A shared universe › Blog › “I understand why you feel that way” · Español
Validating an emotion means letting someone know that what they feel is understood and makes sense, without that meaning you agree with everything. You do it by listening, saying what you have understood and leaving advice for later. Someone tells you they feel terrible about something that doesn’t seem so serious to you. The first thing that comes out is an explanation of why it isn’t that bad. And it nearly always makes things worse.
The psychologist Marsha Linehan, in her work with people with very intense emotions, put validation at the centre. Linehan formulated what is known as biosocial theory and developed dialectical behaviour therapy, which according to the US National Institute of Mental Health was developed specifically for people with borderline personality disorder and teaches skills for managing intense emotions and improving relationships. The same body advises families to offer emotional support, understanding, patience and validation.
A 2025 study with family members defines validation as the communication of understanding, legitimacy and acceptance in response to an expressed emotion. Put simply, validating is letting the other person know that what they feel makes sense, given their history and what they are going through. It is not saying they are right, or that you would do the same, or that what they think is true.
When someone feels their emotion isn’t understood, they turn up the volume so that it gets heard. When they feel it has been understood, they can start to turn it down. That is why “it’s not that bad” inflames, and “no wonder you feel like this” calms.
There is an experiment that shows it. In 2011, the psychologists Chad Shenk and Alan Fruzzetti gave a number of people a stressful task and then responded in ways that either validated or invalidated what they felt. According to their study, published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, those who received invalidating responses had more negative emotions, a faster heart rate and more sweating on the skin over time than those who felt validated.
The 2025 family study taught four ways of validating, adapted from the levels Linehan described: with your body (looking, nodding, being present), with your attention (asking, showing interest), reflecting back what you have heard, and looking for what makes sense. In practice, it looks something like this:
If the first part is hard for you, listening without interrupting or correcting, we go through it gently in how to really listen to someone. Validating is what comes after: what you say once you have listened.
The same study describes three common ways of invalidating: playing it down, justifying what happened and jumping in to solve the problem too soon. They are nearly always well meant, which is why they are hard to spot:
Validating does not oblige you to agree with everything or to keep quiet about what you think. You can understand that someone is furious and not share what they want to do with that fury. What changes is the order: first, they know you have understood; then, if it is needed and they ask, your opinion.
And you cannot validate with formulas. A stock phrase said by rote sounds hollow. It helps more to name something specific from what they have told you. If the other person finds it hard to know what they feel, it sometimes helps to go with them in putting a name to what they feel.
Many of the phrases you can leave in A shared universe do exactly this: “It makes sense that it hurts”, “It’s normal for it to worry you”. They fix nothing. They say that what you feel is understood.
If you feel like this today, you can light a star with “What weighs on me”, without saying who you are. And if you would like to make that gesture yourself, you can keep other people’s stars company with one of those phrases.