"And so at times we talk, and I pretend to take your struggles seriously, just as I pretended to take my own seriously. Although we pretend, we really shouldn’t forget that we are pretending, that we are making up the content of our experience; we are making up the little dramas of our lives."
--Adyashanti

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Occasionally a client accuses me of invalidating them.

To be fair, usually I’m thinking, “Yay!” when that happens.

Because yes, hopefully so.

But no, they don't like it. They want to be validated, not invalidated.

As most likely you do too.

Validate: To confirm, endorse, establish, legitimize. To make valid. (Merriam Webster)

As in, not valid already, and needs to be made valid.

Suffering, panic, tears, the trauma that has sucked up huge amounts of time trying to get over- that’s what is supposed to be validated.

Y’know, by moi, and others.

Because you can’t make yourself valid, right? It requires someone outside, somehow,

to legitimize feelings you yourself hate and desperately want to go away.

I’m just not quite clear why anybody would want that.

I’m also not clear about how this works, exactly.

I mean, would a sympathetic, “There, there, honey,” legitimize a person or feeling? “I understand your pain? I’m sorry you’re hurting?”- would that do it?

Do what, exactly?

Provide a warm and fuzzy feeling for a bit? What wants or needs that?

Besides, what do those handful of words above actually make valid? Feelings? Story? Past trauma? Self? How is confirming any of that, desirable?

Seems something much prefers to hold onto crappy feelings, verifying and validating of them, than to risk losing them.

Ah yes. Of course.

The self hates being invalidated.

After all, invalidate it now and the next thing you know, it might be seen to be not there at all.

Which is not ok.

Well, to the non-existent self, anyway.

Better to confirm that sucker. Better to make a precious space for it with soothing words, lots of hugs, and a generous supply of tissues.

Better to validate it.

Because validation holds the sense of self in place. Validation equals confirmation. Confirmed selves feels real. Real is greatly preferred to not-real, when it comes to the sense of self.

Now that's something you can like.

It’s just that it’s never enough.

I mean, if, “I feel your pain” actually succeeded in achieving true contentment, then your friendly Mind-Tickler would be whole-heartedly saying those words nonstop.

Instead it’s unending therapy and inquiry and sitting with feelings and embodiment and group connectivity classes.

Because the self, whatever it is, has never been satisfied with any amount of validation it has managed to get.

The longing for endorsement has been pretty much bottomless. It feels nice for a while, and then soon enough you want more again.

Which makes sense. After all, no corroboration can ever make what's not-there, there.

So maybe the next time someone appears to invalidate you, maybe just for fun, for curiosity, for novelty,

you might check to see if what you need in that moment is actually validation.

Even if it feels strongly like you want it.

Because it could turn out that no one ever needs validation of fairy tales.

It could turn out that you feel much better not holding so tightly to that validated self.

And it could turn out that you get more of what you actually want

By invalidating validation.

Perhaps more than any, “There there honey, I feel your pain”

And box of tissues

will ever provide.