Each week I ask my community a question. I want to help people gain awareness, challenge their beliefs, start conversations.

This week I asked: Do most people actually want the truth, or do they want validation?

Most people agreed. They want validation, not truth. Truth-tellers get burned. They learn to hold back.

I think a few years ago I would have been part of that majority.

But now I believe truth is always a good idea. Even when it creates friction. When we share our truth, we do it from a place of love. We want to be real with the people we care about. No walls needed…

But sometimes from that place of love, we do not see clearly. We forget that maybe the other person is not ready to receive it. So we carry it instead. We keep it to ourselves, hoping they will be ready soon. Because holding it is such a weight.

And then one day we share it anxiously, roughly, and without realizing it, hurtfully.

Then there is the other kind of truth. The one that comes out when we are angry. The one meant to cause harm. That is the ego talking. And when we confuse that with real truth, we lose trust in the whole thing.

Because when there is trust, the truth sets you free.

Validation kept me stuck. I did not feel confident. I believed that other people knew better than me. I did not know what to do with my fears so I avoided them. I wanted to be accepted. I did not want to get things wrong.

Thinking about it now is painful. I need to take a deep breath and feel…

Validation cost me a deep insecurity. I made myself small. I thought that others, more experienced, older, knew better than me. That if they validated me it was a win. And if they did not, I had failed. As if their approval was the truth. The ONLY truth.

What helped me escape it was the unsolicited advice I kept receiving. It was driving me crazy. Until one day I heard myself say: if I do not want unsolicited advice, I have to stop asking for validation. I had to find the courage to trust myself. With my little courage. And slowly, I became someone who seeks truth instead.

But that work took many years to unlearn.

Making my teenage dream come true helped me live my truth. I made that decision with only one validation. Mine. It felt right. I stopped overthinking. I trusted myself. And I knew that if things got hard, I would make the changes needed to stay happy.

So I started over in NYC. I made my dream come true. I stepped into a reality I had chosen for myself.

A dream came true.

Living in Hawaii, my nervous system finally started to exhale. In that quiet, I could look back clearly. I could see with new maturity why I had been so miserable. Why I kept accumulating challenges on top of challenges. The choices I was making based on validation from society, my friends, my parents... those choices were wrong for me. They were not based on me, on my true choices.

It was not punishment for something I did. It was the cost of something I was not doing.

Living my truth.

It feels really good now. Freeing. Removing one anxious layer at a time, knowing there are more to come. Because when you remove one, it affects all the others underneath.

I seek truth now. Sometimes a voice in the back of my head still says “It will hurt girl! Why are you doing this?!” But my boundary is clear: truth only is invited.

I do not want to waste the time I have left on this earth in that negative energy. It might protect you sometimes. But when you know the truth, the one you actually felt in your heart even before the person said it out loud, you connect with people differently. More deeply.

And sometimes it hurts. But if you want to grow, if you want to understand who you really are today, you need the truth.

Where in your life are you asking for permission you don’t need?

What truth are you holding because you’re afraid of how it will land?

And what would it feel like to trust yourself instead?

Reply and tell me. I read every response.

With gratitude,
Nina

♡
PS: I have been trying something different today. No separations and titles. Did you like it?