#165: Why Validation is so Important for Anxiously Attached People
In today's episode, we're talking all about validation — and specifically, why it is so essential for anxiously attached people in building more security within themselves and in their relationships.
Most anxiously attached people are accustomed to feeling chronically invalidated (in part because they tend to do this to themselves), always wondering if they are too much, too needy, too sensitive, too paranoid, and so on. This can lead to over-reliance on a partner or others external to us to determine whether our experience is real and valid.
Tune in for a discussion on why validation is so important for anxious attachers, and how we can give ourselves this gift to build more security and self-assuredness.
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Why Validation is Crucial for Anxiously Attached Individuals
Validation is often a buzzword in therapy and self-help circles, but for those with anxious attachment, its significance runs deep. Validation isn't just about agreement; it's about recognising and affirming someone’s experiences and emotions. For anxiously attached individuals, who frequently grapple with feelings of invalidation, understanding and practising validation can foster self-assurance and healthier relationships.
Understanding Validation
Validation involves acknowledging that someone’s feelings and perceptions are legitimate and make sense given their context. It’s about understanding and accepting their experience as real, even if you don't completely agree with it. For those with anxious attachment, learning to validate themselves and nurturing a validating environment in their relationships can be life-changing.
Anxious Attachment and Invalidation
Anxiously attached people often have backgrounds of emotional invalidation, where their feelings were dismissed or minimised. This history leads to patterns of self-doubt and heightened sensitivity to perceived rejection or criticism. They might frequently question if they are too needy, sensitive, or unreasonable. This self-doubt creates a cycle of seeking external validation, often resulting in feeling even more invalidated by their partners or others.
The Role of Validation in Healing
Breaking this cycle starts with self-validation. Recognising and accepting one’s feelings and needs without judgement is pivotal. For anxiously attached individuals, self-validation builds a foundation of self-trust and self-worth that doesn't wholly depend on external sources.
Cultivating Self-Validation
Here are some steps to help anxiously attached individuals begin practising self-validation:
Acknowledge Your Feelings: Accept your emotions as they are, without questioning their validity.
Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself kindly and understand that your feelings are valid.
Affirm Your Needs: Recognise and respect your needs as important and legitimate.
Journal Your Thoughts: Writing can help process and validate your feelings.
Seek Professional Support: Therapy can provide a supportive space to explore and validate your emotions.
Encouraging Validation in Relationships
Equally important is fostering mutual validation in relationships:
Communicate Openly: Use “I” statements to express your feelings honestly and respectfully.
Set Mutual Standards: Agree with your partner on the importance of mutual care and understanding.
Step into Their Shoes: Try to see situations from your partner’s perspective.
Practice Active Listening: Reflect and validate your partner’s feelings to show genuine understanding.
Conclusion
Validation is a cornerstone of self-confidence and secure relationships for anxiously attached individuals. By learning to validate themselves, they can approach relationships from a place of assurance instead of fear. Moreover, encouraging a validating environment with partners leads to healthier, more balanced, and fulfilling interactions.
In essence, validation is about recognising the inherent worth of everyone’s experience. For those with anxious attachment, practising self-validation and fostering a mutually validating relationship dynamic can fundamentally transform their relational patterns and enhance their sense of self.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Reflect on your experiences within relationships: do you often feel validated or invalidated by your partner or others? How does this impact your sense of security and self-worth?
Can you identify any moments in your past where you were told that you were "too sensitive" or "too needy"? How have those experiences shaped your current behaviours and perceptions in relationships?
When faced with conflict or the need to express your feelings, do you find yourself bracing for invalidation? How might this anticipation influence your communication style and the dynamics within your relationships?
How do you currently seek validation? Do you rely heavily on external sources such as friends, family, or even social media? Reflect on how this might be affecting your self-trust and perception of your needs.
What steps can you take to start validating your own experiences and emotions more effectively? List some practical ways in which you can practice self-validation in your daily life.
Have you noticed a pattern of defensiveness in your current or past relationships, either from yourself or your partner? How do you think this defensiveness impacts the overall health and communication in your relationship?
Consider a recent time when you felt the need to have your feelings validated by your partner. How did you approach this situation, and what was the outcome? Reflect on whether self-validation might have changed your approach or experience.
What are some fears or insecurities that arise for you when you think about expressing your needs in a relationship? How might these fears be connected to a history of invalidation?
Do you ever question the validity of your discomfort, boundaries, or reactions in your interactions with others? How can you begin to trust your own perceptions and emotions more?
Imagine a relationship where both partners actively practice validation for each other. How do you think this approach might change the quality of your interactions and overall relationship satisfaction? Reflect on any steps you can take toward fostering this environment.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, we are talking about the number one thing that anxiously attached people need in order to feel secure, and that is both secure in their relationships and secure in themselves, and that thing is validation. K? Now validation's one of those things that I think a lot of people are broadly familiar with because it's one of those kind of therapy terms that bounces around a lot. But maybe it's not something that you appreciate the impact of and just how important it is, again, not only to your sense of security in a relationship, but within yourself.
[00:01:06]:
And I think it's maybe talked about in the context of couples therapy and conflict and repair, and it's really important in all of those contexts, but it's something that I've been reflecting on recently as being so essential to the anxiously attached person's journey, because for the anxiously attached person, and again, you might not realize this as a front of mind thing, but I suspect if you are someone with anxious attachment, that you might become very aware of it after listening to this episode, that you're probably accustomed to feeling chronically invalidated. And I think that feeling of being invalidated and the anticipation of being invalidated drives a lot of your so called problem behaviors in relationship. It drives a lot of the protest behaviors, the way you approach conflict, the way you ask for needs, all of those things are kind of infused with this energy of bracing for invalidation. Bracing for being told that you are too much and too sensitive and too needy, and that your perception of things is incorrect, or you've misunderstood, or otherwise receiving someone's defensiveness. Because of all of those things, because you probably have a long history of being invalidated, it probably really heavily influences, you know, the way you go about things and what you come to expect in your relationships. And it's a funny thing where the more we expect something, the more our behavior kind of preemptively responds to that, and oftentimes it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We actually create the situation that we were expecting because our behavior has led to that as much as the other person's. It becomes a bit of a co created dynamic, as is true for so many things in our relationships, of course.
[00:02:54]:
Anyway, so in today's episode, we're gonna be talking a bit about validation and invalidation, and some shifts that you can start to make to really focus on this as a growth area for you. I think it's a growth area that 99% of people who I work with can really use some support here because it's, as I said, not something that we tend to focus on very directly, but I think it's something we should be focusing more attention on because the dividends of learning to validate yourself and also really cultivating an environment of validation in our relationships, It's really, really profound in terms of the shifts that can happen there. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, couple of quick announcements. As at the time of recording, we are almost at 70 members in my new on Attachment Insiders community. If you missed the past couple of weeks' episode, you may not have heard me speak about it. It's a community space. It's a low cost cancel anytime membership where you can come connect with others, seek support from me, and access a wide range of resources, including events and other things.
[00:04:00]:
So if you are interested in going deeper into the things that we talk about here on the podcast, seeking advice from me, connecting with like minded people around the world, on Attachment Insiders is a really wonderful space for you to do that. And although it's only in its nascent stages so far, it's already shaping up to be a really, really beautiful collection of people, and the resources there will only grow. So definitely worth checking out if you're interested. Other quick announcements, if you are in or near Sydney, I am holding a workshop in a couple of weeks' time. It's a 2 day weekend workshop at the end of the month, and will be all about building self worth. Sort of a condensed version of my secure self challenge. So if you are free on the 30th November and the 1st December, come along to my workshop. It's in Surrey Hills in the middle of Sydney.
[00:04:49]:
We've already got a decent number of people coming, but there are a few spots remaining. If you're at all interested, grab a friend, come along for a relaxed supportive weekend of diving deep, learning about yourself, and getting some clarity on where you might be stuck. So we'd love to see you there. My in person work is so special, and it's something that I'm very much looking forward to. So, definitely check out my Sydney intensive if you are in Sydney and free. Last but not least, my Byron Bay retreat, which is in May next year. We still have a couple of early bird spots available for that, so if you are interested in a 4 day, 3 night retreat in the most luxurious setting, definitely check out my retreat as well. Okay.
[00:05:33]:
So let's talk about validation. Now as I alluded to in the introduction, I don't want to suggest that validation is something that only anxiously attached people need. And to the contrary, we all really benefit from validation. So irrespective of your attachment patterns or your partner's attachment patterns, being more actively validating of other people's experience is a very good idea. And essentially at its core, validation to me is recognizing that your and everyone else's experience makes sense in the context of them, and that everything that you feel and that they feel and perceive arises from a very real experience. These things don't come from nowhere. Our protective patterns are grounded in a very real experience that we're having, in a very real perception of threat or fear or danger or risk. And against that backdrop, we can start to see that we make sense.
[00:06:29]:
And so when we're in relationship, being more validating of someone else is stepping into their shoes and seeking to really see a situation from their point of view rather than being so firmly grounded in ours that we are spending all of our time and energy trying to convince them of our way of seeing things because we're locked in this world view where only one of us can be right. And this is something that I see in pretty much everyone that I work with, as I said in the introduction, is this mindset of which one of us is right? Am I being unreasonable or are they being unreasonable? Am I being unfair? Am I being too needy or too sensitive? Or are they being too defensive? Are they not meeting my needs? Which one is it? And that mindset is kind of the antithesis of validation, because it's just trying to figure out the objective right answer, a singular truth about a situation that is so inherently subjective. And so something that I'm always encouraging people to do is step outside of this framework of good and bad, and right and wrong, and blame, and villain and victim, and actually just step a layer beneath all of that and go, what am I feeling? What am I experiencing? And how does that make sense? And then can I do the same thing for them? As soon as we do that, we're sort of laying down our weapons, and we're laying down our shield and our self protection, and instead just looking at what is really true, which is that we are all having a very real experience, and that there's actually no right or wrong there. So how does all of this interface with attachment dynamics? As I said in the introduction, it is common that anxiously attached people have grown up in emotionally invalidating environments. So that might be various experiences along the way that have essentially given you the message that your perception is misplaced, or your emotions are too much, or you're too sensitive, you're too needy, all of those things that have you second guessing your experience and the rightness and truth of your experience. And I think because of that, we develop around that insecurity and that sense of invalidation, and a few things happen. I think one of them is that we tend to really chronically invalidate ourselves in the sense of doubting our own experience, doubting our own perception, seeking a lot of outside counsel for things, not really trusting that we are allowed to feel the way we feel, or asking if we are wrong to feel a certain way. Questioning whether we're allowed to be uncomfortable with something is another big one, so this comes into play around boundaries and limits.
[00:09:16]:
So often people will say things to me like, my partner is doing x, y, z thing. Am I wrong to be uncomfortable with this? And my partner's messaging other people in a way that feels inappropriate to me, but I don't know if I'm just being too sensitive, or my partner always pulls away and needs space, but then I don't hear from them for 2 weeks. Am I being unreasonable to want to hear from them more often than that or to know what's going on? I don't want to be too needy or smothering. And while those might sound like extreme examples, I can tell you that these are examples that I hear all the time from people. And to me, all of that is evidence of an internal and relational environment of invalidation, because that seems to be the first stumbling block that then prevents people from really tuning into how they feel, what they need, what their limits are, what their boundaries are, and confidently advocating for those things from a really firm and grounded place, not from a place of trying to convince the other person of the validity of their needs. I think this is where a lot of people fall down and get really stuck, because you might do all of this internal work on trying to figure out what your needs are or trying to express a concern or make a request of your partner, But oftentimes because you have that pattern of bracing for invalidation, maybe your partner tends to be defensive, and that will often be the case if you're in an anxious avoidant dynamic. We know that avoidant partners tend to struggle with defensiveness, and particularly around being given feedback, or being asked to change, or anything that feels like an attempt to control them. You might have a pattern in your relationship where when you do speak up, your partner shuts down and becomes defensive, or dismisses your concern, or says that it's too much, or any of those things.
[00:11:07]:
And maybe you believe them, and maybe you then sort of cower in the face of that and internalise whatever it was that you were worried about, and then the cycle sort of goes on and on, and you've got all of these insecurities bubbling away that you're increasingly the context of your relationship in a way that feels empowered, that doesn't feel attacking, but that also doesn't feel kind of pleading and desperate. And all of these things come back to this internal and relational environment of invalidation. So, as is so often the case, I mean, I think, of course, we can talk to our partners about this, and we can hope that our partner would be receptive to understanding our concern insofar as wanting to feel like our experience is valid, not wanting to have a culture in our relationship where our concerns are routinely being dismissed. And I think some of those conversations can look like saying things like, I want for us to both be able to bring things to each other. And even if we don't agree with the other person's perception or analysis, we we can't relate to how they're feeling, can we agree that if one of us is bothered by something, then that is something that deserves our attention? And, you know, that we're going to approach that with care and handle that with care because it is in the interest of our relationship as a whole for us to be, you know, tending to the things that might be coming up for either of us. That's a really validating approach to conflict and rupture and repair in a relationship. It's sort of setting the standard of how you're going to approach things, and to go back to what I was saying before around stepping outside of a framework of right and wrong, agreeing that with your partner that we're going to have these standards that are not about making you the villain or whatever. It's not about every time I bring up a concern, it's something that you have done wrong or something that you're failing at.
[00:13:12]:
It's just something that needs to be shared or whatever it might be. Having that as a kind of framework that you can fall back on is a really good idea because that creates the safety for you to be able to to share things safely and to not have all of those anxieties and insecurities that come from the anticipation of being invalidated. And as I said, I think that anticipation drives so much of our, you know, own maybe unhealthy or dysfunctional or ineffective communication styles because we bring so much, you know, stress and anxiety to those conversations, and we end up persuading and pleading and all of those things. The other key piece, and I would arguably say this is the more important piece, as is so often the case, you know, with anxious attachment. The relational stuff is important, but I always emphasize the self piece because that tends to be the part that is underdeveloped. And frankly, I think it's the part that we have far more control over, and I think we get, you know, a positive ripple effect in our relationships when we're able to first work on whatever the deficit is within ourselves in terms of the wounded parts or the skills that we may be lacking. When we can build that up, then we're much more likely to be able to engage in effective relational repair and healing work, because we're doing it from a place of self worth and self esteem, rather than a place of desperation and fear and lack and all of those other things that can be present when we don't have a solid relationship with ourselves. So the key piece, really, to focus on in terms of validation for yourself is practicing validating your own experiences, fears, concerns, worries, desires, needs, preferences, requests, all of those things.
[00:14:59]:
I really want you to catch yourself every time you doubt. Am I being too much? Am I being too needy? Am I being too sensitive? Am I asking for too much? Am I right to feel this way? I want you to notice when ever you feel those things, whenever you ask yourself those questions, whenever you go to outsource and sense check everything against a friend or a therapist or someone on Instagram, my DMs are absolutely full of people sending me messages that are essentially wanting me to validate them in lieu of them being able to do that themselves or being able to get that from their partner. And it really does start with you. Your job is to validate your own experience so that you can go to your partner and share from a really firm and grounded place. You're not trying to convince them of the rightness of your experience. You're not trying to convince them that you're not crazy. And I think when you're trying to do that, when you're trying to convince them, you start appealing to all of these other things and saying, anyone would feel this way in my position, or look at this thing that I read in this book or saw here. But they said the same thing as well, so like, I'm not crazy.
[00:16:04]:
I'm not crazy. And I think that's really a sign that you need to work on validating yourself because when I hear that, it sounds like you're wanting them to validate you so that you can feel that your experience is valid. Whereas we wanna flip that around. Right? You need to decide that your experience is valid, and then you can go to a relationship and hopefully have more of a balanced dynamic there, more of an authentic self confidence and self esteem that allows you to create a relational environment that is healthy and secure and balanced and validating. And I will say, because there's always a possibility that you might decide that a relationship is not a good fit on the basis that your partner is routinely dismissive or invalidating, or simply is unwilling or incapable of being the partner that you want and need. Maybe your needs and their capacity are not a good fit, but it's really only in fiercely and fully validating yourself that you are going to have the clarity and the self trust to make that kind of call. Because for as long as you are invalidating yourself, you're always going to doubt whether you're asking too much, and you're always going to wonder, and it's going to be very hard for you to make that kind of confident decision and knowing what you deserve and what you are worthy of. It's going to be very hard to do that if you are routinely and chronically invalidating yourself.
[00:17:34]:
So all of that to say, validation is an absolutely essential building block of a healthy relationship with yourself, and in turn, healthy balanced relationships with others. And I really do believe that for anxiously attached people, it's a very core part of your healing process, because it is likely to be something that you absolutely lack as a starting point for an array of reasons that we've covered. You've likely grown up in an environment where that was absent, and you've developed all sorts of habits around that that take you further and further away from yourself, and knowing and feeling anchored in your experience as something that you know to be true, and you don't need to have other people confirm that for you. So I hope that this has been helpful. I hope it's given you something to reflect on, and maybe it wasn't something that you were really aware of in these terms or in such a direct way, but I hope that now it is something that you can turn your mind to and really consciously practice because as with all things, it will be a practice. But really noticing what patterns you might have around invalidating yourself and consciously redirecting to, you know, how does my experience make sense? How can I really stay grounded in what I know to be true, which is that a certain feeling is here for me or that I'm not comfortable with something, that something doesn't feel right to me, and just acknowledging that truth rather than seeking to have someone else, particularly the person who's leaving you feeling uncomfortable, having them be the one who gets to decide whether or not that experience is valid? So hope that's been helpful. As always, so grateful for those of you who leave reviews and feedback. I always love to hear from you and it's a beautiful way for you to support the show.
[00:19:20]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
attachment, relationships, validation, insecurity, anxiously attached, couples therapy, conflict, emotional invalidation, protest behaviours, relationship dynamics, repair in relationships, self-worth, boundaries, limits, anxious-avoidant dynamic, defensiveness, relational environment, secure relationships, self-esteem, internal validation, relational repair, fear and insecurity, growth area, healthy attachment patterns, partner's needs, Sydney workshop, Byron Bay retreat, self-confidence, self-destructive behaviour, emotional support, defensive partners