The Importance of Self Validation: What Does It Mean to Validate Yourself?
Self-validation is an important human skill related to emotional and mental health. When a person is able to self-validate, it means they can accept all of their emotions, thoughts, feelings, experiences, and other perceptions.
Validating the way you feel, what you’re thinking about, and the experiences you’ve had are major parts of accepting yourself and working through your problems. Self-validating doesn’t mean you are living a perfect life with no difficult emotions or big problems – it means you are open to accepting yourself in whatever state you’re currently in so you can begin working through challenges effectively.
For example, consider feeling guilty about something. Feeling guilty can be a crushing experience, and the longer you try to avoid those feelings, the worse they are going to make you feel. If you can self-validate your feelings, it means you can acknowledge them, accept them and why they are there, and then begin working toward resolving them.
Self-validating doesn’t mean you are positively justifying your words or actions to make the feelings of guilt go away – it means you are willing to acknowledge them so you can start fixing the problem and processing the emotion correctly.
So, why would I share that in my first blog post of 2023?
We all have a need for self-validation. Our teens that are struggling to “find themselves,” truly have a tough time giving themselves enough credit–seeking validation from others instead. Over the next several days, I will share more information about how we can work together to support our teens.