Your emotions are valid

Emotional validation is the infrastructure for emotional safety in any relationship. It is an important tool for healthy communication, emotional intimacy, and love to flourish, and is also one of the most important things a parent can do to raise a psychologically healthy child.

That is why its polar opposite, psychological invalidation, is so painful, detrimental, and debilitating to the human psyche. It involves the process of telling someone that their internal experience is not important and is considered a form of emotional abuse that occurs in many social landscapes, structures, and relationships.

Because it can be so subtle, many people do not know when psychological invalidation is happening, or worse, think that it is normal. Furthermore, emotionally dismissive people may not recognize their behavior, which makes it all the more insidious.

Psychological invalidation is the act of rejecting, dismissing, or minimizing someone else's thoughts and feelings. It implies that a person's experience is not important, wrong, or unacceptable. It is a damaging form of emotional abuse, which makes the recipient filled with self-doubt.

Emotional abuse occurs whenever an individual is dictated on how to feel, told they are too sensitive or dramatic or advised not to feel a certain way. It denies the rich emotional repertoire that makes people wonder and complexly human.

Although this form of abuse is extremely hurtful to experience, it is particularly painful and degrading for someone highly sensitive, a survivor of abuse or trauma, or struggling with depression or anxiety.

Psychological invalidation can be perpetrated by oneself or by another person, such as a friend, romantic partner, teacher, colleague, parent, or family member.

When psychological invalidation happens, the person who invalidates is not aware or conscious that they are doing so; they believe they are genuinely helping the other person and do not purposely intend to shame their thoughts and feelings. They think they can help the person feel differently by forcing them to brush aside their present emotions. That is why emotional invalidation can be hard to confront - the perpetrator often does it unintentionally and ever so subtly.

If a person is aware that they invalidate others, they do so as a way to manipulate and establish control over another individual. They try to make the other person question their thoughts and feelings and exerts effort to deny their experience, which is how gaslighting occurs. By implying that the other person is overreacting, emotional abusers skillfully blame their abusive behavior on someone else.

Reasons for psychological invalidation can range from an inability to empathize with not knowing how to validate others and express it effectively. Sometimes it is used as a power move to suppress an individual's feelings and control them. A person who unintentionally invalidates, on the other hand, maybe uncomfortable dealing with another person's feelings.

If someone says "it could be worse" it minimizes someone's pain and forces a toxic positivity on them.

Or if they say "you shouldn't feel that way" it conveys superiority over someone and denies their experience by making them feel small.

Men are persistently told to "man up", stereotyping them into believing that burying one's emotions is "manly." It is completely false, and nobody, particularly men, should feel that their emotions are strange or unattractive.

A common example of someone not recognizing they are invalidating someone is saying "I  know exactly what you're going through" which is a way of minimizing and dismissing the other person and refocusing the attention to the perpetrator.

"You're too sensitive" and "I'm sorry you feel that way." The former avoids responsibility for the offensive thing they said or done and the latter avoids accountability and implies how you feel is not important and has nothing to do with them.

A person who emotionally invalidates may deny your experience altogether, saying that it never happened, that it doesn't make any sense, or telling you to stop making things up.

Moreover, psychological invalidation may include physical reactions, such as eye-rolling, walking out of the room while you are talking, or distracting themselves by looking at their phone.

If you notice that you have been psychologically invalidating toward others, the chances are that you had a parent, teacher, or friend who did the same to you. But the good news is, you can improve your behavior and take the first step toward change.

If you are reading this post and realized you are invalidating or have invalidated someone but not quite sure how to be more validating there's still hope. The first thing you can do to validate someone is to acknowledge or reflect on the other person's experience. Let them know that you hear them and that it is okay and valid for them to feel that way. "I hear you are feeling disappointed about what happened." Then, try to empathize and see things from their perspective. A helpful thing to say is, "I can understand why you feel that way." It's important to remember that validation is not about agreeing with someone; you can have different thoughts or opinions but still be able to empathize with the other person.

Avoid giving unsolicited advice, and if you feel the need to, always ask them if they want help with this problem. If the answer is no, keep on listening. Remember, it is not your responsibility to fix anyone.

Validation means acknowledging, accepting, and understanding another's feelings and thoughts and that you support them in their perspective. It allows another person's internal experience to exist without having to judge it or brush it under the carpet. For example, if a child is afraid of the ocean, an invalidating parent might say, "Don't be silly, the ocean is nothing to be afraid of." A validating thing to say instead would be, "I hear that you are feeling scared. Can you tell me what makes you afraid of the ocean?"

When you are around someone who is validating, you feel that it is safe for you to be yourself.

If you have a habit of invalidating yourself, you can start by practicing simple affirmations that accept your feelings and experiences.

"My feelings are valid, and they matter."

"I respect and honor my feelings."

"I accept my feelings as they are and acknowledge that they are not wrong."

"I will be compassionate with myself and listen to what my feelings are telling me."

"I choose to be around people who are loving and support my healing and growth."

Emotions serve an important purpose and will almost always point to something that needs to be acknowledged. They are not right or wrong - they are a reflection of your inner experience. If you are the recipient of invalidation, know that you are not crazy or unstable - your thoughts and emotions are valid because they are real.

If someone is emotionally invalidating you, it is understandable that you defend yourself and increase your efforts to be understood. Being the recipient of invalidating comments triggers a fight-or-flight response that will either make you act aggressively or defensively. However, this will only establish conflict and division and play into the perpetrator's plan of distracting you from the real issue at hand.

Instead of getting angry or defending yourself, do not accept the invalidating statement. Let them know calmly using "I" statements how you feel, and be prepared to end the conversation if they do not hear you or want to hear you. Let them know that you will discuss the matter with them when you feel safe to do so. Be neutral and assertive and set clear boundaries with them.

If this person continues to emotionally abuse you, invalidate your feelings, and resist change, it may be wise to take inventory of the relationship and think about whether or not it is worth your time and investment. If you state clearly to that person how you want to be treated, but he or she is unwilling to communicate and compromise with you respectfully, perhaps it is time to walk away from the relationship to protect yourself. I am a strong proponent for therapy because it is an effective way of dealing with the intense emotions of being emotionally abused and can help you reclaim your self-confidence and assertiveness.

Validation doesn't mean you lie or agree with another person, but to accept someone's experience as truthful for them. Surround yourself with people who support this, and who are kind, encouraging, and validating.

Equally as important is being in a compassionate relationship with yourself. Remind yourself of your inherent worth - that you are enough and that you matter, regardless of what others think or say about you.

How to love yourself, even if no one else does.

First, the second part of that title isn't true. You simply forgot who loves you, or you need to find more that do. But there may be times where you feel alone and depressed. Almost everyone has that occasionally or is strong enough to admit it. It's not easy to talk about, but loneliness, feeling unwanted, and even self-hate from time to time are extremely common. If isolation drags on for weeks, you'll want help from healthcare experts, but if it's not so severe and happens on occasion I will suggest a few things.

Compile the love you've felt. Whether it be a handwritten letter from your mom, a photo of you hanging out with friends on your birthday, and any awards you've won. They don't have to be recent, recognition spans your whole life. And they don't have to be physical either. Take screenshots of kind words from others, like Facebook comments. When I feel like I'm not being cared about, I go down my social media timelines and read comments that reassure me that I am loved. Doing that gives the perspective that others have cared about me before, and they will again. By realizing this, I care about myself. It's a process and never will happen immediately. One can't instantly "snap out of it". It "takes time" as the trite but true saying goes.

Give up on something worth dropping.  Burdens are bedfellows with loneliness. Some people who'd like to have more social life are crushed by the rat race or their own compounded fears which hold them back. By cutting off the fat, it frees you to take on more meaningful things. Less worry means more freedom to self explore and pursue interests. When you find yourself especially stressed or anxious, those are otherwise-unpleasant moments you can use to your advantage. Especially if you’re crying and in a lot of anguish, determine in a flash what’s worth keeping, and visualize it like this: you are a burning building. If you could rush into yourself and save only a handful of things to take to a new you, what will they be? Take a mental inventory, or even better, write them down so you can visualize it, and put it aside until you feel more rational. Then look at it again, and join your thoughts of the now with what you had felt then.

Celebrate your similarities AND differences. Too many people make the mistake of singling out what’s common or how they’re different. This is defective, too-filtered thinking because success is neither completely familiar or alien: it’s both. All of us are humans and subject to emotions. By consequence, all of us have problems but some of us deal with them more effectively than others. We are all variations on a common theme. If you’re concerned about body image, it’s good for all humans to be healthy. But it’s unachievable to duplicate someone else’s figure. You need to do what’s right for you and being inspired by someone isn’t the same as cloning them: it’s taking your hero’s “recipe” and improvising a new mix with it.

Be brave about what you really like. Many people have secret “guilty pleasures”, be they pop songs or other recreational activities. If it does no harm to your health and well-being, why must it be guilty? Strip away the “layers of mindfat” and be earnest. This prepares you to meet other likeminds (as opposed to “lowminds”, who don’t contribute to your interests). Here’s the problem: so many of us, even those who are no longer teens or in college, live under the specter of “peer pressure”. We’re afraid we “won’t fit in” if we speak to the contrary. And especially if we dig something that’s popular, we’ll be subjected to redundant reminders like “Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good”. You need not get into wasteful word wars and endless debates about the merits of something. If you feel a certain other person or group repeatedly opposes what you care about and that’s regularly getting you down, then spend more time with people who do share your appreciation. The Internet is laden with all manner of subcultures and microcliques, so even if you’re geographically-challenged, it’s possible to find others you connect with.

Be a little more selfish. Selfishness isn't always a bad thing. Some people are prone to giving too much to others and not feeding themselves, so if this is you, you need to adjust. More importantly, you need to be strong before you can strengthen others. It’s true that in giving to others, you may experience a positive feedback loop of joy, but you need something to start that off. Feeling your own dreams are denied because you’re always supporting others? Let them know what you want to pursue, and if they’re quality people, they should come to collaborate on yours in-kind. Love flows both ways in the best relationships.

Adapt, evolve, iterate. Emotions come in cycles, and each time you go through feeling unloved, benefit from it. Go deep inside your head and familiarize yourself with why you feel this way, what triggers it, and when this is most likely to happen. By learning you, you’ll have better control over the cause-and-effect of your unhappiness. Extreme cases require medical treatment, but in the vast majority of instances, you have, or will adapt to have the power to do something substantial.

Writing in a journal. Even if it’s a few self-confessional paragraphs, it provides self-validation. Simply “getting it out” makes you feel better, and based on what I said above, don’t waste attention on those who don’t appreciate your bravery. Gravitate to those who do.

Don’t ever think “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t know enough”. Having struggled with pain, you’re good enough. Having experienced suffering, you know all about it. With all the talk about “believing in yourself”, that should never be taken in a vacuum. Each one of us is influenced in positive and negative ways by external forces, and our lives are never static. The balance is dynamic, our moods shifting by day, or even by hours. What we choose to expose ourselves to and participate in is a large deterministic factor on our world outlook, and this is especially true in an age where more people choose what news they’ll watch, not because it reports with objectivity, but because it tells them what they want to hear.

Ultimately, it’s initially hard to “pull yourself out” when you’re feeling kicked like a stray dog. But this is why I shared the above. There’ve been times where I was sure everyone hated me, but then I realized that this was just a temporal lie, my fallible emotions playing a nasty trick.

I hope that these words will guide you to a path of realization and solidifying the fact that people do care about you. The most important person amongst those people is none other than you!

How to survive a breakup

For some unknown reason, I take better advice from myself when I write something rather than reasoning through my own thinking, which is a paradox because I have to think of what I want to write before I write it but somehow it takes a better hold of me in this format.

Quite recently I've experienced a breakup, and through the effort of keystrokes I am helping myself and hopefully, this will help someone else as well. Surviving a breakup is difficult because your imagined future disappears and you find yourself suddenly on a precipice. All of the dreams, all of the fantasies that you had with the other person, now have to be undone. And you have to recognize that reality that you constructed together will not be lived.

These are the things you need to do in order to survive a breakup. Accept that the breakup is the right thing and that it's happened. Accept that you can control nobody except yourself. Realize that you cannot invest your wellbeing in the perception of another person. Learn to let go and move on.
Trust that the future is going to be okay for you. That not only are you going to find someone more appropriate, because that in a sense is a repetition of the pattern that you're trying to break. But you will find in the world, everything you need if you are willing to let go of other people's approval as the primary source for your self composition, and instead, find a connection to something beyond that.

Usually, when you have a co-dependent person in a relationship, it is because you've nominated them, or cast them in a role that they are not able to fulfill. A role that traditionally would have been fulfilled by a kind of icon. In a sense, romance is the imbuement, or endowment of the other, with qualities that no human being can ever have.

So you relinquish the person as an ideal. You become open to better possibilities, and primarily you let go of the idea that you know what's best for you. You open yourself to new advice, and you recognize that you are worthy of real love. I know what it's like, as soon as the relationship ends, you forget all the things that you didn't like about the person and go 'Oh no, they were perfect! Oh God, what am I going to do?' You set up your mental habits and patterns for maximum self-persecution and this is a habit that has to go, otherwise, you will repeat the same thing in every relationship that you are in. Use it as an opportunity to change, and know that the 'greatest love of all' is within you, and you are worthy of love.

Be happy, it's your own responsibility

Many people wait for something to happen or someone to make them happy. If you expect others to make you happy, you will always be disappointed. Being responsible means not blaming others for your unhappiness. It means figuring out ways to be happy despite others’ (negative) behaviors and despite the external influences. In many cases of unhappiness, people experience difficult circumstances that create paradigm shifts, whole new frames of reference by which they see the world and themselves and others in it, and what life is asking of them. When you are caught in the stress of life, you can easily forget your responsibility and how you should react to stay happy, comfortable and calm. You will stop to notice what is awesome and magical in life. No one can make you happy, nor can you make anyone else happy. Instead of looking to get happy from a person or that new retail therapy purchase, or an external factor, view relationships as outlets for happiness, and focus on how you can give more happiness. When you leave your happiness in someone else’s hands, you’ll end up being dependent on them and when they leave you, you’ll become empty inside. Everything outside yourself can help you get better in life, but they are not the means to your happiness. Don’t be easily discouraged by unfavorable circumstances. Happiness is a choice. You have the ability to control your own emotions. Do not let anything or anyone rob you from your own happiness. Drop the negative, toxic people and dramas in your life.

Accept you for who you are. Accept that there are things that are beyond your control. Accept the things you cannot change. Stop comparing yourself to others all the time. Channel your brain to make a better comparison in your long-term interest, growth, and happiness. Change the object of comparison to yourself. If the urge to compare is too strong to ignore, measure yourself against yourself. Once you truly understand how to let go of your comparison mindset, you will see the world from an entirely different perspective. The dangers of pinning our happiness/progress with on how we measure up to others are too great to ignore. The more you desperately want to be like someone else, the more unworthy you feel. The more you desperately want to be happier, the lonelier you become, despite the awesome people surrounding you. The key to the good life you really need is giving a damn about what’s important to your growth and total well being. Chances are you are paying too much attention to negative information. When you start aiming at something different — something like “I want to be better than I was yesterday ” — your minds will start presenting you with new information, derived from your previously hidden self, to aid you in your new pursuit and quest to become a better version of yourself.

Happiness isn't a destination, it's a habit. It’s what we do to make everything else in life awesome.
And once we make that internal shift, we can put our day-to-day external frustrations into perspective. Our brains are wired to be negative, but the good news is that you can train your brain to hold on to happiness.

When your happiness is in the hands of other people, they determine when you can be happy. Free yourself today and be responsible for your happiness. The next time you want to look for happiness, take a look at yourself in the mirror. That reflection is the one who is responsible for your happiness.
Starting today, exercise your brain for happiness every day, and over time, you’ll train it for happiness and a better life. As you increasingly install experiences of acceptance, gratitude, accomplishment, and feeling that there’s a fullness in your life rather than an emptiness or a scarcity, you will be able to deal with the issues of life better.