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Recently, I’ve been diving into the realm of emotional intelligence and the topic of empathy and being an empathetic listener are what I wanted to focus on especially this month. With this blog post I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned so far so that you might find some value in this information and be able to utilize it in your own communication aspects of interactions and relationships.
In my journey of becoming more emotionally intelligent, and learning how to be a better listener and give more validation in my conversations I came across the book I Hear You by Micheal S. Sorensen. This book is short, straightforward, and easy to follow and apply. I got the Audible version of this book because I find that I make more progress with books if I can listen to them rather than stopping to sit and read. At least in my current stage of life this is true.
Use this link to try Audible for free for 30 days. You’ll get through I Hear You in just 1-2 days, leaving you with another 28 days of listening left on your free trial.
What is Validation in Communication and Why is it Important?
Validation, in the most simplest of terms, is the act of making a person feel heard and understood. In a conversation, this can be as simple as saying “I hear you, I get why you feel that way, and it’s okay that you do feel that way.” This is extremely beneficial in both day to day communication with people you encounter, but also for the more serious and deep relationships in your life. Such as with a spouse, sibling, or close friends.
Or, there’s Michaels great definition in the beginning of chapter 2, where he says “validation (in the context of interpersonal skills, anyway) is the act of recognizing and affirming the validity or worth of a person’s emotions.”
Validation is important because it allow us to connect with fellow human beings on a deeper level that involves empathy. When another person feels brave enough to share something with you that is full of emotion, they are showing vulnerability and want to connect with you in some way. Through using validation you are “stepping into their bubble” and letting them know that they are not alone in their experience and that it is okay that they feel the way that they do about their experience.
We Have Become Used to Being Invalidated or Invalidating Others
Humans have lost touch with the practice of being validating to one another and connecting on an empathetic level with one another through experiences and emotions. You may not realize it but you are probably met with as well as responding with more invalidating statements than validating ones in your day to day interactions. Either because you are distracted and not fully present in conversations, or these kind of responses have become a learned behavior due to “societal norms”.
One “norm” that really grinds by gears is the suppression of emotion that is taught to us, especially to men (that’s a conversation for another post), at an early age and continues to be taught from one generation to the next. By this, I mean that a number of important emotions are labels as being bad or as something that we shouldn’t feel or express. Other wise we may appear to be weak or “over emotional.” Or as Michael also points out, that we are taught to focus more on the good emotions and just skip right over the negative ones.
Michael points out that statements that we probably think are up lifting and encouraging or even supportive, are actually statements of invalidation. Statements like “It’ll get better”, or “it could always be worse” may feel like the right thing to say, but are actually invalidating the feelings of the person who is sharing with you. If they are telling you that they are sad because they just lost their job, by saying one of the above statements, you are essentially telling them that they shouldn’t be sad and to look on the bright side. If you lost your job you’d be sad wouldn’t you? It’s a reasonable emotion for such a situation and anyone should feel allowed to experience such emotions and not have to “cheer up and look a the bright side.”
What is the Role of Empathy and How Do You Use it?
Michael defines empathy as “the foundation of genuine connection” and goes on to say that empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” In the book, Micheal also clearly defines the difference between empathy and sympathy. He does this with an example that Brené Brown gave at a conference back in 2013 and I really loved this way of thinking of it.
Brené said to imagine that someone has fallen down to the bottom of a hole and they tell up to you that it’s dark and overwhelming down there. Someone who is showing sympathy might, for an example, might say to the person in the hole “Oh no, that’s not good! Do you want something to eat?” Where as someone who is showing empathy would go down into the hole with that person and tell them “I know what you’re experiencing and it’s not great. You’re not alone in this.” Brené always does such a wonderful job of making things understandable through examples, hypothetical or otherwise. Micheal did a great job of illustrating this in chapter 4 of his book where he talked about empathy as well.
Michael goes on to explain a few different ways that can help a person to learn to be more empathetic. My favorite method is to imagine the person I am talking to as a child version of themselves. It really helps to bring their emotions into perspective, as we all have an inner child that is experiencing the same emotions that our adult self is.
Another tip Michael gives is to pay more attention to your own emotions. If you are more in tune with your own emotions and are able to identify them, you will be easily be able to identify and empathize with the emotions of others. When you can relate to an emotion that someone is expressing to you, you will help them to feel validated and not so alone by sharing this with them. Instead of making them feel that they are wrong for feeling an emotion.
Putting it All Together
There is far too much to unpack from this book for me to stuff into a blog post. I don’t want to give it all away either. But a few of the big take aways I have from this book include…
- Learning the what validation is and why it’s important in communication
- Understanding the difference between validating and invalidating statements
- Learning that you can validate negative and positive emotions
- Having a better understanding of what empathic listening is and how to do it
- Acquiring new tools to use to become better at showing empathy, such as imaging someone as a child
I don’t want to give away too much, but highly recommend that you read or listen to it for yourself. Learning to validate and show empathy are important life skills that will benefit you in any stage of life that you are in. Validation will improve your marriage, personal relationships with family or close friends, as well as your professional life. Especially if you have to step into the roll of being a leader at work some times (or all the time).
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