Episode 86: Why Validation Is a Biological Need

What if one of the greatest gifts you could give yourself—and the people you love—was simply feeling understood?

In this solo episode, Laura explores why validation isn't weakness, it's a biological need. Through the lens of nervous system science, she explains how validation helps us feel safe, why invalidation often leads to shame and self-doubt, and how learning to validate our own experience can transform the way we heal.

Laura also explores the powerful idea that two things can both be true. Your parents may have done the best they could with the tools they had, and their parenting may still have had a lasting impact on your nervous system. Acknowledging that impact isn't about blame—it's about validating your experience, grieving what was missing, and allowing your nervous system to move forward.

In this episode, you'll learn:

•  Why validation is a biological need 
•  How self-validation supports nervous system healing 
•  The difference between intent and impact 
•  Why there can be harm without intent 
•  How grief, validation and compassion help us move from survival into healing 

If you've ever struggled to trust your own feelings, or found yourself stuck between compassion for others and compassion for yourself, this episode is for you. Healing begins when we stop questioning our experience... and start validating it.

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You can check out our respective websites and social media here:

Becky:

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www.therosealmanac.com

Laura:

www.soulsanctuarystudios.com

www.lauraclaytonwellness.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hello everybody, so it's Laura here just doing a solo episode this week and this is on something that I've really kind of sat with recently. Lots of you will know I'm doing my trauma therapist certification at the moment, and something that is talked about a lot is validation. And I don't think I really understood validation, and I thought it would be a really useful, hopefully, thing to share because I'll explain the impact that it has on our nervous system from purely a biology perspective, and why it's so important a to validate ourselves and b to validate the people in our lives. So, what is validation and why could it be the missing piece in healing? So, validation is a word that we hear all the time. It's probably not a new word to anyone, but I don't think many of us were ever actually taught what it really means. So when I first thought of validation, I thought it meant agreeing with someone, like telling them that they're right or taking their side, but that really is not what validation is. So validation is just simply communicating that you understand how someone feels. And that can seem quite simple on the surface, but I'm not sure how often we really do it because sometimes the ego kind of gets involved, and before we validate how someone feels, maybe we question it or we disagree because maybe it's not our own view. But that's really not the point. Validation is about showing empathy and understanding for how they feel, their feelings in their body, which are real, because if they feel them, then they're real to them. Despite what you might think about the circumstances, we are validating the feeling. We're not necessarily agreeing with a point, and that's really different. So it doesn't mean that you have to agree with their behavior, it doesn't mean you have to see the situation in the same way, it doesn't mean that you think their interpretation is true or right. It simply means that you recognize that their emotional experience and response is real to them because feelings are always real, they're never right or wrong, they're just information. They are the nervous system's response to how the body has interpreted an experience. So that is so unique and individual to every one person, and it doesn't matter if you agree with them or not, if you have the same response or not. The truth is that is how they feel, and that is the only truth that there is. That is their truth, and you can acknowledge that whether you agree with it or not. And that is a really important distinction. You can disagree with someone's perspective and still completely validate their feelings. For example, imagine someone says, I feel really hurt when you don't reply to my message. Validation isn't saying you're right, I was wrong. Validation sounds more like, I can understand why that felt painful, or I can see why you experienced it that way. So you're acknowledging their internal experience without necessarily agreeing with any conclusion that they've drawn. And maybe the most important person that we ever need to learn to validate is ourselves. Because this isn't just about relationships, it's about biology. When we're born, we don't arrive in the world able to regulate our own emotions. Our nervous systems are unfinished. And we depend on people's nervous systems to help organize our own, and that is called co-regulation. A baby doesn't calm down because someone tells them to calm down. A baby calms down because a regulated adult picks them up, softens their voice, rocks them gently, and communicates through their body. You are safe. And over time, those repeated experiences become internalized. The child slowly develops the ability to self-regulate because first someone helped them to co-regulate. But something even deeper is happening. When our emotions are constantly met with curiosity, with compassion, with understanding, the nervous system begins to build really powerful beliefs like my feelings make sense. It's safe to feel how I feel, my truth. I don't have to hide my emotions. I'm not wrong, I'm not alone, I can trust myself, and that's a really big one. Those beliefs become the foundation of emotional safety. Because what happens if the emotions aren't met with understanding? What happens if every time we cry, we're told stop being dramatic, or if we're anxious, someone says you're overreacting, or if we're angry, we're told to calm down. Or perhaps the one many of us heard is other people have it worse. So let's be clear: most parents never intended to invalidate their children, they just they didn't know better. But two things can be true. Sure, they were doing the best they could with the tools they had, and it impacted our nervous system. I think it's really important that both of those points get equal weight. The two things can be true, they were doing their best, might not have been their fault, they had good intent, but you were still impacted, harmed in some way. And this has been one of my biggest learnings recently that there can be harm without intent. And I feel like I need to say that again because that's one of the biggest things I've learned. So there can be harm without intent, and that's been a huge lesson for me. What I've done for a really long time, which I think a lot of us do, is use that phrase, they did the best they could with the tools they had. And we often say that on teacher training, and I think it's a really useful phrase. But I think what we have to be really careful of is saying it in a way that invalidates our own experience. Like just because they did the best they had suddenly means that I should be fine with it. And that's not true or fair. So it's this idea that two things can exist. Yes, they did the best they could, they had good intentions, and how they parented impacted me. Of course it did, both negatively and positively. And this obviously, as a parent, is something that as I'm learning all this stuff, my goodness, I'm feeling so like it's so challenging because it's almost like the more I know, the harder it is. But I'm just hoping that like by it being harder for me now, like it's easier for them later, or maybe like the earlier that you know I start bringing this stuff in with them, like maybe the less challenges we might have later. I don't know. But something that I find really comforting that I watched a long time ago, actually, but it's I think it's useful to remind like if any parents are listening to this and being like, Oh my god, I didn't do that, or I don't do it to myself, you know, or that didn't happen to me. There's a brilliant film, I it was on Netflix, I don't know if it's still on there actually, and it's called I'm Not Your Guru. It's by Tony Robbins. Some of you will know I've I've gone to lots of his events abroad, they're amazing. But he's doing in this film, he does his sort of usual, like quite dramatic interviews with the audience, like sort of live coaching, hotspotting people in the audience. And he speaks to two women. I think this one's Date with Destiny, which is about them like meeting their future partners. And one of the ladies explains how awful her dad was, right? He, I think he was a drug addict, like he abused her, like all this awful stuff. And obviously, the audience are just kind of like gasping with like how horrendous it was. And you know, Tony obviously validates her experience. And then he moves on to another person in the audience, and she's like, I don't get it. Like, my dad was amazing, you know, he did everything right, he was so kind, he listened to me, like all of this. And Tony grabs the microphone and skews the language, but he goes, What an asshole! Down the microphone, and everyone's like, Why on earth is he saying that? Like, has he misheard her? And he explains, like, your dad was so great that no one's gonna live up to him, like you're forever gonna be alone because no one's gonna be good enough, and everyone kind of laughs and is like, God, like parenting's impossible, right? Because you know, if you're a rubbish parent, you mess them up, if you're an amazing parent, you mess them up, like in some way, and I think that is a really important thing to realize as a parent. Like, yeah, we can only do the best we can, and like, yes, with the tools we have at the same time, and there's gonna be an impact, like at some point in their life, they're gonna need support with something, and I think as long as we're doing the best we can, and like you know, genuinely trying our best in that way, then in a way, we kind of have to let go of the control, right? So, yeah, I think it's been it's been a really interesting like lesson for me is that like two things can be true, right? It's that idea that like you know there can be harm without intent, and taking responsibility for that, because the truth is like every event has an impact, right? Like, that's just physics, isn't it? The good, the bad, and the ugly. You know, we cannot control that. We can do our best, and then as adults, it's obviously time then to take responsibility for ourselves and seek help, you know, if or when we're struggling. And like sometimes now I think of it like if I was to hurt my ankle, you know, I wouldn't like blame my mum and my dad for my bone structure and like how I walk. Like, and it's kind of the same when I'm struggling with something like mentally or even with trauma loops or anything like that. It's like they did their best, and now it's up to me as an adult to you know, heal what needs to be healed, to learn and think in a way that's better for me. I do sort of feel like that should be the same with our emotions, and that's definitely not to invalidate my experience or anyone else's, not at all. Like how you feel is completely real, you know, and it's also this, you know, the reality that blame it just is often not helpful. Like for me, blaming other people has any ever held me back, you know, it's that old like drinking your own poison thing. I don't blame my parents anymore. Like they didn't know what they didn't know, they couldn't have, it was a different world then. They were brought up how they were. So for me, blame is a bit of a pointless game, and and often it just drains you or makes you sick. But so what I do instead now is validate my experience, you know, and and that has been really game-changing for me. Like, because every new way of being has to start with you, you know, if you want to judge people less, you've got to start judging yourself less. You want to be less critical of people, you need to start being less critical of yourself. If you want to validate people more, you've got to start by validating yourself. So as soon as you start validating yourself, you'll start to close your loops. It will give you more capacity, you'll be able to validate others and help them close their loops. You know, we really start to heal trauma through validation. This is why I think it's so important for ourselves and for our relationships with others. And I think, you know, it's not just with kids, like it's easy to think about that because we're thinking about, you know, how we parent or we're talking about the nervous system and how children are brought up. But this is with every relationship, it's in actually in every conversation that we have validation, closing loops. Like Adam and I have historically been quite defensive with each other, you know, happens in a marriage, right? But I am finally learning to soften. And so instead of fighting, like I genuinely try and feel it from his side and just validate how he feels, even if I don't agree with it. Like, that's really not the point. The point is validating that his feelings are real, and I can acknowledge and validate them despite my opinion on any of the facts. Because in that moment, it's not about me, it's about him and validating how he feels. And I think that's like the overriding message, really, is like feelings cannot be right or wrong, they just are. If that's how someone feels, then that is their truth, regardless of what you think about it. And everyone's feelings need validating, whether you agree with them or not, because the nervous system isn't listening for intent, it's listening for safety. If our emotional experience is repeatedly dismissed, minimized, criticized, we don't just suppress the feeling, we begin to mistrust the person having the feeling, and that's ourself. So instead of learning, oh, that really hurt, we learn I shouldn't be feeling like this. Or instead of I'm scared, we start to think I must be weak. Or instead of my needs matter, we think maybe I'm too much. So the problem moves from the experience, a temporary thing, to an identity. And over time that changes everything because we lose trust in our intuition, we second guess our emotions, we look to everyone else to tell us what's true or what's right, and we become disconnected from ourselves. And when we no longer feel safe with ourselves, the nervous system has to stay on high alert in fight and flight, always scanning, always analyzing, always trying to work out whether we're safe because we don't feel safe in ourselves, because we don't trust ourselves, because nobody validated us. And that's not because the nervous system is broken, it is literally doing its job. The nervous system isn't trying to make us happy, it's trying to keep us alive, and it believes our emotions weren't acknowledged. It assumes the danger still exists, so it keeps preparing us, even years later. And that's why validation is so powerful, not because it changes what happened, we can't rewrite the past, but we can change the meaning our nervous system gives to it. So one of the biggest turning points in healing comes from when we begin validating ourselves instead of saying I'm being ridiculous, we say, Yeah, it makes sense that I feel this way, but instead of I should be over this, of course that still affects me. Instead of I need to stop crying, my body is trying to process this. So validation isn't self-pity, it isn't making ourself a victim, it's simply acknowledging our own truth because what happened happened, and we felt it, we felt something. And pretending that we didn't or that we felt something different doesn't heal us. It simply teaches the nervous system that the signals can't be trusted, that our own signals can't be trusted. When we validate ourselves, something remarkable happens. The nervous system receives a message, it might have been waiting years to hear, you know, what I felt made sense. I wasn't wrong. My emotion emotions weren't the problem. I can trust myself, I was right, I'm safe with myself. And when we finally feel safe with ourselves, the nervous system can stand out, it can stop shouting because emotions don't exist to torture us, they exist to move us. Like the word emotion literally comes from the Latin emovir, which is energy in motion. Emotions are designed to move through us, to rise, to be felt, and to complete. And when we interrupt them with judgment, invalidating ourselves, with criticism, with shame, they don't disappear, they just remain unfinished. Like a sentence without a full stop, the loop is open, so the stress response stays live. The nervous system keeps protecting us because, from its perspective, the experience is not finished. And that's why healing isn't just about talking. Talking can be really valuable, helps us understand, it helps us make meaning. But insight alone does not complete a stress response. Healing happens when the body finally feels safe enough to experience what it never got to finish. To cry, to shake, to sigh, to tremble, to soften, to let the emotion move all the way through to completion. And validation is often the doorway that allows that to happen because only when the nervous system feels believed does it finally feel safe enough to let go. So maybe a good question to leave you with today is how often do you invalidate yourself without even noticing? So, how often do you tell yourself, oh, it's not a big deal, or maybe I should be stronger, or other people have it worse, or I just need to crack on? What if instead you simply paused, maybe even placed a hand on your heart or whatever is calling your attention on your body and said, It makes sense that I feel this. Not because you're weak, not because you're broken, but because you're human and it's a biological process that needs to complete. Validation isn't about staying stuck in the past, it's about giving your nervous system the safety it needed so that it no longer has to stay there. So I hope that helps. I hope that episode has resonated with you in some way. Please do always share any of these episodes with someone that you feel might benefit from it. And yeah, just remember that your feelings do not need permission to exist, they simply need the space to be felt.