Your Feelings Are Valid And You Do Not Need Anyone To Validate Them For You. A Few Tips On What To Do When Someone Invalidates Your Feelings.

One thing that us humans crave is a sense of belonging and with that, comes the need to be understood and accepted. What we need to understand is that when we depend on other people to validate our feelings and emotions we begin to compromise who we really are in order to fit in and be ‘apart’ of a group or community.

In today’s society we are so scared to let people know our true feelings because we fear, or in other cases anticipate their opinions. Where in actual fact, emotions and feelings are a crucial part of life and shouldn’t be ignored or invalidated. Its often the people who lack the emotional maturity to handle feelings and emotions that shrug them off as being too “stupid” or in other cases, “unnecessary”.

A lot of the time people fall into spurts of depression because they feel no one truly “understands” them and what they’re going through.

If only we were taught the importance of not giving a f*ck about what others think…

Our feelings matter, no matter what it may be. However, not everyone respects or acknowledges this and sometimes, it’s the people closest to us that invalidate our feelings.

Here is a few very important questions to ask before emotionally reacting to people who invalidate your feelings and emotions:

1.Are you close with this person and does this persons opinion matter?

2.Has this person shown interest in your feelings and well being in the past?

3.Will sharing and explaining your feelings to this person be beneficial?

Sometimes sharing or trying to get people to understand your feelings can be a big waste of time and energy. Energy which could be used for feeling and processing it within yourself. When we rely on people to validate our feelings we place a certain amount of expectation and are often left disappointed. That’s why its so important to ask yourself the questions mentioned above before doing so.

What does one do when the person invalidating your feelings is a loved one?

This is tricky because the simplest form of love is care, and when they shrug your emotions or feelings off as being unimportant you will naturally feel hurt and unloved. When this happens we need to remember that some people are just not emotionally capable to handle the rawness you are giving them. However, this also doesn’t mean that you should just accept this kind of behaviour, especially if you share a loving and respectful relationship with this person.

In a calm state, you should voice your opinions to them and explain how their actions have made you feel. Everyone deserves equal love and respect in relationships, especially if you provide the same for them.

When in doubt, validate your own feelings

If you ever feel like no one is listening or understands you, you need to remember how important it is to validate your own feelings because at the end of the day, the only person who will truly be there for you, is you. Learn to understand that you matter and that feeling each emotion as is passes is part of the human experience.

A helpful tip is writing or reciting affirmations when ever you feel like you are being invalidated. I’ve written a short list of affirmations for you to recite whenever you’re feeling down.

Feel free to come up with your own – its often your own words that will resonate truest with you.

I will respect and honour my feelings, whatever they may be.

I will give myself the time to truly feel and process the waves within my being.

I, like my feelings matter and as long as I believe it will be so.

People may not know respect my feelings and that is okay. I respect myself enough to respect my feelings

I will not bash others for not understanding my feelings.

I will give myself and others compassion when trying to understand mine or their feelings and emotions.

At the end of the day one must remember that you are the only person on earth who can validate your feelings as being important or not.

If no one is there for you, rest assured that you are there for yourself and that it is perfectly normal to feel.