Why Validation Matters

When other people decide how you should feel

Most of us have heard phrases like:

“Everything happens for a reason”

“At least…”

“Try to focus on the positives”

“It could be worse”

They are usually well intentioned, but that doesn't mean they are helpful.

When you're on the receiving end of comments like these, it's rare for them to land well. The subtle (and often subconscious) message is that the way you feel right now is wrong and needs to change. So instead of feeling understood, you feel more alone. Instead of feeling seen, you start questioning whether you are overreacting, being too negative or taking too long to move on.

They are a form of invalidation.

I think invalidation can be genuinely harmful. It does not just fail to help; it can become another barrier to healing. You are already carrying the original pain, and now you also have to carry the feeling that you should not be reacting to it in the way you are.

We are far too quick to fix people

There is a strong message in the wider world that difficult emotions are problems to be solved. If someone is grieving, we look for the positive. If someone is anxious, we reassure them. If someone is heartbroken, we tell them they will meet someone else. If someone is struggling, we try to reframe the situation or find the lesson in it.

Some of those things may be true, but truth is not always helpful, especially when it arrives too early - before somebody has had the chance to acknowledge, accept, and really feel what they are actually feeling.

I think a lot of this comes from discomfort. Sitting with somebody else’s pain is hard if you are not able to sit with your own, so the reflex is to try to move them out of it. We call it helping, but often we are trying to make the situation easier for ourselves.

Validation is not the same as agreement

Validation does not mean agreeing with everything someone says. It does not mean encouraging them to stay stuck, and it does not mean pretending that nothing ever needs to change.

It means recognising that, given what someone has been through, their emotional response makes sense. There is nothing wrong with them for feeling the way they feel. There is nothing wrong with the emotions themselves. They are having an appropriate human response to the situation they find themselves in.

If you have experienced loss, grief makes sense. If you have been hurt, anger makes sense. If your life feels uncertain, anxiety makes sense. The emotions are not the problem - the emotions are valid and there needs to be a processing and integration phase before anyone can move forwards.

A personal example

In a fairly short space of time, I went through three early miscarriages. As you can imagine there was a high level grief that came from those experiences.

One of the comments I heard more than once was, “At least you know you can get pregnant.”

I know that these comments were well meaning. I know the intention was to present a positive spin on the situation. And the statement is factually true! I can get pregnant.

However, bringing a positive spin to the conversation did not solve anything and it did not create any relief. I was grieving the loss of three babies, and pointing out a positive did not make that grief smaller.

What it did do was make me feel that the way I was grieving was somehow wrong. It suggested that I should not feel as devastated as I did because there was apparently a positive angle I had failed to appreciate.

That is what invalidation does. It tells you that your current emotional reality is too much, too negative or too uncomfortable, and that you should move on to something more acceptable. When you are already hurting, hearing that message only adds to the pain, it does not lighten it.

Pain needs to be witnessed

I believe pain needs to be witnessed. Grief needs to be witnessed. People need spaces where they can express what they are feeling without being judged, corrected or hurried towards a better emotional state.

Being witnessed does not remove the pain, but it removes some of the loneliness. It means you are no longer carrying the pain as well as defending your right to feel it at the same time.

There is something deeply healing about being with people who get it, or at least with people who are willing to listen without trying to change your experience. They do not need to have the perfect words. They do not need to offer advice. They simply need to be willing to acknowledge that what you are going through is real and that your response to it makes sense.

Validation is the beginning of healing

I do not believe people can move forwards until they feel acknowledged and seen. Validation is not the end of healing, but it is the foundation - step 1.

By attempting to move people towards positivity, acceptance or meaning before they have been allowed to experience what is actually there, is completely bypassing step 1. That does not speed healing up. It interrupts it.

Before emotions can be changed, they need to be felt. Before pain can be integrated, it needs to be acknowledged. Before someone can move forwards, they need to know there was nothing wrong with them for responding in the way they did.

The philosophy underneath Wisdom Wellness

This is the philosophy underneath Wisdom Wellness. I am not trying to fix people or convince them to feel differently. I am trying to create spaces and remove distractions so that people can tune in to how they really feel and be honest about where they are now.

This is true of pilgrimage, Reiki, Inner Dance - everything I offer and will offer in the future. The form changes, but the principle does not. People should be able to arrive as they are, without apologising for their emotions or being told that they need to turn them into something more positive.

I am rebelling against the idea that difficult emotions are problems to be solved. They are experiences that need to be witnessed, processed and integrated.

Being witnessed reminds us that we do not have to carry our pain alone. That is where healing begins.