There is a provoking quote by Confucious "What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.”

I grew up in a house where emotions were a waste of time and feelings were skimmed over without any validation. I can remember being upset by something and my Mom telling me to stop crying because I had no reason to cry.

I used to rely on the validation of others-- be it confirmation that my deicions were the 'right' ones, or whether I looked pretty that day or whether I was successful enough-- to dictate how I felt about myself. In those days, I was a bit of a people pleaser, a "yes"-woman. I had a hard time saying no and I had a hard time not lettign other peoples' perspectives of me completely rock my world.

After four years of dedicated work (every other week) with a therapist and a ton of self reflection I started to grow some resilience to the point that eventually the opinions of those who I once sought out, were nice to hear but no longer had the impact on me. This was the case both for positive and negative comments.

Today, there are only one or two people whose opinion really matters to me. When someone tells me that they think I suck or vice versa that I'm the coolest person they know, it has the same effect.

Not sure if this is what others have experienced, but your memory struck home with me.