The Invalidation Trap: How to Validate Others & Yourself
Uncover the secrets to building deep, meaningful connections with Patrick King's latest book, "How to Listen, Hear, and Validate." This insightful guide explores the art of effective communication, focusing on the fine line between reacting and responding.
In Chapter 3, we dive into the concept of invalidation and its impact on our relationships. Learn to recognize invalidating behaviors and discover powerful techniques to avoid them. King provides practical strategies for overcoming invalidation and embracing self-validation, ensuring your conversations leave a lasting positive impression.
00:05:38 What Is Invalidation?
00:12:41 Being a Good Communicator: How to Avoid Invalidating Others
00:25:22 Overcoming Invalidation
00:33:17 Takeaways
With this book, you'll transform your communication style, prevent conflicts, and cultivate the intimate connections you desire. Say goodbye to misunderstandings and hello to charismatic, empathetic interactions. Join us on this journey towards becoming a natural communicator!
[Keywords: Communication, Invalidation, Self-Validation, Relationships, Charisma, Empathy]
Get your copy now: [Book Link](https://bit.ly/listenhearvalidateking)
Transcript
Ever feel like your words just disappear, like you're talking, but no one's really hearing?
Speaker:Hello listeners, and welcome back to Social Skills Coaching, where you become more likable, more charismatic, and more productive.
Speaker:Today's featured book from Patrick King is How to Listen, Hear, and Validate.
Speaker:Break through invisible barriers and transform your relationships.
Speaker:This is from the How to Be More Likeable and Charismatic series of books.
Speaker:Today's episode is Chapter 3 from this book, entitled Invalidation and Self-Validation.
Speaker:We've talked at length on the podcast about validation and making people feel worthwhile and heard.
Speaker:What is invalidation?
Speaker:That's doing or saying anything that makes the other person feel that their thoughts, emotions, or even their entire sense of self, are wrong or unreasonable.
Speaker:And it's much easier to do, even on accident, than you might consider at first.
Speaker:We'll start off by developing a clear, workable definition of invalidation.
Speaker:We'll look at methods and processes to recognize invalidation when we are doing it.
Speaker:And we'll look at several ways that we can avoid invalidating others.
Speaker:As a final section in this episode, we'll look at the path to self-validation, using practices like journaling or affirmations to promote inner strength and resilience.
Speaker:Thanks for being with us today, and don't forget at the end of the episode is a handy take-away section that you can listen to and get a good summary of all the main points from this episode.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:In speaking about validation, we’ve also inferred a little about its opposite.
Speaker:Not validating someone’s experience, however, is seldom as blatant as “hey, your feelings suck, and you’re not valid as a person!” In fact, invalidation is often done purely by accident, even by people deliberately trying to help.
Speaker:When we’re on the receiving end of invalidation, we may even feel bad without knowing why—after all, wasn’t the other person just trying to do the right thing?
Speaker:Picture a group of friends, who notice that one of them is acting weird lately, turning down invitations and generally being a bit “off.” It’s burrito Wednesday and everyone usually gets together for some food and a chat, but the one friend, let’s call him James, bows out and says he’s not into it.
Speaker:The group decides to assemble at James’s house this Wednesday, to cheer him up.
Speaker:While there, they can’t help but ask what’s wrong with him.
Speaker:James explains he’s been a bit down, and he’s not up for socializing.
Speaker:He’s upset about his recent breakup and is feeling like a bit of a failure in general right now.
Speaker:His friends, who think James is awesome, immediately jump in with encouragement.
Speaker:“Don’t say that about yourself!
Speaker:You’re better off without her!”
Speaker:“A failure?
Speaker:Come on man, it’s not like you to say stuff like that.”
Speaker:“Chin up!”
Speaker:32 00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:48,960 They rally around him with praise and encouragement, despite James feeling more and more awkward.
Speaker:They decide to haul him out to a bar, to get some drinks, to get his mind off things.
Speaker:The advice flows thick and fast.
Speaker:“You need to hit the gym; you’ll feel better in no time.” “You need to get back out there on the dating scene.” “You need more vitamin D, trust me.”
Speaker:37 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:14,520 It’s obvious that at the end of the evening, James feels just as bad as before, if not worse.
Speaker:Though he was surrounded by caring, concerned friends, the effect was only that he was now painfully aware that he wasn’t really allowed to feel how he felt, or express it.
Speaker:On top of his disappointment about the breakup, he now has an extra thing to feel bad about: his response to the breakup is an overreaction, uncomfortable, inconvenient.
Speaker:After all, why else would his friends do everything in their power to distract him and themselves from it?
Speaker:On the other hand, James might have felt better if he had enough courage to set boundaries with his friends and communicate to them clearly that he felt how he felt, and that he didn’t want to go out.
Speaker:If he was able to more clearly accept his own negative feelings, he might have been firmer in expressing them to his friends.
Speaker:In this chapter, we’ll be looking at invalidation from both sides of the coin—i.e.
Speaker:figuring out how we can be on guard against invalidating others, and also how we can overcome being invalidated ourselves.
Speaker:Connected to this is the idea of self-validation, or how we can avoid unconsciously invalidating our own experience.
Speaker:What Is Invalidation?
Speaker:Turning our original definition around, invalidation is when we see someone else’s thoughts, feelings, experience or indeed their entire selves as invalid.
Speaker:Knowing how much every human needs to feel seen, accepted and acknowledged for who they are, invalidation can have profound effects.
Speaker:Invalidating someone gives them the sense that the experience they are having, the way they are feeling, their perspective, beliefs, preferences, boundaries and interpretations, are somehow lacking.
Speaker:With invalidation, we somehow feel that we are unreasonable, nonsensical, unwanted, not right, or just not important.
Speaker:Everyone can be affected by invalidation, but children, who are still learning about who they are and how the world works, can be most profoundly impacted.
Speaker:If we are invalidated often and early on in life, we can have difficulty knowing who we really are, be unable to express or understand ourselves, or experience deep feelings of shame or self-doubt.
Speaker:When other people reflect and accept us, we feel solid; but when we are invalidated, our entire existence and self-worth can feel undermined.
Speaker:In fact, childhood invalidation may be at the heart of many mental health conditions and disorders.
Speaker:This might sound dramatic, but constant invalidation can eventually lead to a deep feeling that you don’t quite have the right to exist, or else that your existence is somehow fatally flawed and insignificant.
Speaker:In some cases, it can be used deliberately as a form of abuse.
Speaker:Validation is like a foundation to our identity, to our well-being, and our ability to connect meaningfully and communicate with others.
Speaker:When this foundation is disturbed, it can have effects in all these areas.
Speaker:We all know how it feels to be invalidated, but it can be tricky to spot exactly when it’s happening.
Speaker:If we’re used to it, we may even begin to think that it’s normal.
Speaker:Invalidation can be dramatic or subtle, brief or ongoing, conscious or unconscious, and can play out in verbal and nonverbal ways.
Speaker:Recognizing invalidation
Speaker:64 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,800 Invalidation may not be done consciously.
Speaker:Many people invalidate others because they have been raised to accept invalidation as normal, or have been chronically invalidated themselves.
Speaker:They may be uncomfortable with emotions, or want to help but don’t know how.
Speaker:On the other hand, some people do consciously invalidate the experience of a person they wish to control, as in gaslighting, where the other person is gradually taught not to trust their own accurate perceptions—i.e.
Speaker:they are made to feel crazy.
Speaker:All invalidation shares a common core—it tells the other person “your experience is not valid.” But there are different forms.
Speaker:For example:
Speaker:Minimizing—“How can you be upset when other people have way worse problems?” “Oh, grow up, it’s not really that big of a deal.” “I’m sorry you feel that way.” (Especially when it takes the place of an apology!)
Speaker:Rejection—“That’s the wrong approach.” “Don’t lower yourself to that level.” “Only selfish people wallow like this.”
Speaker:Dismissing—“Oh, you’ll get over it eventually.” “It’s nothing.” “Ah yes, you’re having a bit of a midlife crisis, huh?
Speaker:Join the club.” Or simply being distracted when you talk and shrugging off what you say.
Speaker:Denial—“I don’t want to hear any more about this.” “Come talk to me when you’re ready to be rational.” “That never happened/you never said that.” Or simply pretending like they never heard what you said.
Speaker:Controlling and judging—“You’re being so over the top, you should calm down.” “You’re being dramatic again.” “You don’t make any sense.” Or using the silent treatment.
Speaker:Blaming—“Why do you always have to find a problem with everything?” “You’ve upset everyone again by saying that.” “Well, I don’t blame them for being mean to you, you do bring it out in people.”
Speaker:Though we’ve laid out a few different ways you can invalidate someone, the above categories can and do blur into one another, and there’s no reason someone can’t invalidate using every one of them.
Speaker:Nevertheless, it’s obvious that any of these forms of invalidation can have horrible effects: people on the receiving end can feel alienated, worthless, and confused.
Speaker:There are nonverbal ways to invalidate, too.
Speaker:If you roll your eyes, keep getting distracted by something else, pick at your nails like you’re bored or offer any number of judgmental facial expressions, you don’t have to say a word to send a message.
Speaker:Invalidation can create conflict in relationships and erode trust, intimacy and communication.
Speaker:If you grow up in a household where your feelings are never seen, acknowledged or accepted, then it’s going to be very difficult to be an adult who knows what they feel, can express themselves, be vulnerable, or acknowledge the emotions in others.
Speaker:In other words, people who feel invalidated often go on to invalidate themselves and others.
Speaker:If you recognize some of the above in yourself, well done!
Speaker:It can be hard to acknowledge that we are not always doing our best to witness and support others.
Speaker:Sometimes, our cultures or workplaces can encourage invalidating behavior.
Speaker:For example, parents are told to minimize their children’s feelings to help them toughen up or teach them a lesson, or workplaces may subtly punish honest expression and reward emotional bluntness.
Speaker:Being a Good Communicator: How to Avoid Invalidating Others
Speaker:Avoiding invalidating others is, in many ways, one of the first necessary steps to becoming good at validating them.
Speaker:The validation steps outlined in the previous chapter will undoubtedly convey kind, attentive acceptance to the person you’re talking to, but you can imagine all that can go straight down the drain if you end the whole process with a comment like, “OK great, I’m glad you’re done having your little breakdown now!”
Speaker:Being a great communicator means being on guard for those times we might unconsciously invalidate others.
Speaker:Sadly, validation is not a skill people are taught directly, and we may have developed plenty of bad communication habits and assumptions that actually do quite a lot of harm when we engage with someone who is feeling vulnerable or distressed.
Speaker:For example, a new mother might be expressing her extreme distress in the weeks after childbirth, and confide in a friend that she’s having really dark thoughts.
Speaker:The friend, trying to reassure her, downplays the situation, but ends up invalidating her when she says something like, “That’s just baby blues, don’t you worry, it’ll pass, I promise.” The new mother is left feeling just as bad as before, but silly or ashamed for even bringing it up.
Speaker:Or consider a doctor who is trying to put her nervous patient at ease by saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve seen this all before, trust me…and it can be a lot worse than what you’ve got here.” Instead of calming the patient, this comment makes him feel like his problem, as distressing as it is to him, isn’t as important as other people’s.
Speaker:Similarly, we can cause enormous damage by invalidating positive emotions too.
Speaker:Consider someone who laughs at his friend’s childlike excitement at going to a theme park and playfully teases him for being over the top, not realizing that his friend never had the experience in childhood, and that by telling him to calm down, he’s made him feel ashamed for what could have been a positive moment.
Speaker:In none of these examples are the people necessarily bad communicators, and they certainly don’t have bad intentions.
Speaker:Nevertheless, to master validation means paying more attention to how we might be invalidating others anyway.
Speaker:We’ve explored all the validating methods to actively try, but now let’s consider in detail what not to do.
:Undermining language
:It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it!
:It’s common to come across as invalidating when you assume that only the actual verbal content of your communication counts.
:But the way you speak, and the nonverbal message you send is just as (if not more) important.
:Think about how much tone of voice can change the statement, “Why did you do that?” Posture, facial expression, tone and gesture can change this statement from a gentle, curious inquiry to a full-blown accusation.
:It’s obvious that if we want to avoid invalidating others, we should refrain from using outright hostile language, name-calling, or negative words that make others feel bad.
:But we can also communicate invalidation subtly, for example by the indiscriminate use of the word “but.” This tiny word has a way of cancelling out any positive expression that comes before it, and cementing the negative that comes after it.
:If you say, “That was great, but I’m wondering about page two,” the other person might only hear “I’m unhappy about page two.”
:A good trick is to replace every “but” with “and” or simply cut it out entirely.
:“That was great!
:And I also had a few questions about page two.” Sounds better, doesn’t it?
:“But” is a word of contradiction.
:Think about any apology that goes, “I’m sorry, but…” It doesn’t ever really feel like an apology!
:To be more validating, it’s also a good idea to avoid confrontational language, like addressing the person with “you” statements.
:These can feel provocative and even aggressive.
:Try to avoid telling people what they think or feel, e.g.
:“you’re just tired right now” (even if you believe it’s true!”).
:Eliminate words like should, must, have to and so on.
:You are not interested in what someone should feel or do—it’s far more useful to talk about what they actually feel or have done.
:In the same way, words like always, never, completely, etc.
:can feel extreme and shut down conversation.
:Use “I” statements to take responsibility for your own perspective and respect the other person’s.
:There’s a big difference between “you’re confusing me” and “I’m confused.” Avoid diagnosing someone, interpreting their actions, or explaining their experience to them.
:Share your own side, and invite them to share theirs without accusation, judgment or assumption.
:Judgmental attitudes
:Nobody likes to think they’re judgmental.
:On the other hand, a judgment occurs any time we look at something and appraise its value—hardly something we can avoid in life.
:When someone is talking to you, it can be a knee-jerk reaction to rush in with your own opinions and value judgments.
:In fact, human beings do this almost as a default, and often in more subtle ways than they know.
:Firstly, when hearing someone talk, try to let go of the idea that it’s your job (or anyone’s) to figure out who’s to blame, or decide on the “right” conclusion.
:For example, someone might be complaining to you about another person that insulted them, and you go into detective mode and try to see if an insult really was given, and how bad it was, and how much of a right the person has to be offended.
:When we put ourselves in the position of moral judge, we instantly turn off the option for empathetic and open-minded listening.
:Fairy tales have villains and heroes, but most of the time, life doesn’t.
:When people express themselves, they simply want to be heard, rather than strictly to be agreed with or told they’re actually wrong.
:Those in positions of relative power might assume that it’s their job to frame the story they hear and decide which reactions and feelings are correct, according to their own worldviews.
:This can be deeply invalidating for the person opening up and sharing.
:We also end up imparting judgment when we decide on the correct magnitude of feelings or actions.
:When you express, consciously or unconsciously, that someone’s experience is too much or too little, you are invalidating them.
:For example, by saying, “That’s not such a big deal” or “you really need to be a bit more worried about this,” you are passing judgment on the size and appropriateness of that person’s emotions.
:But, it’s never our right to tell people either what to feel, or how much of it to feel!
:Offering advice or going into fixing mode
:We need to consistently remind ourselves of why people express themselves to us or seek our reassurance.
:It’s seldom because they don’t know how to fix the problem.
:It’s because they want to be heard and validated, and to feel support for what they’re going through.
:In other words, it’s hardly ever a practical issue, but an emotional one.
:By offering practical advice, we leave the emotional need on the table, which can feel extremely invalidating.
:Wanting to fix often comes from a good place, but can have the effect of making the other person feel invisible.
:Try not to ignore or minimize their feelings by rushing in with a solution.
:Chances are, they already know what to do and how to do it; they just need to be listened to, soothed, accepted or reassured.
:Watch out for subtle ways of “fixing” such as asking, “Have you thought of XYZ?”—especially if XYZ is an obvious thing the person would have already considered.
:Avoid taking responsibility, and trying to make it your job to cheer the person up or solve all their problems.
:If you act as though the issue is a simple one that can be sorted out easily, you are in essence erasing the person’s difficulties and struggles, as though to say, “If you could only see the solution as clearly as I can, then you wouldn’t be so upset!
:Ta da!”
:In the same way, advice is not a good idea unless it’s explicitly asked for.
:Avoid things like, “If I were you…” or “what I usually do for this problem is…” The advice may seem relevant to you, but it might not feel that way to the other person.
:Remember, it’s not about you—at all.
:Insincerity
:Though we seldom think about it, there are culturally ingrained ways of soothing distressed people.
:We all have a mental model of what a good friend, or a kind mother, or a compassionate counsellor sounds like, and we might not even realize that we’re defaulting to cliched expressions like, “How does that make you feel?” or “Shhh, it’s going to be OK.”
:Though these stereotyped ways of responding to other people’s emotions might have had genuine origins, the truth is that they often end up sounding insincere.
:Simply blurting out an automatic response or some truism that’s supposed to be helpful usually doesn’t actually help.
:Think of boring aphorisms like “time heals all wounds” or “you’re stronger than you think!”
:For validation to work, it has to feel real.
:The other person has to feel like they are having a genuine encounter with someone who really does understand and accept them, on a human level.
:How many people revert to what they think of as a kind, sympathetic voice, but which can sound to others incredibly condescending and irritating?
:A tilt of the head, an expression of “concern” and a fake-sounding “aw, how awful for you!” is likely to be received as an insult or brush-off rather than genuine care.
:“You’ll be OK, I promise” or “everything’s going to be just fine” are empty phrases that not only fail to soothe, but tell the other person that you are not really listening, and don’t have anything genuine to say.
:After all, how does anybody know how things will turn out?
:Even if the person will be OK in the future, what do they do with the fact that they don’t feel OK right now?”
:Overcoming Invalidation
:We’ll finish this chapter with a consideration of what to do if you yourself feel invalidated.
:As you might have noticed already, the reasons people invalidate one another are many, including simple carelessness.
:But one thing to remember is that invalidation has nothing to do with the person receiving it.
:It doesn’t reflect on their worth as people.
:The principle flowing through this entire book is that emotions, thoughts and lived experiences cannot be wrong.
:They are only what they are, and it is not for other people (or even for us) to decide they are not valid.
:If we feel invalidated, we might respond as though to an injury, and want to defend ourselves.
:We might double down in trying to make ourselves understood, or seek extra reassurance.
:However, before you jump to react, ask yourself a few important questions to determine whether it’s even worth it to try and reason with the person who has invalidated you.
:Ask yourself if the person is close to you, and whether they’ve made genuine attempts to understand you in the past.
:Is it really a good use of your time and energy to tell them they’ve invalidated you?
:Does their opinion even matter to you?
:Is this the right time to bring up their invalidation, or might it be perceived better if you did it later?
:If, after considering these questions, you believe it fit to respond, follow these steps:
:1.
:First, don’t accept the invalidation.
:Process what it feels like, but know it doesn’t define you or your experience.
:2.
:Communicate calmly and with “I” statements about how the invalidation has affected you.
:3.
:Depending on the outcome of this, you can assert a boundary or choose to end the conversation entirely.
:4.
:If you are routinely invalidated by someone, it might be time to consider the value that relationship holds in your life.
:The important thing to remember here is that you must not get into a debate about whether their invalidation or your desire for validation is right or wrong.
:You are merely establishing a boundary about how you want to be treated.
:What the boundary should be is entirely up to you and can vary based on how exactly you were invalidated.
:In learning how to validate others, we ourselves become better at asserting our own confidence and boundaries.
:Use mantras or mottos (like “all feelings are valid”) to remind yourself that you have a right to your experience.
:You can never demand that people praise, like or agree with you, but you can expect respect, and you are always allowed to walk away from relationships where your genuine experience is not respected.
:The path to self-validation
:It’s far easier to manage being invalidated if you have your own strong inner sense of confidence and self-worth.
:If you are in the habit of undermining your own experience, it’s likely you will not be able to defend against the same from other people, and you may even invite it.
:Self-validation is an act of compassion for yourself.
:It is constantly confirming for yourself, “I matter as much as anyone else, and my perspective is valid.
:My thoughts, feelings and emotions are mine and are not wrong.
:No matter what others say, I have belief and respect in myself.” What a powerful attitude!
:There are several ways you can validate yourself.
:Affirmations are one great way wherein you repeat certain prewritten lines or passages to yourself.
:You can find some great ones online or write one for yourself.
:Take note of all the negative thoughts that enter your brain when you’re invalidated, and then write down the things you wish someone else would’ve said to you to soothe those worries.
:In addition to using affirmations, you can also maintain a daily journal where you practice gratitude and appreciate the good things you did on any particular day.
:This helps foster a third way to self-validate, which is practicing positive self-talk.
:When you cultivate this habit, you don’t need to have a journal with you.
:You will be able to reassure yourself amidst whatever issue you’re facing.
:It’s easy to gloss over our strengths and disproportionately focus on weaknesses, but this habit can be overcome with practice and discipline.
:You can also use Linehan’s six-step model for validation on yourself.
:Nothing in any of the steps necessitates another person carrying them out.
:You can be mindful of your own emotions, reason with them, contextualize your reaction within the broader scheme of events in your life, reassure yourself that others might react similarly, and recount instances where other people you know have faced similar problems as you.
:These need not be friends or family; it can be anyone.
:Real maturity comes when we are able to tolerate disagreement and conflict, when we are able to see that people don’t share our perspective, but can nevertheless value that difference and affirm its validity anyway, for ourselves and for others.
:Listening compassionately and with respect doesn’t mean you’ll automatically agree.
:But when you are confident and secure in your own self-worth, you may find that you seek out validation far less, and are much more ready to offer it to others.
:Every human being has an emotional life and inner experience that is completely their own, and which they are entitled to.
:When it comes to the validity of others and our own validity, we cannot help but support one when we support the other.
:In an argument, for example, two people who are secure in the validity of their own experience will be able to reach a resolution far quicker.
:They can both say to each other, “I can see what it’s like to be you, and I’m glad you can see what it’s like to be me.
:Neither of us is wrong.
:Even if we disagree, we are still valid people and our experiences are still real, important and deserving of respect.” Can you imagine how difficult it would be to have a serious conflict if both people felt this way?
:And that's a wrap on today's episode, you know, it's common sometimes to think that validation is just about agreeing, but it's not just about agreement, it's about respecting and acknowledging other people's experiences.
:Here are the main takeaways from today's lesson.
:Validation is doing or saying anything that makes another person feel that their thoughts, emotions, or even their entire sense of self are wrong and unreasonable.
:People who have been regularly invalidated during childhood develop severe mental and emotional issues in their adult life.
:They're at risk of developing mental health disorders, practicing invalidating behaviors themselves, having a weak sense of self, constantly doubting themselves, and so on.
:People who invalidate others generally do so for two reasons.
:First, they intend well, but simply don't know the best way to validate someone else, so they end up engaging in either minimizing, judging, or denying the other's issues.
:However, there's also another group of people who intentionally invalidate others, such as in the form of gaslighting.
:Here, people train others to doubt their own sense of perception about things by continuously invalidating them.
:Some of the most common ways in which we might invalidate others include using undermining language, having judgmental attitudes, trying to fix another person's problems when they just want to be heard, etc.
:Avoid using words like but by replacing them with and while also being mindful of your tone while conversing.
:Don't exercise judgment and remember that you're not being asked for a solution.
:The other person simply wants their thoughts to be heard.
:When someone invalidates you, it's essential to establish clear boundaries, especially if the other person is close to you.
:If not, you may simply choose to end the conversation and seize contact, but if they are close, you'll want to calmly use I statements to convey how the invalidation made you feel and set boundaries that establish how you want to be treated in the future.
:When another person doesn't give you the validation you wanted, practice self-validation.
:Use affirmations, journaling, practice positive self-talk, or you can even use Linahan's six-step model by yourself.
:All of these practices help you become self-sufficient and less dependent on others to affirm your thoughts and emotions.
:We can put all these things into practice by embracing kindness, practicing empathy, and creating a culture where everyone feels seen and heard.
:As Helen Keller once said, alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.
