Should you always validate feelings?

Why Validation Is Important 1. Strengthening relationships: People who show each other acceptance are able to feel more connected and build stronger relationships. Showing value: When you validate someone’s emotions, you are showing them that they are important to you.

What does it mean when your feelings are not validated?

Validation is the acceptance of a person’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Invalidation, then, is just the opposite — when a person’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviors are rejected, judged, or ignored.

Is it normal to invalidate your own feelings?

Beyond parents or caregivers, society (including mental health treatment providers) can be invalidating and outright rejecting to people who struggle with mental health problems. There also might be a genetic vulnerability for the tendency to self-criticize or self-invalidate.

What does it mean when your feelings are validated?

Validation means that we are acknowledging another person’s emotions, thoughts, experiences, values, and beliefs. Validation isn’t about agreeing, placating, “fixing” the other person, trying to get someone to change, or repeating back what the other person has said.

Are feelings valid?

Our thoughts create the context which determines our feelings. Anyone’s feelings are a priori (“before the fact”) authentic and valid, whether or not the perceptions, thoughts and beliefs one has of the situation are true to life and accurate.

Why do some people feel like they need validation from others?

The reason they feel this way can be due to the beliefs they have formed around validation. And these beliefs will be a consequence of what they have learnt from others. It is not uncommon for people to say that one should not seek validation from anyone, and how this need needs to be completely removed.

Is seeking validation from others healthy or unhealthy?

One could realise that seeking validation from others is unhealthy, and end up going to the other extreme. And while this is not necessarily any better, it can seem like the right thing to do. So one then ends up trying to live a life where they don’t need anyone’s validation and if they do, they could end up feeling guilty and/or weak.

Does natural validation work?

Natural validation works well and does not require any specific skills. It is limited, however, to situations where the speaker and the listener feel the same way. When you do not feel the same way as someone you are listening to does, you can still validate their feelings.

Do you need validation and encouragement?

You want people to think well of you. You desire to get accepted by others and feel accomplished. Turns out, seeking validation and encouragement are everyday activities for most of us. It has gotten a bad name due to a backlash by self-improvement blogs against it.