Your Emotions Are Valid Quotes

It annoys me when people try to convince other people that their anger or stress isn’t warranted if someone else in the world is worse off than them. It’s bullshit. Your emotions and reactions are valid, Merit. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. You’re the only one who feels them.

Your emotions and reactions are valid, Merit. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. You’re the only one who feels them.

Attitude Is Everything We live in a culture that is blind to betrayal and intolerant of emotional pain. In New Age crowds here on the West Coast, where your attitude is considered the sole determinant of the impact an event has on you, it gets even worse.In these New Thought circles, no matter what happens to you, it is assumed that you have created your own reality. Not only have you chosen the event, no matter how horrible, for your personal growth. You also chose how you interpret what happened—as if there are no interpersonal facts, only interpretations. The upshot of this perspective is that your suffering would vanish if only you adopted a more evolved perspective and stopped feeling aggrieved. I was often kindly reminded (and believed it myself), “there are no victims.” How can you be a victim when you are responsible for your circumstances? When you most need validation and support to get through the worst pain of your life, to be confronted with the well-meaning, but quasi-religious fervor of these insidious half-truths can be deeply demoralizing. This kind of advice feeds guilt and shame, inhibits grieving, encourages grandiosity and can drive you to be alone to shield your vulnerability.

Women are powerful, and I see them stifle this every. single. day. Stop looking to be saved and hiding your magic. Stop tossing aside your voice and valid emotions. Stop wasting your time with fake friends and chasing men like they're cures. Material things, better jobs, and other people- they won't fill your gap. Only you can do that. Life is short. Rise up and step back into your awesome, innate power. You are compassion and creative force and divine life itself. You are a Goddess.

We need this help from the outside because we don't know how to to do this for ourselves. We start with a deep deficit—a chasm really—when it comes to understanding and being tolerant of ourselves, and that's even before we go forth to do battle with the rest of the world. As soon as someone judges, criticizes, dismisses, or ignores, the cycle of pain and reactivity ramps up, compounded by shame, remorse, and rejection. The act of validation, simply saying, 'I can see things from your perspective,' can short-circuit that emotional detour.

If you feel okay only when life is happy and easy-breezy-beautiful Cover-Girl, then guess what? You are not free. <...> You are the prisoner of your own indulgences, enslaved by your own intolerance, crippled by your own emotional weakness. You will constantly feel a need for some external comfort or validation that may or may not ever come

But if there is an absence of such validation of a child’s importance to the parent, if a child is made to feel shame for wanting or needing attention from one parent or the other often enough, she will grow up being blind to many of her own emotional needs.

Your feelings are valid and real. Do not let anybody denounce them just because they do not feel the same way. These feelings do not make you weak, or clingy, or overly emotional. They make you strong, brave, and beautiful. You are not merely made of stardust; you are the comet streaking through the sky on the way to do good and bright things.

We need to talk about the hierarchy of grief. You hear it all the time—no grief is worse than any other. I don’t think that’s one bit true. There is a hierarchy of grief. Divorce is not the same as the death of a partner. Death of a grandparent is not the same as the death of a child. Losing your job is not the same as losing a limb. Here’s the thing: every loss is valid. And every loss is not the same. You can’t flatten the landscape of grief and say that everything is equal. It isn’t. It’s easier to see when we take it out of the intensely personal: stubbing your toe hurts. It totally hurts. For a moment, the pain can be all-consuming. You might even hobble for a while. Having your foot ripped off by a passing freight train hurts, too. Differently. The pain lasts longer. The injury needs recovery time, which may be uncertain or complicated. It affects and impacts your life moving forward. You can’t go back to the life you had before you became a one-footed person. No one would say these two injuries are exactly the same.

Validation helps to bring down emotions and make them more manageable for everyone, not just the person with BPD.

I don’t think the world should assume that we are all natural mothers. And it does. I don’t think it’s such a big thing anymore, but the idea that you sacrifice everything for your children—it’s a load of rubbish. It leads to very destructive living and thinking, and it has a much worse effect on children than if you go out and live your own life. You’re meant to adore your children at all times, and you’re not meant to have a bad thought about them. That’s facism, you know, and it’s elevating the child at the expense of the mother. It’s like your life is not valid except in fulfilling this child’s needs. What about all your needs, your desires, your wants, your problems? They’re going to come out anyway, so it’s better they’re acknowledged straight off. Having said that, I really do believe that children have to be protected. They have to be loved. Somewhere between the two, I think, something needs to be sorted out. The relationship between parent and child is so difficult and so complex. There’s every emotion there. We mostly only acknowledge the good ones. If we were allowed to talk about the other ones, maybe it would alleviate them in some way

The reason why you need emotional support is because it's important for survivors to be heard. To be understood. To be able to express yourself without fearing criticism or harsh judgement. To be validated for your pain, suffering, and loss. For others to be there for you to encourage you, especially if you're having a bad day or feeling triggered.

Ignoring, dismissing, or suppressing your emotions doesn’t get rid of them; it buries them. It tucks them away to fester and arise again at a later time. When you recognize and validate your emotions instead, you strip away the judgment—the “I’m bad,” “this is wrong,” or “I shouldn’t” responses—and allow your experiences to flow through you. It helps you quell the inner critic and live a more present and enjoyable life.

When a child’s emotions are not acknowledged or validated by her parents, she can grow up to be unable to do so for herself. As an adult, she may have little tolerance for intense feelings or for any feelings at all. She might bury them, and tend to blame herself for being angry, sad, nervous, frustrated, or even happy. The natural human experience of simply having feelings becomes a source of secret shame. “What is wrong with me?” is a question she may often ask herself.

Now you have your job description: keep your child safe, emotionally and physically, using boundaries, validation, and empathy.

People will come to care about you, but only if you give them a valid reason. Don’t assume they’ll give you love like your parents, emotional support like your best friend, and cheerful feedback like a soccer coach for seven-year-olds. Because they won’t, unless you give them good reason to. And even then, they still probably won’t.

does it really matter if your ex was a psychopath, a sociopath, a narcissist, or a garden-variety jerk? The label doesn’t make your feelings any more or less valid. Your feelings are absolutes.

Another step is that daughters can learn to monitor their own feelings and instincts by saying, "I feel uncomfortable (angry, dominated, usurped, inadequate, guilty, furious) with my mother more often than I do not. I have to pay attention to that, because it shows in how I treat my friends (lover, spouse, kids, colleagues). There is validity here. I don't have to blame or excuse my mother-I just have to see her so I can see myself.

It is very important that you understand the true innocence of all feelings, for each of them, if left alone and followed, will lead you back to the reality of love . -In their way the hateful or revengeful thoughts are natural therapeutic devices, for if you follow them, accepting them with their own validity as feelings, they will automatically lead you beyond themselves; they will change into other feelings, carrying you from hatred into ... fear - which is always behind hatred. (1 1;220-22 1) 2. Regardless of what you have been told, hatred does not initiate strong violence ... The outbreak of violence is often the result of a built-in sense of powerlessness. (21;418) 3. There are adults who quail when one of their children say, "I hate you'. Often children quickly learn not to be honest. What the child is really saying is, “I love you so. Why are you so mean to me?' or 'What stands between us and the love for you that I feel?' (21;423)4. You become conditioned so that you feel guilty when you even contemplate hating another. You try to hide such thoughts from yourself. You may succeed so well that you literally do not know what you are feeling on a conscious level. The emotions are there but they are invisible to you because you are afraid to look. To that extent you are divorced from your own reality and disconnected from your own feelings of love. (21;424) 5. Even your hateful fantasies, left alone, will return you to a reconciliation and release of love. A fantasy of beating a parent or a child, even to death, will if followed through lead to tears of love and understanding. (2 1;424) 6. You may love a parent, and if the parent does not seem to return the love...you may 'hate' the parent .... Hatred is not a denial of love then but an attempt to regain it

Repeat after me, Gray: My feelings are valid.” “Stop talking,” Grayson ordered. “My emotions are real,” Xander continued. “Go on. Say it.” “I’m hanging up on you now.” “Who’s your favorite brother?” Xander called loudly enough that Grayson could still hear him even as he removed the phone from his ear. “Nash,” he answered loudly. “Lies!” Grayson’s phone vibrated. “I’m getting another call,” he told Xander. “More lies!” Xander said happily. “Give my regards to Girl Grayson!” “Good-bye, Xander.” “You said good-b—

Whatever you needed most, they validated and provided. Pay special attention to the things they obsessively flattered. These are what you’re looking for.

Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it.

Though your emotions are always valid and need to be validated, they are hardly ever an accurate measure of what you are capable of in life.

In a negotiation, that’s called labeling. Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. Give someone’s emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels. It gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about (“How’s your family?”). Think of labeling as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack.

It takes a great deal of energy to doubt yourself constantly, and even more to beat yourself up—or down—even if it’s only in your own mind. While you are engaged in mental or emotional battery, you are bound to feel exhausted. In the midst of mental or emotional exhaustion, the negative ego can and will trick you into believing that you now have a valid justification for why you should not, cannot, and do not trust yourself. This is what I call “the dark side of trust,” the internal experience of questioning and doubting yourself, your desires, and your ability to hold your own.

But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin. We

The more power they have over your emotions, the less likely you’ll trust your own reality and the truth about the abuse you’re enduring. Knowing the manipulative tactics and how they work to erode your sense of self can arm you with the knowledge of what you’re facing and at the very least, develop a plan to retain control over your own life and away from toxic people. . . . Taking back our control and power . . . means seeking validating professional help for the abuse we’ve suffered, detaching from these people in our lives, learning more about the techniques of abusers, finding support networks, sharing our story to raise awareness, and finding appropriate healing modalities that can enable us to transcend and thrive after their abuse.

For example, when a loved one dies, you validly think, "I lost him (or her), and I will miss the companionship and love we shared." The feelings such a thought creates are tender, realistic, and desirable. Your emotions will enhance your humanity and add depth to the meaning of life. In this way you gain from your loss.

Environments become invalidating when they fail to protect you or neglect your basic needs. Environments for children invalidate when they regularly communicate that their needs, feelings, and preferences are bad, or wrong, or otherwise lack validity

And then God gave me insight: this was winter. It would end, in time, but not by my own doing. My responsibility was simply to know the season, and match my actions and inactions to it. It was to learn the slow hard discipline of waiting. It was my season to believe in spite of—to believe in the absence of evidence or emotion, when there’s nothing, no bud, no color, no light, no birdsong, to validate belief. It was my time to walk without sight.

the same time, a relationship with a narcissist is also a cataclysmic rude awakening into the fact that people are rarely who they portray themselves to be. It’s knowledge. It’s experience. It’s insight and wisdom—perhaps the kind you wish you didn’t have. Sometimes, it’s even social capital—enabling you to navigate even more intelligently and with more discernment than ever before. You’re wide-eyed and vigilant. You see what other people don’t see. You learn about boundaries and your values. You recognize the value of authentic people, those rare breeds who wear their hearts on their sleeve and bleed integrity instead of exploit that quality in others. It doesn’t have to be a “waste of time” to have been through this experience—even while validating how painful it is and the fact that no one should ever have to go through it. When you’ve been through something horrific like this, at the very least you are owed the fruits of its wisdom and the drive it provides you to kick some serious ass.

Codependents use it to dismiss their own needs and emotions, deciding they must rescue and help even more people in order to achieve selfless sainthood. Narcissists use it to start cults and show others how worldly and wise they are. Borderlines use it to seek sympathy and validation from a higher power for their poor decisions, and then feel betrayed when their decisions inevitably backfire. Avoidants use it to stay lost in their imagination, viewing their own healing through the lens of invented characters.

I hope you never seek validation from others in any aspect of your life I hope you are confident in your desires and remain true to your personal passions I hope you cling to wonder and curiosity I hope you recognize your power to manifest an intentional and tranquil life I hope you are capable of being happy for others I hope you understand that gratification is fleeting, as is every emotion and moment I hope you find peace in simplicity I hope you transform this world, but do not become lost in the trend

The psychological definition of an invalidating environment is an environment where the responses of the child are pervasively treated as inaccurate, unrealistic, trivial, or pathological, independent of the actual validity of the behavior. This is really a mess of words, but here are some examples of invalidating responses: The child says he doesn’t like green beans. “Of course you like green beans. Everybody likes green beans.” The child brings home a grade of 98 on a test. “Why didn’t you get a 100? I know you could have gotten a 100.” The child says she is hungry. “You are not hungry. You just ate.” The child comes home crying after a fight with a friend. “You didn’t need him as a friend anyway.” The teenager comes home after a terrible day at high school. “Don’t you complain. These are the best days of your life.” (Honestly, would you want to do high school again?)

True forgiveness comes from within, not from another person validating your compassion.

validation (in the context of interpersonal skills, anyway) is the act of recognizing and affirming the validity or worth of a person’s emotions. Essentially, validation means saying to someone, “I hear you. I get what you’re feeling, and it’s perfectly alright to feel that way.” Effective validation has two components: It identifies a specific emotion It offers justification for feeling that emotion

But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin.

The more perfect something is, the less it can be loved -- like a face, a body, voice, tone, color, or music itself. In playing a piece, don't strive for perfection: it will kill the piece in that it will prevent it from entering the emotions. That's the kind of advice you can't do anything with except perhaps later, when you don't even know you're doing it. It's part of the freeze of counterpoint.' 'I've never heard that expression,' she said. 'Stasis may be a better word -- the liberation of the space between two contradictions. Let me explain if I can. If two waves of equal but opposite amplitude meet in water, what do you get' 'Flat water.' 'In sound?' 'Silence.' 'Right. From agitation, peace, a perfection that you might have thought unobtainable from the clash of contradictory elements.' 'I think you've explained the magic of counterpoint very well.' 'Not really. It's inexplicable. I've noted it, that's all. Half of humanity's troubles arise from the inability to see that contradictory propositions can be valid simultaneously.

It annoys me when people try to convince other people that their anger or stress isn't warranted if someone else is worse off than them. It's bullshit. Your emotions and reactions are valid, Merit, don't let anyone tell you any different. Your the only one who feels them

Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. Give someone’s emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels. It gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about (“How’s your family?”). Think of labeling as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack. Labeling

There are such subtle qualities affecting the nature of all thought, such emotional gradations, that no one is ever identical — (smile) and incidentally, no physical object in your system is an exact duplicate of any other. The atoms and molecules that compose it — any object — have their own identities that color and qualify any object that they form.

am so sick of it. All of it. I’m sick of my dad and his it’s-your-fault-for-wearing-a-skirt-that’s-too-short BS. I’m sick of people acting like I’m crazy. Anytime a woman gets mad or sad or emotional, boom, let’s put a big stamp on that feeling that says it isn’t valid. That it’s maybe even pathological. You know as many as 70 percent of women got diagnosed as hysterical by certain doctors back in the day? But what if none of them were Crazy Bitches? What if they were just tired? Tired of pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t, and living in a world that was designed to be against them, and being told to smile through the knife wounds. Maybe pretending to be okay in the middle of a tornado is the truly crazy thing.

Core needs for children include, but are not limited to, receiving adequate levels of time, love, and attention, along with meeting their needs to feel heard, validated, and understood. When these needs aren’t met, there is no way to rewind to the beginning of life in a way that enables any outside love relationship to heal or meet your core needs. Research naively suggests we seek other relationships outside our family to supply our basic needs of love, acceptance, and emotional support. Although other love relationships are fundamental, necessary, and important to our overall well-being, I believe it is not only inappropriate for us to put this type of pressure on others to fill the needs our family neglected, but this request is also impossible to satisfy. It is unwise and emotionally dangerous to assume anyone could meet the core needs that can be met only by the family we were born into. The unfortunate message from this type of information is that other people can heal our wounds and meet our core needs when, ultimately, we need to learn to heal our own wounds and meet our own needs.

67. Acts indifferently to your feelings. No matter how wounded, insulted, offended, shamed, or angry you feel, your partner doesn’t seem to care. Your feelings aren’t justified and valid. In fact, your emotions are irritating to your spouse. You are overreacting, being ridiculous, or just trying to get attention in your abuser’s mind. Your emotions are met with a blank stare or a look of contempt.

THE RIGHT AND WRONG PICTURE OF A DREAM I’ve studied successful people for almost forty years. I’ve known hundreds of high-profile people who achieved big dreams. And I’ve achieved a few dreams of my own. What I’ve discovered is that a lot of people have misconceptions about dreams. Take a look at many of the things that people pursue and call dreams in their lives: Daydreams—Distractions from Current Work Pie-in-the-Sky Dreams—Wild Ideas with No Strategy or Basis in Reality Bad Dreams—Worries that Breed Fear and Paralysis Idealistic Dreams—The Way the World Would Be If You Were in Charge Vicarious Dreams—Dreams Lived Through Others Romantic Dreams—Belief that Some Person Will Make You Happy Career Dreams—Belief that Career Success Will Make You Happy Destination Dreams—Belief that a Position, Title, or Award Will Make You Happy Material Dreams—Belief that Wealth or Possessions Will Make You Happy If these aren’t good dreams—valid ones worthy of a person’s life—then what are? Here is my definition of a dream that can be put to the test and pass: a dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it.

Chateaubriand writes of René, his personification, ‘it wearied him to be loved’ – on le fatigait en l’aimant. I realized with astonishment that this experience was identical to my own, and so I couldn’t deny its validity. The weariness of being loved, of being truly loved! The weariness of being the object of other people’s burdensome emotions! Of seeing yourself – when what you wanted was to remain forever free – transformed into a delivery boy whose duty is to reciprocate, to have the decency not to flee, lest anyone think that you’re cavalier towards emotions and would reject the loftiest sentiment that a human soul can offer. The weariness of your existence becoming absolutely dependent on a relationship with someone else’s feeling! The weariness of having to feel something, of having to love at least a little in return, even if it’s not a true reciprocity!

Borrowed functioning artificially inflates (or deflates) your functioning. Your “pseudo self” can be pumped up through emotional fusion, which makes poorly differentiated people doggedly hang onto each other. Two people in different relationships can appear to function at the same level although they have achieved different levels of differentiation. The difference is that the better differentiated one will more consistently function well even when the partner isn’t being supportive or encouraging. Before they came to see me, Bill claimed that there was “nothing wrong” with him. As long as he had Joan’s “support” and controlled how intimate they were, he functioned well on a superficial level. Joan, however, went through difficult self-doubts and depression. And when she was in her deepest depths, Bill was kinder, more considerate, and empathic. Somehow Bill seemed the more stable of the two. But things changed when Joan emerged from her unhappiness. As she began to function more autonomously, Bill’s functioning seemingly diminished. As she developed more self-respect, he became more insecure. As she needed his validation less, he feared losing her more. Still, Bill wasn’t about to support or stroke Joan in ways that didn’t enhance his own status or that might require him to confront himself.

They don’t understand. Gratitude isn’t about them. It’s about the person giving it. Girls don’t say you look good because you actually look good. They process their feelings by communication. What they are actually saying is that they feel good being around you. What they are actually doing is checking your frame. When a guy dismisses or otherwise argues the compliment he is telling her that those emotions aren’t valid. He’s failed the test.

The quality of our love relationships is also a big factor in how mentally and emotionally healthy we are. We have an epidemic of anxiety and depression in our most affluent societies. Conflict with and hostile criticism from loved ones increase our self-doubts and create a sense of helplessness, classic triggers for depression. We need validation from our loved ones. Researchers say that marital distress raises the risk for depression tenfold!

They’re accustomed to putting others in the limelight and worry that they’ll get a swelled head if they recognize their own strengths. However, it’s crucial to know what your assets are and be able to articulate them. It provides self-validation and allows you to feel good about what you bring to the world. This self-recognition builds energy and positivity. While modesty and humility can help you keep things in perspective, they shouldn’t prevent you from knowing your best qualities.

The anger response, like the fear response, is a frequent target for repression. Imagine a 6-year-old girl who is angry at her 10-year-old brother for teasing her. In response, she might make an angry face, yell at her brother, and strike out at him with her fists. It’s an instinctual, energizing reaction designed to protect her from danger. Someone is violating her sense of well-being, and she’s afraid that if she doesn’t stop the intruder, she’ll get hurt. “A wise parent would validate the girl’s anger — it’s infuriating to be teased — and help her find a verbal rather than a physical way to express it. ‘You are very mad at your brother for teasing you,’ says this model parent, ‘I would be, too. Tell him in words how angry you feel. He needs to know.’ This way, the girl can protect herself from her brother and purge herself of her anger without having to resort to physical violence. Her self-protective anger remains intact. It has simply been given a ore ‘civilized’ form of expression.

When our true selves are rejected, betrayed, or abused by a trusted loved one (usually parent or partner) and we don’t yet have the emotional tools to heal, it’s common for a protective self to form. The protective self sees itself as separate from others. It becomes more of an observer of the world, rather than an authentic participant. The protective self is usually seeking external validation for proof of its worthiness. To save or be saved. To fill a void it cannot express, to meet an old unmet need. It is largely based around control.

We communicate telepathically, but then again, telepathy is the basis for your languages, without which their symbolism would be meaningless. Because we do communicate in this manner, this does not necessarily mean that we use mental words, for we do not. We communicate instead through what I can only call thermal and electromagnetic images that are capable of supporting much more meaning in one “sequence.” The intensity of the communication is dependent upon the emotional intensity behind it, although the phrase “emotional intensity” may be misleading.

As with physical pain, our emotional pain is also trying to tell us something. It too is a messenger. Feelings have to be acknowledged, at least to ourselves. They have to be encountered and felt in all their force. There is no other way through to the other side of them. If we ignore them, repress them, suppress them, or sublimate them, they fester and yield no resolution, no peace. And if without any awareness of what we are doing we exaggerate them, dramatize them, and preoccupy ourselves with their turmoil and the stories we generate about them to validate our experience, they too linger and cause us to become stuck in patterns that may go on for an entire lifetime.

Common phrases narcissists use and what they actually mean: 1. I love you. Translation: I love owning you. I love controlling you. I love using you. It feels so good to love-bomb you, to sweet-talk you, to pull you in and to discard you whenever I please. When I flatter you, I can have anything I want. You trust me. You open up so easily, even after you’ve already been mistreated. Once you’re hooked and invested, I’ll pull the rug beneath your feet just to watch you fall. 2. I am sorry you feel that way. Translation: Sorry, not sorry. Let’s get this argument over with already so I can continue my abusive behavior in peace. I am not sorry that I did what I did, I am sorry I got caught. I am sorry you’re calling me out. I am sorry that I am being held accountable. I am sorry you have the emotions that you do. To me, they’re not valid because I am entitled to have everything I want – regardless of how you feel about it. 3. You’re oversensitive/overreacting. Translation: You’re having a perfectly normal reaction to an immense amount of bullshit, but all I see is that you’re catching on. Let me gaslight you some more so you second-guess yourself. Emotionally invalidating you is the key to keeping you compliant. So long as you don’t trust yourself, you’ll work that much harder to rationalize, minimize and deny my abuse. 4. You’re crazy. Translation: I am a master of creating chaos to provoke you. I love it when you react. That way, I can point the finger and say you’re the crazy one. After all, no one would listen to what you say about me if they thought you were just bitter or unstable. 5. No one would believe you. Translation: I’ve isolated you to the point where you feel you have no support. I’ve smeared your name to others ahead of time so people already suspect the lies I’ve told about you. There are still others who might believe you, though, and I can’t risk being caught. Making you feel alienated and alone is the best way for me to protect my image. It’s the best way to convince you to remain silent and never speak the truth about who I really am.

13 Ways to Make Other People Feel Important 1. Ask people questions about themselves, their interests, their families, their passions and their lives. 2. Catch people doing things right, pat them on the back, and acknowledge them for a job well done. 3. Celebrate their successes. 4. Be lavish in your compliments and sincere in your praise. 5. Be appreciative and say thank you. 6. Listen with genuine interest. 7. Respect their opinions. 8. Encourage people with words of affirmation and validation. 9. Brag about people behind (and in front of) their backs. 10. Make the time and space to be fully present and engaged. 11. Spend quality time together. 12. Share your authentic self and be real. 13. Offer comfort and compassion.

I think Yogi Berra said, “You don’t know what you don’t know,” and that’s exactly the problem here. We’re not going to look for another type of love if we don’t even know it exists, or how it feels. So it’s easy to get stuck with this false blueprint of love and develop all sorts of maladaptive needs based on that. Suddenly we’re looking outward for love, imagining a savior, or saving others, stuck with vengeful thoughts, seeking external validation and approval, trying to do everything perfectly. In order to find a different kind of love, we need to tame our own ego that has been hugely inflated, criticized, and ultimately betrayed. Underneath all of that is where you’ll find the good stuff: feelings, the heart, the real you.

One of the things necessary for healing to take place is recognizing the truth of the relationship and that person. You experienced so many covert lies; it is incredibly helpful to be able to see clearly. The truth is you were in love with an illusion, with the person they portrayed themselves to be. At first, this is an excruciating realization. You will doubt and wonder if you are overinflating this, if they really are innocent and you’re just scared to move on. You will have a ton of self-doubt. Eventually, with education and support, you will see that your hunch, your inner knowing, is on target. In time the truth that you were in love with an illusion will feel like a relief because truth does set you free. That full realization will validate years of confusion you felt, years of unexplained exhaustion and health issues, years of sexual confusion, years of feeling less than, and years of unhappiness, along with anxiety. You lived in an unsafe environment, were demeaned and devalued for years (decades for some of you; entire childhoods for many of you). You did not experience unconditional love; you did not live with someone who treated you with respect, who cherished you, treasured you, and felt so lucky to have you in their life. No, the truth is you experienced a counterfeit. If this was a spouse or romantic partner, this awakening to the truth is excruciating because you did love that person with all your heart. You were dedicated. You were in 100%. The truth is that you were the lifeforce in the relationship. When you’re really honest with yourself, when you look back with clear vision, that life, that love you gave and felt, was never fully reciprocated.

What happens when insatiability dominates a person's emotional functioning? The process of maturation is preempted by an obsession or an addiction, in this case for peer connection. Peer contact whets the appetite without nourishing. It titillates without satisfying. The end result of peer contact is usually an urgent desire for more. The more the child gets, the more he craves. The mother of an eight-year-old girl mused, “I don't get it — the more time my daughter spends with her friends, the more demanding she becomes to get together with them. How much time does she really need for social interaction, anyway?” Likewise, the parents of a young adolescent complained that “as soon as our son comes home from camp, he gets on the phone right away to call the kids he's just been with. Yet it's the family he hasn't seen for two weeks.” The obsession with peer contact is always worse after exposure to peers, whether it is at school or in playtimes, sleepovers, class retreats, outings, or camps. If peer contact satiated, times of peer interaction would lead automatically to increased self-generated play, creative solitude, or individual reflection. Many parents confuse this insatiable behavior with a valid need for peer interaction. Over and over I hear some variation of “but my child is absolutely obsessed with getting together with friends. It would be cruel to deprive him.” Actually, it would be more cruel and irresponsible to indulge what so clearly fuels the obsession. The only attachment that children truly need is the kind that nurtures and satisfies them and can bring them to rest. The more demanding the child is, the more he is indicating a runaway obsession. It is not strength that the child manifests but the desperation of a hunger that only increases with more peer contact.

Answer the Call to Shine Your Light Right now there may be just few individuals who balance duality in unconditional love, but their unifying perception is very integrative. They live their lives in “Trinity” after they have expanded their understanding of “Duality”. There is no moral value judgment applied in their perceptions. The moral value judgment continually creates an illusion of separation and disconnection. A balanced consciousness, with no dual perception is very integrative and all inclusive. It expands at an enormous speed assisting others to perceive a myriad of different perspectives as different yet equally valid. Those individuals shine their light in the world as a sign of unity, harmony, and emotional balance. They are living witnesses to the reality of love, compassion, ease and joy. By their example others can choose to understand that life can be easy to live in one's preferred way without devaluing others' choices. They are those who lightened up carrying their bright match lit in a darkened room filled with fear and drama.

Repressing If you are a repressor, your natural inclination is to push away strong feelings and say, ‘Shush,’ when you are confronted with them, or ‘Don’t make a fuss, nothing’s the matter,’ or ‘Be brave.’ If you dismiss a child’s feeling as unimportant, they are less liable to share any subsequent feeling with you, whether or not you might consider these to be unimportant. Overreacting On the other end of the scale, you might be feeling so much for the child that you become as hysterical as they are and cry along with them, as though their pain is yours rather than theirs. This is an easy mistake to make, for example in the first few days that you drop your child off at nursery, before you both get used to it. If you take over a child’s feelings like this, they are also less likely to want to share how they feel with you. They may think that they are too much for you, or that you invade them by merging with their feelings. Containing Containing means that you can acknowledge and validate all your feelings. If you can do this for yourself, you’ll find it natural to do this for your child as well. You can take a feeling seriously without overreacting and remain contained and optimistic. You might say, ‘Oh dear, you are unhappy. Would you like a cuddle? Come to me, then. There we are, I’m going to hold you until you feel better.’ If a child knows they will be seen and soothed but not judged by you, they are more likely to tell you what is going on for them. This is what a child needs: for a parent to be a container for their emotions. This means you are alongside them and know and accept what they feel but you are not being overwhelmed by their feelings. This is one of the things psychotherapists do for their clients.

My dear readers, I find myself perplexed by the phantoms that now inhabit our veins and perpetually whisper in our ears. These specters are always watching, their formless eyes casting judgement upon our every thought and action. They stalk us behind screens and within circuits, gathering each tidbit we release into the ether to build their ever-growing profiles of our souls. Through these ghastly portals, our lives have become performance. Each waking moment an opportunity to curate our images and broadcast our cleverness. Nuance has fled in favor of hashtag and like, while meaning has been diced into 280 characters or less. Substance is sacrificed at the altar of shareability, as we optimize each motive and emotion to become more digestible digital content. Authenticity now lives only in offline obscurity, while our online avatars march on endlessly, seeking validation through numbers rather than depth. What secrets remain unshared on these platforms of glass? What mysteries stay concealed behind profiles and pose? Have we traded intimacy for influence, and true understanding for audience engagement? I fear these shadow networks breed narcissism and foster loneliness, masked as connection. That the sum of a life’s joys and sorrows can now be reduced to a reel of carefully selected snippets says little of the richness that once was. So follow the phantoms that stalk you if you will, but do not forget that which still breathes beneath the screens. There you will find humanity, flawed but whole, beautiful in its imperfection and trajectory undefined by likes or loves. The lanterns may flicker and fade, but the darkness that remains has always held truth. Look deeper than the glow, and know that which can never be shared or measured, only felt. In mystery, Your friend, Edgar Allan Poe (Poe talking about social media)

The Thirty-three Rules • Every negotiation is an agreement between two or more parties with all parties having the right to veto—the right to say “no.” • Your job is not to be liked. It is to be respected and effective. • Results are not valid goals. • Money has nothing to do with a valid mission and purpose. • Never, ever, spill your beans in the lobby—or anywhere else. • Never enter a negotiation—never make a phone call—without a valid agenda. • The only valid goals are those you can control: behavior and activity. • Mission and purpose must be set in the adversary’s world; our world must be secondary. • Spend maximum time on payside activity and minimum time on nonpayside activity. • You do not need it. You only want it. • No saving. You cannot save the adversary. • Only one person in a negotiation can feel okay. That person is the adversary. • All action—all decision—begins with vision. Without vision, there is no action. • Always show respect to the blocker. • All agreements must be clarified point by point and sealed three times (using 3+). • The clearer the picture of pain, the easier the decision-making process. • The value of the negotiation increases by multiples as time, energy, money, and emotion are spent. • No talking. • Let the adversary save face at all times. • The greatest presentation you will ever give is the one your adversary will never see. • A negotiation is only over when we want it to be over. • “No” is good, “yes” is bad, “maybe” is worse. • Absolutely no closing. • Dance with the tiger. • Our greatest strength is our greatest weakness (Emerson). • Paint the pain. • Mission and purpose drive everything. • Decisions are 100 percent emotional. • Interrogative-led questions drive vision. • Nurture. • No assumptions. No expectations. Only blank slate. • Who are the decision makers? Do you know all of them? • Pay forward.

Until knowledge becomes part of you, it is not possible to talk about awareness, or true understanding. Everything must come from and into an organism. Theories are only valid when made organic — ”organic” as in "part of the body". The knowledge that has to be learned and followed like a discipline is useless. It doesn't matter which amount of knowledge you absorb or in which variety. Knowledge can’t be remembered all the time in the same proportion that is kept, not all of it, and not all of it at the same time. As a matter of fact, when knowledge is not assimilated above personal interests, that same knowledge is already corrupted. When knowledge is seen as a means to a goal, either it is in obtaining something from the outside world, or passing some test, this knowledge has not become organic but merely used as a tool. That's why so many people avoid being confronted with their ignorance and react angrily when faced with their contradictions, which is quite obvious when we compare what they learn and what they say. You see this everywhere, in teachers, politicians, religious groups, and so on. And then you wonder why are people not honest. But they can’t understand honesty as much as they can’t understand their own ignorance. The stupid are not aware they are stupid, and that’s what really makes them stupid. When someone is too stupid, ignorance is replaced by arrogance. And then this person feels like the world is a bit threat to survival at an individual level. We call this attitude being egotistic. But you can’t stop being an egotistic when suppressing your emotions, or imagining that everyone is a source of negative energy but you. As a matter of fact, you commonly see the egotistic drop into apathy precisely because they confuse the work they must do on themselves with the anger they feel for the world as a whole. Have you ever noticed how easily people turn to anger when you ask them a question? That’s a reaction of someone moving from apathy to fear. On the surface this person is acting like a rude individual, but the emotions behind this behavior are those one feels when watching a horror movie. They are afraid of their own feelings, and project this fear as an aggression. Now comes the interesting part: Who are they attacking? They are attacking precisely the one that can help them, because only such individual will ask the right questions. An individual on apathy and lack of interest, can’t ask anything that is interesting or motivating. So we come to an interesting paradox in society, that those who can uplift others, end up being perceived as a threat to them. And that’s the simplest way to explain insanity.

How High Emotional Arousal Affects Your Relationship There are many ways that negative emotional arousal affects your relationship, both directly and indirectly. For example, it may lead you to overreact in some situations, and perhaps even to underreact in others. This, in turn, makes it more difficult for your partner to respond in understanding, soothing, or loving ways: he or she simply doesn’t have accurate information on which to base a response. So, even if your partner wants to respond in a loving way, and doesn’t have his or her own negative emotional arousal to deal with (which is unlikely), it makes the job harder.

In a sense, this is the ultimate validation of capitalism. Its psychological requirements are also the requirements of life and happiness. It is the only system consistent with the requirements of human life.

Lack of love-making in long-term relationships and the emotional repression that this involves starts to be questioned from an emotional standpoint, as does the validity and worth of such relationships in the context of your soul’s growth.

Emotional Channeling Technique #3: Reference Validation Reference validation is a technique where you compare your situation to that of others who have successfully dealt with and overcome what you are currently experiencing. By doing so, you find strength and hope and learn specific strategies and concepts used by others so you too can effectively work through and resolve the issues you have.

-§ But just because we grew up in that kind of a culture does not mean we need to keep creating it in our present relationship. I recommend we ask different questions, like, “How could I make your life more wonderful?” and “Would you like to know how you could make my life more wonderful?” and “What are your needs right now?” and “Would you like to know what I need right now?” Now if none of this appeals to you because you prefer a relation-dinghy to a relationship, here are some suggestion to help you prevent your relation-dinghy from growing into a relationship: 1. Keep your attention focused at all times on who is right or wrong in a discussion, fair or unfair in a negotiation, selfish or unselfish in giving (it helps to keep a list of who has done what for whom), kind or cruel in their tone of voice, rude or polite in their mannerisms, sloppy or neat in their dress, and so on. Be careful not to realize that your attempt to be right is really an attempt to protect yourself from thinking you are wrong and then feeling shame. 2. If you need some support for this I recommend certain selfhelp groups who can give you the latest scoops on the most powerful, politically correct labels with which to overpower and confuse your partner. Members of these groups will collude with you in validating that your partner really is a man or woman who is commitment-phobic, emotionally unavailable, counterdependant, needy, spiritually unevolved, dysfunctional, immature, judgmental, sinful, bi-polar, OCD, clinically depressed, or adult-onset ADD. It is important to keep your consciousness filled with such terminology to prevent any fondness from developing. This also helps in keeping you caught in the “paralysis of analysis” and clueless about what you or your partner are needing from each other. 3. Adopt this test for love: If your partner really loves you, he or she will always know what you want even before you know—and then give it to you without your having to go through the humiliation of actually asking for it. And your partner will do this regardless of the sacrifice it requires. If your partner does not give you what you want, choose to believe it means he or she does not love you. 4. Ask for what you do not want instead of what you do want. I heard of a man who asked his wife to stop spending so much money shopping. She took up gambling on the internet. 5. In case your relationdinghy starts to grow, here are a few torpedoes guaranteed to sink it again: “It hurts me when you say that.” “I feel sad because you…fill in the blank (won’t say ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m sorry,’ or won’t have sex, or won’t marry me, etc.)” If you really want to choke the life out of any relationship meditate on “I need you.” Then you will know how I felt for about thirtyfive years of my life. I felt like a drowning swimmer and I would grab hold of anyone who came near me and try to use them as a life raft. Now I want relationships to be flowers for my table instead of air for my lungs. When I Come Gently To You by Ruth Bebermeyer When I come gently to you I want you to see It’s not to get myself from you, it’s just to give you me. I know that you can’t give me me, no matter what you do. All I ever want from you is you. I know your fear of fences, your pain from prisons past. I’m not the first to sense it and I’m plainly not the last. The hawk within your heart’s not bound to earth by fence of mine, Unless you aren’t aware that you can fly. When I come gently to you I’d like you to know I come not to trespass your space, I want to touch and grow. When your space and my space meet, each is not less but more. We make our space that wasn’t space before. Chapter HEALING THE BLAME THAT BLINDS

The goal is to identify what your counterparts actually need (monetarily, emotionally, or otherwise) and get them feeling safe enough to talk and talk and talk some more about what they want. The latter will help you discover the former. Wants are easy to talk about, representing the aspiration of getting our way, and sustaining any illusion of control we have as we begin to negotiate; needs imply survival, the very minimum required to make us act, and so make us vulnerable. But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin. We

Stop apologizing and censoring yourself, you have every right to feel the way you do. Your feelings, your struggles, your emotions are all valid.

Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. Give someone’s emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels.

The feelings of the person with BPD may not make sense to you, but they do make sense to them. Here are some guidelines for how to address them: Don’t judge the person’s feelings, deny them, trivialize them, or discuss whether or not you think they are “justified.” Restate the person with BPD’s feelings; dig a bit beneath the surface for feelings that may not be as obvious. Ask the other person if your perceptions are correct. Show the person with BPD you are hearing what they are saying. Avoid sounding patronizing or condescending, or the person with BPD may get enraged because you don’t sound like you are taking his or her concerns seriously. If you want the conversation to facilitate change, you must validate your loved one’s emotions.

Emotionally immature parents don’t know how to validate their child’s feelings and instincts. Without this validation, children learn to give in to what others seem sure about. As adults, they may deny their instincts to the point where they acquiesce to relationships they don’t really want. They may then believe it’s up to them to make the relationship work. They may rationalize why they have to try so hard in the relationship, as though it were normal to struggle daily to get along with your mate. While effort is needed to maintain communication and connection in a relationship, it shouldn’t feel like constant, unrewarding work.

But who are you? As the child of a parent with BPD and/or other emotional and cognitive difficulties, it may be surprisingly difficult to answer this question. You likely didn’t have much mirroring, or validation, when you were young, which babies need in order to know where they stand in the world, that their feelings and observations and perceptions are healthy and normal. Without that early mirroring, it was difficult to see yourself, to know yourself…

Notice how your voice tone affects the voice tone of the person you speak to. Change your voice tone and see how it changes the voice tone of the other person (you may have to demonstrate the change a few times before the other person matches you). When your level of negative emotional arousal is low, notice how much you love your partner, notice your commitment to your relationship, and notice the things you both want from your relationship, such as companionship, friendship, support, and understanding. Notice that you are in the same boat together: you sail or sink together. Every day remind yourself about how you are connected to your partner: “Your happiness is my happiness, and your unhappiness is my unhappiness. When I take care of your needs, I am also taking care of my own. When I treat you with love and kindness, I am taking care of myself also.” Notice how your mood affects others around you, and vice versa. Before saying something to your partner, even in an easy, nonconflictual situation, ask yourself, “Is this going to make things better or worse?” or, if you prefer, “Is this going to get me what I really want in the long term?” Practice this one as much as possible, even several times per day. Notice how empowering it is to be able to choose how you

1. Listen to the person. The best thing you can do is hear him out and begin to understand his story. 2. Listen to the person. Having heard his story, ask the angry person to repeat it. This shows that you really want to understand what happened and that you are not condemning his anger. 3. Listen to the person. Ask additional questions to clarify the situation. It can take three or four rounds of listening for the angry person to get out all of his or her concerns. 4. Try to understand his plight. Ask yourself if you would be angry in the same situation. 5. Express your understanding of the situation. Speak with compassion; affirm the person’s feelings of anger. 6. Share any additional information that may shed light on the subject. At this point you may help the person realize that you have not wronged him. 7. Confess any wrongdoing and seek to make right the wrong you have committed. If the person’s anger is valid and you have wronged him, this is the step to take.

Don’t complain, and don’t explain.” That is, don’t complain about your emotionally impoverished history to your parents, because they will never validate your perspective of your childhood. Second, don’t explain your quiet withdrawal from the family scene. Simply slip away as gracefully as possible and concentrate your efforts at developing relationships with people who support and embrace you.

I think you have to properly experience cheating in order to form a valid opinion on it. As either the cheater or the cheatee. It’s like death or a cancer diagnosis. Unless you’re in the trenches, facing the possibility or actuality, it’s not real. It’s a concept, one you can judge from afar and gossip over for hours without actually understanding the depth of feelings and emotions that are involved in the event.

The narcissistic mother will manipulate other family members to gang up against you by focusing on everything that’s wrong with you. This conveniently takes the focus away from the real perpetrator, which is of course her. It’s interesting to think about the manipulation that’s actually going on. So if you have been labelled as the black sheep and that has been your permanent role in the family, it actually allows all the other family members to start feeling better about themselves. They actually start to believe that they are healthier and more obedient to the narcissistic mother than you, and again this creates a division within the family. Another important point is that if a child is scapegoated from an early age, he or she may fully internalize all of their narcissistic mother’s criticism and shame. This means that the scapegoats develop this harsh inner critic that will continue that inner dialogue that constantly reminds them of how bad and flawed they are. I guess you could call that “inner scapegoating,” and it is extremely toxic to a young impressionable child whose identity is still being formed. So, the scapegoat may struggle with low self-esteem and often continues to feel deeply inadequate and unlovable. Adult scapegoat children also tend to suppress a huge amount of abandonment anxiety because they were emotionally or even physically abandoned by the narcissistic mother over and over again. Adult scapegoat children therefore become super sensitive to observing any potential signs of approval or disapproval. These are all important aspects of the profound impact that a toxic family dynamic may continue to have on adult relationships. Perhaps you may still have issues with authority. Maybe you’re still used to justifying yourself or somehow proving your worth. This is an unconscious pattern that you may still not be aware of and that you are perpetuating because you don’t realize how powerful these dysfunctional family dynamics still are. And once you wake up and understand you can let go of that label, you can break that pattern by choosing to think and behave completely different. You can learn to choose your battles and do not always have to be defensive. You do not always have to feel victimized. You need to become more self-aware and notice if you are still trying to get your parents’ approval or validation. Maturing into adulthood means that you may need to understand that you may never have a healthy relationship with an intentional perpetrator of abuse. You need to process your feelings of frustration, loneliness, rage, and grief.

As I mentioned earlier, validation (in the context of interpersonal skills, anyway) is the act of recognizing and affirming the validity or worth of a person’s emotions. Essentially, validation means saying to someone, “I hear you. I get what you’re feeling, and it’s perfectly alright to feel that way.

Indeed, Steven Sandage and Shane Moe note that “some particular spiritual communities might perpetuate cycles of narcissism and shame by promoting spiritual perfectionism and validating shame-based scrupulosity and self-punishment.

Spiritual abuse can include some or all of the following characteristics: • Silencing. Spiritual authority is invoked to silence someone because of their gender, a difference of opinion, or a rigorous hierarchy. Those who speak may be scolded and will likely feel shame around having a voice or opinion. • Moralizing. Legalism in service of abuse is particularly harmful, as strict codes of behavior or moral expectations are elevated above trusting relationship. The victim will internalize a sense of shame around who they are when they cross the artificial boundaries of a spiritual abuser. • Certainty. A belief system is offered as inerrant and infallible, the only valid expression of the Scriptures, and a member’s good standing requires signing off on the whole of the belief system. There is often a tribalism in which the church or denomination has the truth and others do not. If anyone deviates or raises questions, they are shamed or ostracized. • Experientialism. The most spiritual people have the most ecstatic experiences, and those who don’t are questioned, marginalized, and made to feel like they don’t have enough faith or aren’t as blessed by God. They are made to feel deficient and wonder why God wouldn’t give them the same experiences. • Unquestioned hierarchy. Hierarchy in abusive situations isn’t empowering but disempowering. Those who are not in charge are made to feel small, insignificant, and unenlightened. Some may wonder why they’re not good enough or smart enough to be given some authority or at least to be considered.

Chapter 3 Summary You can validate any emotion—positive or negative. While validating difficult emotions can lead to stronger, healthier, more satisfactory relationships, studies have shown that validating positive emotions and sharing in others’ excitement, pride, happiness, etc. can be equally beneficial. You can validate anyone, even if you disagree with them. When you validate someone, you’re essentially saying, “I get why you feel that way.” That’s different than saying, “You’re right” or “I agree.” The key point here is that if you were in that person’s shoes, having only the information, background, and perception that they do, you would likely feel the same way.

Validation has two main elements. It 1) acknowledges a specific emotion, and 2) offers justification for feeling that emotion. Validation is nonjudgmental. It allows the other person to feel whatever they’re feeling without labeling it as “good” or “bad.” Invalidation (i.e. minimizing or dismissing another person’s feelings) is counter-productive. Research has shown that invalidating responses can make a difficult situation worse, even when offered with the best of intentions. Offering validation—before or instead of offering advice or assurance—is often the best way to help. Doing so helps others let go of difficult emotions much more quickly, often allowing them to find a solution to the problem on their own. Leading with validation also increases the likelihood that others will listen to and accept your advice. CHAPTER 3

Nobody else can make you feel a certain way, they can’t force-feed you an emotion to feel. They can do things and say things to you, but how you feel in response isn’t their fault and isn’t down to their control: your emotions are entirely under your influence due to the thoughts you do and do not validate.

You must see that this voice of this inner critic is false and it is not your voice, but is given to you from others outside of you. As you begin to notice that this inner critic voice does not belong to you it will lessen. And as you begin to replace the voice of the inner critic with inner praise you will find that you can offer yourself the praise, the validation, and the support that you never received.

Pay attention to the person’s words, body language, expressions, and tone of voice. This will help you validate the person’s feelings. People with BPD are not always in touch with their own emotions, and by listening closely you may be able to hear beyond the words and detect the feelings that lie beneath the surface. In

Spirits that piggyback may not have been connected here in the physical world, but because they are connected to you, they’re connected on the Other Side when preparing for a group reading. I don’t believe a message has to be from just one soul, especially since they’ve shown me that they work really well as a cluster. Spirit can also come forward, recede, and play off each other’s energy. They channel together like old pros. In my largest venue readings, it’s amazing how organized your family’s souls have been! I also believe Spirit will help orchestrate who comes to the readings and sometimes where they sit. You can’t miss how certain types of deaths—which is how I initially validate your loved ones to you—are seated together, which makes piggybacking easier. In one section of a theater, there will be multiple women who’ve lost children, families whose loved ones had Alzheimer’s, or even friends who’ve died from similar freak accidents like a falling object. It sounds wild, because it is. And Spirit’s behind all of it. What I love most about group readings is that you get to hear so many incredible, compelling messages that you can’t help but feel touched by all of it. I also find that Spirit is a little more fun during group readings, especially during the private, smaller groups. In a room of ten to fifteen people, I can channel anywhere between twenty to forty souls in a two-hour period. But there are so many different, lively, and dynamic personalities around that souls with stronger energy can help those with less to communicate better by letting them use their energy. Sometimes I have souls that channel for an entire hour, and nobody else comes through; other times, a soul might stay for a short time, go away, and then come back and talk a mile a minute! It’s like the soul recharged its batteries. When a reading is over, I can hardly remember what I’ve said, seen, or felt for too long after, because again, they’re not my feelings, thoughts, or emotions. Unless the message is part of a really mind-blowing or emotionally gripping session, whatever information Spirit sends me isn’t something that’s stuck in my head forever. Know too that you take your dead friends and family with you when you leave a session, show, or my house. For some reason, it’s always the husbands who remind me to take all the Spirits with me, and I’m always like, “Listen, pal, they’re not my Spirits. They’re your dead relatives. They’re staying with you. I got my own problems.

neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin.

I may not agree with you or you with me. Yet I can remain in relationship with you. I don’t have to detach from you, reject you, avoid you, or criticize you to validate myself. I can be myself apart from you.

The degree to which you are able to affirm your distinct values and goals apart from the pressures around you (separateness) while remaining close to people important to you (togetherness) helps determine your level of differentiation. People with a high level of differentiation have their own beliefs, convictions, directions, goals, and values apart from the pressures around them. They can choose, before God, how they want to be without being controlled by the approval or disapproval of others. Intensity of feelings, high stress, or the anxiety of others around them does not overwhelm their capacity to think intelligently. I may not agree with you or you with me. Yet I can remain in relationship with you. I don’t have to detach from you, reject you, avoid you, or criticize you to validate myself. I can be myself apart from you.

ministry, pastors use their congregations to validate a sense of identity and worth. The church becomes an extension of the narcissistic ego, and its ups and downs lead to seasons of ego inflation and ego deflation for the pastor. Today social media platforms add to this mix. Because his sense of identity is bound up in external realities, his sense of mission is wavering and unmoored, often manifesting in constantly shifting visions and programs, frequent dissatisfaction with the status quo, and anxious engagement with staff and members.

I have heard your point of view many times now, and I still don’t agree with it.” “I’d like to take a break from this conversation.” “I don’t like how much energy I’m putting into proving my perspective, and it would mean a lot to me if you gave me the benefit of the doubt.” “I get that you’re mad. I’m angry, too.” “I realize you disagree with me, but this is how I see it.” “I’m not imagining things.” “Name-calling is hurtful to me. I find it hard to listen to you when you talk like that.” “My feelings are my feelings; this is how I feel.” “This is my experience, and these are my emotions.” “It sounds like you feel strongly about that, but my emotions are valid too.” “I feel like I’m not being heard, and I need some space.” “I know what’s best for me.” “This is what I want and what I need right now.” “I’m making this decision for myself.” “I’m not responding to that.” “I want to figure things out for myself.” “It’s hard for me to stay engaged in this conversation; I’ve already said no several times.” “I’m finding it difficult to keep discussing this.

validation (in the context of interpersonal skills, anyway) is the act of recognizing and affirming the validity or worth of a person’s emotions. Essentially, validation means saying to someone, “I hear you. I get what you’re feeling, and it’s perfectly alright to feel that way.” Effective validation has two components: It identifies a specific emotion It offers justification for feeling that emotion

bear to prove the validity of their points of view. The problem arises when the dream theoreticians suggest, “Having demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that all dreams mean thus and so, we have somehow magically proven that all other ideas about the meanings in dreams must be false.” Good science, like good art, doesn’t try to close down the universe of discourse or exclude new possibilities, but rather tries to discover and interpret previously unappreciated patterns and connections. Freud is right—all dreams do have an element of sexual energy and “libidinal” desire woven into their imagery and emotional impact; Adler is also on-the-case—all dreams

According to studies, negating your thoughts and emotions may result in a paradoxical consequence in which they can impact you even more. You lose control over your inner experiences when you deny and suppress them. You could interpret that as a warning not to worry about a pink elephant. Your perception is still based on the denied material.

As you move forward, please be mindful of this self-doubt. It’s normal after cluster-B relationships, but it’s not true. Abusers gaslight with such confidence and conviction that it can actually become your own inner voice. It will greatly hinder any progress you make, because you will second-guess your own emotions and instincts. This leads to needing constant external validation, repeating your story to anyone who will listen, but it’s still not enough. Deep down you don’t believe yourself. You begin to overanalyze and ruminate on every little detail. You flip-flop back and forth between “my fault” and “their fault.” Even when you settle on “their fault,” there remains a relentless voice inside of you that questions this.

It helps, however, to remember that the goal of Emotion Coaching is to explore and understand emotions, not to suppress them. It may be easier in the short run to dismiss your child’s negativity, ignore it, and hope that it will take care of itself. You can form the deluded philosophy that the mere passage of time will make things better. What you get for this attitude is less trouble in the short run, but more trouble in the long run. Problems are much harder to cope with after they have been neglected and your child has become emotionally distant. In contrast, the rewards of parenting come from being attentive to our children’s feelings. It is impossible to accept and validate a child’s emotion at the same time you wish it would just go away. Acceptance and validation come instead from empathy—that is, feeling what your child is feeling in the moment.

This further disconnects you from your inner world, reinforcing the false belief that security and stimulation can only come from outside yourself. Relationships become frustrating under these conditions because you’re looking to other people for a validation that is already yours.