Before delving into what emotional validation is, let me clarify what it isn’t—how people knowingly or unknowingly invalidate the feelings or emotions of others. Although people usually do not understand the impact of invalidating someone’s emotions, the irony is that most of the time, the act of invalidating emotions is unknowingly exercised to calm people down or because individuals are unable to empathize well. Unironically, at times, it is used for manipulation; gaslighting, for instance, also involves invalidating others’ feelings, emotions, and perceptions.
But what exactly is it—Are you doing this? or is this happening to you? As always, the answer will emerge by the end of this article. Firstly, consider the following statements:
Emotional Validation
Let me address another misconception, I’ve seen among individuals that they think emotionally validating someone is to agree with the person you are validating. Emotional validation and disagreement can indeed co-exist. For instance, imagine your friend approaches you, expressing frustration about the rude and selfish behavior of her family towards her. Now, let’s understand how emotional validation can exist independently of agreement.
Emotional Expression: “I can’t even tell you my mom and dad are so selfish and rude and it’s so frustrating for me even to live with them”
Validation: “Hmm..I can see why it’s frustrating. It can be really tough to handle especially when it comes to family” (Here, I’m validating her emotions, acknowledging that what she’s experiencing is valid, without taking sides or agreeing on who might be right or wrong—her family or herself.)
Agreement: Yes they must be rude towards you and your frustration towards them is their fault, no one is frustrated for no reason (Here, I’m agreeing with her perception, confirming her feelings as valid, and validating her frustration as a genuine response, essentially accepting her viewpoint as the truth.) Now that’s what agreement looks like and you can actually validate someone without agreeing with them.
Emotional validation involves a temporary adaptation to the person’s perception, life experience, and cognition to understand from where they are coming and acknowledge their experience, thoughts, feelings, and behavior without ignoring, discounting, judging, comparing, and denying their expression.
Impact of Emotional Invalidation
Constantly existing in an emotionally invalidating environment can significantly damage emotional well-being and overall mental health. Here are some common effects:
- Emotional regulation: Individuals may face difficulties in managing emotions, leading to outbursts of anger, impulsive behavior, challenges in calming down, overthinking, mood swings, and numbness.
- Self-doubt and second-guessing: When people experience constant invalidation, they start questioning their own emotional experiences. This also occurs in close relationships where gaslighting is prevalent. Continuous dismissal leads to questioning, and overthinking about thoughts, and feelings, and they often experience indecisiveness or overanalyze their decisions.
- Self-blame: Consistent dismissal or invalidation of someone’s emotions leads to internalization of this treatment. Phrases like “You’re overreacting,” “It’s all in your head,” or “You’re seeking attention” make individuals believe their feelings are wrong or unwarranted. Over time, they develop a habit of blaming themselves for their emotional experiences.
- Poor sense of self: Prolonged exposure to an invalidating environment thwarts one’s sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Individuals may feel that their personality, expressions, and behavior are not worth accepting, ultimately undermining their self-esteem.
Impact of Emotional Validation
Emotional validation creates psychologically supportive relationships and an overall environment where individuals feel heard, accepted, and understood. It’s a crucial component of emotional well-being and healthy relationships. Here are some impacts of an emotionally validating environment:
Resilience: Ever wondered what turns a misfortunate event into a traumatic one? It’s often the lack of emotional support. When facing misfortune, one reaches a crossroads where either emotional resilience develops or trauma accumulates. Emotional support plays a pivotal role in preventing trauma and enhances your emotional resilience.
Improved emotional regulation: When people ask for solutions to mental challenges like perpetual anger, never-ending overthinking, and mood swings, and often ask how to deal with them.
Here’s the answer it involves understanding that these are often consequences of underlying factors that vary from individual to individual An emotionally invalidating environment can also contribute to such issues therefore environment that is emotionally validating can contribute to improved emotional regulation. When feelings are acknowledged, healthy coping strategies can be developed, aiding in effective emotional regulation.
Increased self-esteem: Feeling accepted, heard, and understood reinforces one’s self-worth and validates the legitimacy of emotions, thereby enhancing self-esteem.
Enhanced expression: When fear of judgment or dismissal is absent due to feeling heard and understood, expression flourishes, which builds meaningful connections and deeper bonds with partners, family, or friends.
Meaningful relationships: Emotional understanding and validation form the fundamentals of healthy relationships. When individuals feel understood and validated by their partner, family, or friends, it strengthens bonds, builds trust, and nurtures support, resulting in more fulfilling relationships.
How to Validate the emotions
Empathize: Empathy plays a huge role in genuinely validating someone’s feelings. Try to look at the world from their beliefs—good and devil, perception—by leaving your perceptions behind. However, there could be instances where you won’t be able to understand where they are coming from or what they are experiencing. Even in such scenarios, actively listen to them and show that you care. That’s enough.
Avoid blaming: Just listen to them; don’t draw conclusions or blame anybody. It really doesn’t matter if you actually disagree with them. As I’ve mentioned above, disagreement and validation can coexist.
Do Not Offer Unsolicited Advice.
Use these phrases: Let me give you some phrases that you can use to emotionally validate someone instead of saying “You are overreacting” or “What’s the big deal?” so emotionally validating phrases goes along these lines:
“It’s okay, I’m here for you.”
“I understand why that would be difficult.”
“I appreciate that you are sharing your feelings with me. I’m here for you.”
“Yeah, that sounds frustrating.”
“I care about you. What can I do to help you?”
“I’m really sorry that happened.”
Practice Active Listening: Do not interact with unbothered body language. Always remember, active listening is not just about listening; instead, it is being cognizant and considerate from body language to tonality of voice. Avoid using your phone or multitasking while listening.
Respond in between by nodding or with a “hmm” at least. Ask questions; however, I never said give advice just because you’ve listened to them, and also don’t start personalizing— let’s say your friend comes to you telling about how badly their partner has treated them, which suddenly reminds you of your ex, and you start talking about your ex and how impossible they were and now it’s all about you than them. Never do that; it’s not active listening.
Conclusion
Emotional validation involves acknowledging others’ feelings without judgment, dismissing, and minimizing, Invalidation, is seen in belittling or denying emotions, which is not good for mental well-being. Validation facilitates building resilience, emotional regulation, self-esteem, and meaningful relationships. To validate, practice empathy, active listening, and use supportive phrases without offering advice or personalizing the conversation.