How to Validate Your Emotions: Why Understanding Them Matters
Understanding Emotions, Reducing Shame, and Practicing Emotional Validation
Written By: Skye Saghar Javaheri
About the Author
Skye Saghar Javaheri, Master's of Social Work (Candidate), Administrative Student
I never liked phrases like “just sit with your emotions” or “you need to feel your feelings.” It felt like my only options were to either distract myself from what I was feeling or drown in it.
If I was studying for a test and becoming overwhelmed with anxiety, the last thing I wanted to hear was “sit with your feelings.” I felt like I was already sitting in them. I was anxious, miserable, struggling to focus, and sometimes even having trouble breathing. Now someone comes along and tells me that I need to sit with it more? No, thank you.
Looking back, though, I don’t think I understood what emotional validation actually meant. They told me to sit with my emotions, but I was sitting in my emotions, and believe it or not, there is a difference between the two.
Sitting with your emotions means actually noticing what you are feeling and allowing the feeling to be there instead of immediately trying to get rid of it, ignore it, or react to it. Emotional validation is part of this. It means recognizing what you are feeling, trying to understand why the emotion might have shown up, and allowing yourself to have that emotion without immediately judging yourself for it.
What it does not mean is believing every thought that comes with that emotion or acting on every urge that follows it.
That distinction matters because emotions, thoughts, urges, and behaviours are related, but they are not the same thing.
What Are We Actually Validating?
Let’s use an example to make this a little clearer.
Let’s say you are at a party and you see your partner talking to someone you find incredibly attractive.
Suddenly, you are hit with jealousy.
You think, “They have been talking to this person for a while. Maybe they like their company more than mine.”
Your heart starts beating faster. Your body tenses. You suddenly want to walk over, interrupt the conversation, and pull your partner away.
You don’t do that, but later, when you are alone together, you snap at your partner.
We can use this example to separate the emotion, thought, urge, and behaviour:
An emotion is what you feel.
Example: Jealousy.
A thought is the meaning or interpretation your mind gives to what is happening.
Example: “They like this person more than me” or “They would rather be talking to them than me.”
An urge is what you feel pulled to do.
Example: Wanting to interrupt the conversation and pull your partner away.
And a behaviour is what you actually do.
Example: Snapping at your partner later.
These emotions, thoughts, urges, and behaviours are all different parts of the experience, but they are also really intertwined. Most of the time, they happen so quickly that we do not stop to separate them. We just know that we suddenly feel awful and want to do something about it.
But when we talk about emotional validation, the part we are validating is the emotional experience itself.
We are not necessarily validating every conclusion our mind makes because of that emotion, and we are not saying that every behaviour that follows the emotion is automatically okay.
Understanding Emotions Can Make Validation Easier
For me, understanding why an emotion shows up makes it much easier to validate.
Take jealousy, for example. It is usually the emotion given to the possessive partner, the bitter ex, the evil stepsister, or the villain in a story. It is rarely the emotion we associate with the good guy.
So when jealousy shows up in us, another feeling can quickly show up with it: shame.
Why am I jealous?
I shouldn’t feel this way.
Am I being insecure?
Am I being controlling?
Now, instead of simply experiencing jealousy, we are also judging ourselves for having it.
It can help to understand that jealousy often shows up when we perceive a threat to a relationship or connection that matters to us.
Underneath the jealousy might be something like:
I really care about this person, and something about this situation is making me afraid that I could lose their attention, affection, or importance in their life.
That does not mean the threat is actually real. It means that something about the situation is being experienced as threatening.
Jealousy is so basic and human that even infants show jealousy-like reactions. And, honestly, that makes sense. Their survival depends on caregivers noticing them, responding to them, and staying connected to them. They are also, quite literally, too much of a baby to fend for themselves.
Understanding this can make jealousy easier to validate.
Instead of:
I’m jealous. What is wrong with me?
we might say:
Ah, I’m feeling jealous. Something about this situation feels threatening to me. Looks like I really like my partner and would very much like to keep them around.
That is validation.
We are not thinking:
I’m jealous, therefore my partner must be cheating or doing something wrong.
We are thinking:
This feeling is here, and I can understand where it might be coming from.
Sometimes understanding an emotion is exactly what makes it easier to stop fighting it.
Understanding Yourself Can Help With Validation Too
Understanding emotions in general can help us validate them, but understanding ourselves can help too.
Maybe you have been cheated on before. Even if your current partner has never given you a reason not to trust them, seeing them talking closely with someone else might bring up jealousy and fear.
Knowing your own history gives that reaction context.
Instead of thinking:
Why am I being so jealous? I have no reason to feel this way.
You might think:
Okay, this makes sense. I was betrayed before, and this situation makes me worry that it could happen again.
Your history does not prove that the same thing is happening now. It simply helps explain why your emotional alarm system might be going off.
And that is really the point of emotional validation: understanding where a feeling may be coming from without automatically assuming that everything the feeling is telling us is true.
Final Remarks
The better we understand ourselves and our emotions, the easier it can become to respond with curiosity instead of shame.
Sometimes you also need another person to help process your emotions better. Talking to a professional can help you understand your emotional patterns and developing more self-compassion around them, our therapists can help.
Book a session with one of our therapists today using the button bellow!
More About Skye
Skye is pursuing her Masters in Social Work (MSW) and completing her final practicum at Therapy Uninterrupted. With a genuine interest in people and mental health, she is completing an administrative practicum with the clinic to work towards pursuing her future career in social work.
References
Fassbinder, E., Schweiger, U., Martius, D., Brand-de Wilde, O., & Arntz, A. (2016). Emotion regulation in schema therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 1373. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01373
Hart, S., & Carrington, H. (2002). Jealousy in 6-month-old infants. Infancy, 3(3), 395–402. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327078IN0303_6
