Validating another person makes them feel understood and accepted which is how someone feels loved. Three words that generate this connection without losing your own sense of self is "that makes sense."
“I don’t want to go to that dinner tomorrow,” I said my boyfriend.
“But you said you wanted to meet my friends,” he said. “This is the perfect opportunity.”
“You already agreed to go with me to a sound bath meditation session,” I said. “If we didn’t have plans I would have said yes.”
“But this is after the session,” he explained. “We could do both.”
“Sure, we could fit it in,” I agreed. “But for me,
that would be like going to church and then immediately attending a heavy metal rock concert. It’s a huge shock to my system and negates the peaceful energy I had just experienced.”
“That makes sense,” he said. “I can see how that would be jarring. I will tell them to keep me posted on the next time they have a get-together.”
“I encourage you to see your friends as I don’t want you to miss out on that. But I don’t want to join you this time, especially after you shared with me that your friend acted like a sound bath was weird. Already knowing your friend poo-pooed something precious to us and said he didn’t care to know more when you offered does not make me excited to meet him.”
“It makes sense that my accepting the invitation on your behalf or considering the nature of our plans felt thoughtless. And it also makes sense that you felt pre-judged by my friends for activities they don’t understand.”
I felt heard and understood. He stopped trying to change my mind and accepted my no, which was something he could never do before. In addition, he followed up his “I understand” statement by rephrasing what I felt and why. In the past, he would have thought my reasons were ridiculous and it wouldn’t matter how much I tried to explain myself. Back then, he would say “I understand,” but I wouldn’t feel understood.
But telling me “that makes sense” made me feel seen and accepted and respected. My opinions and feelings mattered to him.
***
Not long ago, there was a trendy phrase going around: “There’s my truth, your truth, and THE truth.” The phrase was often used as a zinger instead of a validation because THE truth seemed to trump everything else. THE truth refers only to facts, or objective reality. MY truth and YOUR truth is the interpretation of the facts, or subjective reality. And subjective is still valid.
Everyone has a subjective reality. We perceive things differently because we’ve had different experiences in life through which we see the world. That doesn’t make anyone’s experience wrong; it just makes it different.
When your partner is talking about their experience or opinion and it differs from yours, it is not your place to judge it as right/wrong or good/bad. Everyone’s perspective is correct.
The whole reason the “My Truth” trend came about was because our experiences are so often invalidated. It starts in childhood and continues through adulthood, and every single time someone starts to say, “this happened to me” or “this is what I felt,” we would get shut down. Instead, the facts were spewed out at us to prove us wrong. Or we were told by the listener that what really happened was something else because they had a different experience and are not able to understand that someone else had a separate experience than them. Ultimately, it was an unconscious act of gaslighting. “My Truth” became a way for those who felt invalidated to stand up for their own reality.
***
As a sophomore in high school, I was in an English class where we discussed books we read before writing our analysis papers. It would make me so mad when I would offer my interpretation on a piece of literature, and my teacher would say, “Now be careful.” After a while of feeling invalidated just because it wasn’t the stock interpretation, I started arguing with her. I was typically the good girl, but I became known as the troublemaker in her class. Eventually, I brought up my frustration with the English department head who put a stop to that teacher’s tendency to shut down students’ exploration.
In college, I was pleased to have gotten an A on a final paper from a tough professor. He wrote on my paper that, although there was no scientific evidence to prove the fictional character had the disorder I suspected, every single piece of evidence I chose to use from the book was well explained in context of the said disorder, thus proving my theory. I felt validated because my professor said the equivalent of “that makes sense.”
***
After watching a movie with a boyfriend, I was on the verge of tears.
He said, “What? It was just a story.”
I wanted to slap him. Just a story? I’m a writer!
The look on his face expressed that my emotional response was ridiculous. Insinuating that stories were meaningless was the most invalidating thing he could have said to me. There is a purpose for everything I write. Stories have a message. Like all art, stories can be interpreted by the reader through the lens of their personal experiences. Books I read as a teenager have totally different meanings to me when I reread them as an adult. This is why book clubs and literary circles are so fulfilling – we can see other perspectives.
***
Understanding another person’s perception of reality is a significant way to show someone you love them. Get curious about their inner world and the way they see things. You don’t have to adopt their view for yourself; it just helps you adopt your partner.
In a world where everyone is trying to convince us otherwise, “YOU make sense” has the power to lower defenses and calm the nervous system. It creates a safe place to open up to love.
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