Hi Selkie,
Need is need. Needy is not ugly, it's how you feel sometimes. I'm there too. I want to defend the word "need" and defend you. It's okay to feel how you feel because life always changes and you are changing and what you are feeling right now will not be the same thing you feel five years from now. This struck me:
If someone compliments me, I start to falter as I feel like I can't live up to their compliment anymore.
I connected with that and I know that feeling. I think it's about getting confused, thinking somehow that the power to create what you just created actually is unreal, a mistake, an aberration. It only becomes real when someone else approves of it. Maybe if you practice telling yourself, in a relaxed way, I did this, this is my work...over and over...then others' responses might not rock you and stop the flow.
Once you feel entitled to own your own gifts, comfortably (you did not steal your talent from anyone and it cannot be stolen from you by praise or by criticism)...then I think you'll work more peacefully.
Hopalong
