metrics, you become the source of your own permission.
And that is where life and identity begin to expand.
With deep love and appreciation,
Dr. Shivali ❤️
