The Quiet Power of Emotional Validation

Before you read this, I want you to think about a recent confrontation or argument. Review it in your mind and note how you handled it.

If you were on the receiving end, did you justify, over-explain, or lecture someone, saying why they are thinking it all wrong?

If you used any of the tactics above, get ready; you are about to learn something crucial for maintaining healthy, mature personal relationships.

Drum Rolls: Emotional Validation

What comes to mind when you hear those two big words? Emotions (something that no one taught us ), Validation (something that we often look for from society)

But together they mean something very, very different 🙂

Emotional validation is recognizing, accepting, and understanding someone’s feelings without judgment or immediately trying to “fix” them.

Now that you know what that is from a definition pov, let’s dive deep. I told you to recollect a recent confrontation when you began. Most likely you did, and you might still feel that how you (most of us) reacted was the right thing to do even today.

But let me tell you what I have begun to understand. There isn’t always a right and wrong in this world, but “your right” and “my right” instead. So that puts us into a space where two rights can coexist without completely invalidating the other.

Simply put, there can be and most likely will be two perspectives when we are logging our heads with each other.

Think about it. Most of us would agree that we and our siblings, despite sharing the same household and environment, could have experienced emotions (love, joy, pride, fear) differently. Because, you see, the soul and its characteristics are a unique blend, and how can we separate that when faced with differences of opinion? How could we discard unique perspectives when emotions are involved?

Knowing this crucial difference often becomes critical in times of conflict. When it’s a healthy discussion, decision instances, this unique perspective can have negligible effect but when it comes to intense turmoil or emotional outburst knowing how to validate without invalidating yourself becomes key to maintain personal relationships.

From someone who always wanted to rush in and correct during confrontation, I have moved to a space where I try to listen & am learning to accept their part of the story & feelings gracefully, without invalidating mine. I guess I am not fully there yet, but the effort towards that is always there.

So how do we do it?

Here comes the second part of this concept: validation. When faced with such situations, acceptance of others’ perspective and the way they feel opens us to validate them without changing our internal reality or how we feel about it

This simple yet profound understanding brings out one of the most underrated human skills: active listening, not listening to respond, which, in turn, leaves the person in distress validated.

Here, we are not arguing, correcting, or fixing; we are simply acknowledging without needing to be accurate. This, in turn, removes agitation and settles emotions for the other person, who can then be asked to analyze it rationally.

When you validate someone, you let what they are feeling be what it is. True for them in that moment, and that’s all that matters.

For that to happen, one must be able to see perspectives to be able to give emotional validation

One of the biggest misunderstandings about emotional validation is that it means you are responsible for making someone feel better.

Validation is often confused with agreement.

Instead, validation is supporting without fixing. It means stopping minimizing, lecturing, or rushing someone through their feelings. Emotional validation does not mean solving the problem or taking on their emotions as your own.

In fact, when we jump too quickly into fixing, we often leave the other person feeling disconnected, misunderstood, or even shamed. Good intentions can land badly when someone just wants to feel seen.

Emotions need soothing, not solving.