Emotions need to be validated to build our identity Who are we?It is a momentous and often frequent problem when we find ourselves in specific situations, such as when we do not know what to decide, when we face the end of a relationship or when we have to decide what work to choose. all these situations have in common? Emotions are part of each of them.
Therefore, identity and our emotional world are directly linked. Often, confusion about how we feel extends doubt to other important issues, such as our ability to control; a control that, on the other hand, we can try to recover by influencing or conditioning others, in this way we intend to clear our doubts, demonstrating that we have the ability to rise above others and, therefore, to influence the evolution of others. Events.
- Knowing how to identify.
- Regulate and manage our emotions is an outstanding issue in education.
- The importance of this skill is so great that it will depend not only on our mental health.
- But also on those who share life with us.
Let’s think emotions are a two-sided coin: on the one hand they have energy, on the other hand they have one or more messages. These two faces are equally important, and good emotional regulation involves aligning them to serve our interests.
Sadness often forces us to think and gives us a kind of energy that invites us to pause, often irritation shows that someone has violated our rights and gives us the energy to act so that it does not happen again. who decide what to do with this message, what it means to give it. We too can regulate the release of this energy.
We are responsible for our emotions. The problem is that when we’re kids, they don’t teach us what to do with them, without hiding them or trying to contain them.
The emotions we feel, based on external stimuli, are our responsibility, a fact that is not easy to accept, because the tendency to blame others for our anger, sadness or melancholy is very common, which is why the way the anger turns on sadness or fear in joy will define how we deal with daily challenges and deeper problems.
Emotional validation consists in accepting and validating what we feel or what the other person thinks, whether or not we agree with that emotion, in this way we can validate our emotions and also those of others.
In theory, it may seem simple, however, the validation of emotions is on the brink of extinction. The most common complaints are those of someone, don’t you hear me ?, “you don’t understand me”, “you don’t understand me”, while the other person is stunned by such accusations. Who understands who listens?And? Yes, what do you understand?. In many cases, this is the result of a lack of emotional validation.
The possibility of emotional validation evaporates in the face of the need to judge, comment or defend against an emotion that we do not know. Sometimes, without the intention of invalidating the other person, we use responses, nonverbal communications or justifications that are based on the way we build empathetic bridges, an empathy that leads us to understand the other.
People who don’t feel listened to may have a more attentive audience, but no one will validate their emotions.
What happens when we do not validate emotions is similar to what happens when we do not express or reject them, as if we were pressure cookers, we accumulate disordered emotions until the day they manifest themselves in the form of uncontrollability. .
By validating the emotions of our children, spouses, families or collaborators, we accompany them and understand their discomfort, make them feel safe, protected, cared for, respected and loved.
When they tell us something cheerful, we know how to go on, but when they tell us something sad, we only know how to invalidate it.
Not emotionally validating what the other person feels can be a reason to cool the bond and relationship. As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, emotions not only define us, but also guide us to certain choices, lifestyles, behaviors and other paths. that make us unique and recognizable, so they are part of our identity and our self-control.
On the contrary, the belief that others do not validate our emotions can sow the idea that we do not adapt, it seems that there is something in us that makes us fragile, unpredictable and unreliable, so if we feed and water this seed, if we copy the position of others in the face of our emotions, it will be easy to lose the idea of who we are , at the same time, the future becomes overwhelming because we do not know how to answer the question of who we want to be.
It is very important to validate emotions during childhood. Unconditional acceptance of the emotions of younger children will facilitate their expression, identification and emotional management. If, on the other hand, for fear of the sadness your child may feel, you escape with indirect messages, with double messages or solutions, you invalidate him emotionally. Thus, it can generate high doses of anxiety, irritability, nervousness and insecurity.
Ignorance of emotions defends us from doing so
There are a few things that can help us with emotional validation:
Examples of validation and emotional override that we can offer for a better understanding of the reader include:
Maria: I couldn’t finish the job and I’m very frustrated
Laura: Don’t worry, you’ll be ready tomorrow.
Maria: But I’m doing everything wrong.
Laura: It’s not the end of the world, Maria
Maria: I think so, I wish you’d helped me.
Laura: I had to do a lot of things today.
Maria: I couldn’t finish the job and I’m very frustrated
Laura: Normal, it must be very difficult.
Maria: Yes, very much. I think I’m doing everything wrong.
Laura: Is that how you feel?
Maria: It’s actually like that. I wish you’d helped me.
Laura: That’s right, it would have been a lot better. I wish I could have given you a hand. Too bad I had a day full of things to do.
Validating emotions is an art worth learning to improve humanity and empathy in human relationships, also to help young people grow up without being afraid of the emotional world, so we can name emotions without becoming uncharted territory.
So “let’s put ourselves in each other’s shoes. ” We bring a much more humane, close and generous result.