Hello Listeners, today is February 27, 2025. and this is Social Skills Coaching.
"where you become more likable, more charasmatic, and more productive."
In this episode of Social Skills Coaching, we dive into the powerful world of validation and how it can transform your relationships.
Join us as we explore the key steps to effectively validate others, communicate acceptance, and create deeper connections.
Today's episode is based on a chapter from Patrick King's book, "How to Listen, Hear, and Validate: Break Through Invisible Barriers and Transform Your Relationships - How to be More Likable and Charismatic (Book 11)."
This essential guide is available on Amazon, with an audiobook version also available on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible.
To learn more about Patrick King's work and discover how you can apply these principles in your own life, visit his website at bitly PKConsulting.
In this chapter, we’ll be taking a closer look at what to actually do and say when validating someone.
We’ve considered a few key phrases, but validation can occur on several different levels, not all of them applicable in every context.
Deciding when and how to offer validation is a skill in itself; in this chapter, we’ll look at some frameworks to help us organize our approach.
Validation as Communicating Acceptance
Psychologist Marsha Linehan proposes an interesting and useful framework we can use to help us better understand the process of validation.
As we saw in the previous section, validation isn’t always appropriate or helpful, but this is often a question of degree—how far to go and what kind of validation to give.
According to Linehan, there are six progressive levels of validation, each one building on the one before it.
This means if you want to offer level 5 validation, you need to have gone through levels 1 to 4 first.
However, you don’t have to reach level 5—some situations will call only for some levels, without proceeding further.
In certain situations, it might not be necessary or even possible to go beyond a certain level.
In any case, with this model we can see validation as a kind of communicated acceptance.
Remember, acceptance is not agreement or approval (or even understanding!
), but it is prioritizing emotional connection even when there is conflict or difference of opinion.
Level 1 is being present with the other person.
For example, being still with them, listening closely, paying attention, nodding your head, making eye contact, or letting them know you’re there by placing a hand on their shoulder.
The best way to be present with someone is to engage in “active listening.” You must give the other person non-verbal signals like those that have been mentioned, as well as verbal signals like a “yes” or “go on” intermittently.
This acts as feedback for the other person and they automatically become more open and honest with you as a result.
Being distracted by your phone while someone pours their heart out to you is obviously not being present, but then again, launching into insensitive “advice” and immediately sharing your opinion also removes your attention and presence from the moment.
In level 1, the biggest hurdle can be acceptance of ourselves and our emotions without judgment, so we can resist escaping into denial or justifications just to fill the silence.
Some of us can be uncomfortable with intense emotions because they force us to confront our own experiences with situations similar to those the other person is facing.
Even someone expressing happiness can be disconcerting to us if we’re going through a rough patch.
Try not to make your own reaction the focus.
Try not to steer away from the emotion being expressed.
This will inspire trust and comfort in the other person.
Level 2 is practicing accurate reflection.
This is when we offer a genuine response that summarizes what we’ve heard and seen.
A lot of people struggle with this step because they simply don’t think they have anything valuable to offer, and it adds to the discomfort one might experience in step 1 as well.
If this sounds like you, remember that you only have to show the person that you listened to them when they were talking; you need not provide any original input or insight that they missed.
It can be as simple as saying, “It sounds like you’re having a hard time right now.”
The challenge here is to reflect without sounding patronizing, insincere or judgmental.
Tone of voice is everything!
This is especially true if you’re disagreeing with the person in this step.
Remember, validation does not always mean agreement.
If your friend is narrating an incident about how he feels he isn’t working as hard as other employees, you don’t have to say that it’s okay to feel that way or somehow justify his not working as hard.
You can simply say, “Maybe you’re being too hard on yourself.” What matters is the authenticity of your reflection, not whether it reinforces what the other person is saying.
Maybe you disagreeing will make them see that they were indeed being too hard on themselves for some reason.
Level 3 is, for want of a better word, mindreading, i.e.
trying to guess the other person’s thoughts and feelings.
Obviously, this can be tricky, and we all differ in our “emotional literacy” and ability to read others.
On top of that, people are not always sure what they themselves feel, and may be used to expressing one thing while feeling another, or masking their true experience completely.
This step is about trying to put names on possible emotions and thoughts.
As you can see, it’s a natural extension of the previous step: “It sounds like you’re having a hard time right now.
I wonder if you’re feeling overwhelmed by what’s happened.”
The challenge here is to remove as much of your own bias and expectation as possible, and be ready to abandon a guess if the other person tells you that’s not in fact how they feel.
It can actually be invalidating to have someone else incorrectly interpret your situation—as though they haven’t heard you or have their own agenda.
Use your knowledge of the other person as much as you can.
Think about how they typically react to similar situations, or have responded to them in the past.
It’s likely that they have the same reaction now too.
Some people do or say specific things when they’re feeling various emotions.
For example, some people speak in shorter sentences when they’re upset.
Notice cues like these and use them to read the other person’s mind.
In level 4, we frame the person’s experience in their unique context.
This doesn’t mean playing shrink and running wild with theories and assumptions, but seeing what you know about the other person as a whole.
What’s happened in their history to make this current situation more understandable?
How does their unique life situation play into what they’re telling you?
You could acknowledge this context by saying something like, “Well, it makes sense that you would be overwhelmed by all this right now, since you’ve had so many big life changes lately.”
Level 5 entails normalizing reactions.
A big part of validation is knowing that you’re not weird or wrong or bad, but having a perfectly normal and even common experience.
“I’m sure anyone would feel stressed out if they had as much on their plate as you!”
Level 6, the final level, is about injecting some radical genuineness.
This takes emotional acceptance deeper, and means we reach out on a personal level to the other person, emphasizing our shared human connection and experience.
This is the level where you can reveal something about yourself, or become a little vulnerable—but whatever you do, it must be an authentic expression showing that you truly understand what the other person is telling you.
However, you should be wary about not making the other person feel like you’ve hijacked the conversation and made it all about yourself.
As you can see, every situation will call for a different degree of validation—and it depends on your context and relationship with the person, too.
Of course, you don’t have to sit there and rigidly remember the six levels when a friend comes to you for support; rather, the takeaway from this model is to think of validation on a sliding scale—read the situation and dial up your level of validation accordingly.
How to Validate Someone — The Framework
Let’s dig in even deeper.
Validation is a kind of communication, and its purpose is to communicate acceptance.
Let’s take a look now at a step-by-step, detailed framework to follow when we want to provide validation.
In reality, the six levels described above flow and blend into one another.
There are different techniques, approaches and skills associated with each that, again, will vary in their effectiveness depending on the person you’re talking to.
Let’s consider each in finer detail.
Step 1 – How to be present: listen!
No matter what the situation is, you should always go into it with an open mind and calm, focused attention on the other person.
You are not coming in with an agenda.
Rather, you are listening carefully to better understand their point of view, and their experience.
This can actually be the hardest part, because when we care and want to help, we may want to jump in and start talking, offer advice, and so on.
But resist this urge in the beginning and let the other person take the lead.
Let them speak and really listen.
Here, your verbal communication is turned off for the most part, but your non-verbal communication comes to the fore.
Receptive body language: maintain an open posture and facial expression, and turn your body to face them.
Relax.
Make eye contact if it feels appropriate, but it’s eye contact that is about interested, respectful attention rather than interrogation.
Mirror their body language as closely as you can.
If they’re sitting with their legs crossed, do the same.
If they have their arms resting on a table, you should too.
Get rid of distractions—put your phone away, turn the TV off and show, with your body, “I’m here now, and I want to listen to what you have to say.” It’s also a good idea to match their tone and pace of speaking, as well as their “energy.” If they are quiet and hesitant, for example, be quiet too, and tread carefully.
You might also encourage them to open up by asking, “Would you like to talk?
I’m all ears.” You might make encouraging “uh-huh” sounds or something similar, but at this step, silence can work wonders as an invitation for the other person to share.
Examples: Your roommate has just come home and clearly seems shaken up.
Seeing this, you close your laptop and turn toward him, showing a concerned expression.
He says he’s just had a car accident and is feeling pretty stunned.
Without saying too much (maybe a simple “tell me what happened”), you sit next to him and just listen without interrupting as he tells his story.
Or, imagine a woman tells her husband they need to talk.
They sit down to chat, and she begins to explain something that’s been bothering her, and that she’s upset with him.
Though it’s tempting for the husband to respond immediately to what feels like accusations, he waits until she’s said her piece.
Although he doesn’t really like what he’s hearing, he tries hard to just listen, and see things from her point of view, even though he would really like to share his own.
When she’s done talking, he pauses a little, so she doesn’t feel as though he was simply waiting for her to shut up so he could jump in with a rebuttal!
Step 2 – How to reflect: ask questions
If the person simply wanted to be heard, and immediately feels better, you can sometimes stop at step 1.
But you may find the conversation naturally shifts to your response to what you’ve heard.
This is actively letting someone know you’ve heard them, because when you paraphrase what they’ve said, you are reflecting it back to them.
But when you reflect back, it only feels validating if it’s accurate.
The easiest way to do this is to literally repeat what you’ve heard.
You can use reflection to summarize what’s been said, to reiterate the most important parts of the story, or to distill some main essence of what they’re feeling.
For example, if somebody blurts out a long list of stressful events that have happened to them that day, you can say “Wow, it seems like there’s so much going on right now.”
Don’t worry about your statement seeming overly obvious.
When you reflect back, it’s as though you are helping the other person tell their story.
It lets them know that you’re listening, and that you get it.
It tells them that what they’re expressing has actually landed, and communication is working.
Now, you don’t have to jump in with clever-sounding guesses or tell them what they’re feeling—if you don’t know, you can always ask!
Asking questions is further confirmation that you’re listening and invested, and that what they say matters.
Questions can prompt a person to keep sharing, and help them arrive at a more distinct conclusion themselves, in their own time.
Supportive questions:
“Okay, I want to understand what you mean when you say XYZ…can you tell me more?”
“So what did you think about that?”
“What do you think happens next?”
“Can you say more about XYZ?”
“So how are you feeling about all of this?”
Though it’s not a bad question per se, avoid “so how does that make you feel?” as it can obviously feel a little cheesy!
Examples: If someone has just explained at length a complicated family drama, you may be a little confused on the details.
Asking questions can show that you care about grasping the subtleties.
“So, what’s the relationship like between your mother and sister?” or “So you’re worried that they had that discussion without you?
Have I got that right?” Outright asking if you’ve understood correctly not only shows that you want to understand, but that you are centering the other person, which is validating in itself.
Questions are not just for your own clarification, though.
You might well know how a particular story ends, but asking questions about it communicates encouragement and acceptance of the other person working their way through the story.
“Okay, so then your mom told you about this conversation with your sister.
What happened next?”
Questions and statements can both be used to achieve the same effect.
Whether you frame it as an obvious question or more of a tentative statement, you are essentially asking, Have I understood?
Is this how it is for you?
Step 3 – How to mindread: Use feeling words
If you spend a while in the previous step, you may find yourself naturally flowing into this step, where you speak more directly about the other person’s experience.
You began by listening and helping the person tell their story, and as you continue, it’s as though you are helping them add more shape and structure to it.
This makes sense when you think about it: when people are upset or emotional, they may not be thinking super clearly or rationally.
They need to first express the emotions they’re feeling, and only then find their way to processing and integrating the experience.
At this early stage though, try to avoid injecting your own interpretations into things.
Think of yourself as a kind of guide or even midwife, helping a person get through their own experience, without making it too much about yourself.
Sometimes, when people are upset, it can be helpful to put words to what they’re feeling.
Simply being able to say, “I’m feeling so disappointed right now” is a step toward acknowledging and owning your own experience.
“Mindreading” is perhaps a misleading word here, since you shouldn’t really feel like you are guessing.
But tentatively offer up an emotion word that might capture what they’re going through.
In doing so, you are helping people arrive at their own interpretations and conclusions.
Naturally, you shouldn’t just blurt out, “You’re depressed” or flat-out tell someone how they’re feeling.
Phrases to try:
“It seems to me like…”
“I’m wondering if XYZ is the case…”
“You seem quite angry/upset/scared/confused right now.” (Said in a gentle, non-judgmental tone.)
“Do you think that made you feel XYZ?”
“I can see you’re hurt.”
“From what you’re saying, it sounds like you’re feeling XYZ about the whole thing.”
Examples: Someone might be explaining at length the irritating things one of their friends does, giving a list of offenses, including the most recent one that caused a small argument.
But in listening to them, you notice that they haven’t actually stated outright how they feel.
It might be obvious to you both, but you say, “Woah, seems like there’s definitely a lot of frustration in this friendship.”
By putting a single word to the collection of experiences, you not only show that you’ve listened, but that you can actually synthesize everything together, and see the bigger picture.
This can really move a conversation along, and the other person might say, “Yes, that’s exactly right.
We seem to get frustrated with each other more and more lately…”
Though it’s never your job to tell someone how they’re feeling, they may get to see their emotions a lot more clearly when you reflect them back.
If a different friend is complaining about how they’re fed up with their girlfriend’s male friends, you might say after a while, “I wonder if it’s jealousy you’re feeling?”
Even if you get the mindreading part wrong, so long as you’re not being madly offensive, the other person is likely to appreciate the effort, and in correcting you, they are again engaged in sharing openly—a win-win situation.
Step 4 – How to find context: validate and center their experience
Again, one step may bleed over into the next, and asking questions or mindreading may easily lead to this step.
At this stage, you want to communicate a strong sense of understanding who the person is, and how their experience is truly unique to them.
You want to center them, and focus on their world and how it feels to be in it.
Here, you are still not offering your own interpretations, but rather helping the other person draw together their ideas so that they find their own conclusions themselves.
We can absolutely provide validation to people we don’t know that well, but more commonly, we know a little about them and their history.
When we validate and center another person, we are saying to them your perspective is valid.
This story and the way you’re experiencing it makes sense.
For example, we can say, “I can totally see why you freaked out when that happened.
Seeing as you’ve had bad experiences with this sort of thing in the past, it’s not surprising you reacted the way you did.”
We can bring in plenty of validation by acknowledging a person’s unique perspective and history.
This can make people feel really seen and heard.
Some of the following phrases can be used alone to provide validation, but can also be extended and framed in terms of the person’s context, or the broader situation.
Phrases that validate a person’s unique experience:
“I can really see how the situation has made you feel this way.”
“Given that you’re a woman/Muslim/Australian/gymnast, I can understand why you responded as you did.”
“What you say makes total sense to me.”
“It’s understandable that you feel like this.”
“Well, you have a reason for feeling the way you do, and I completely understand that.”
Example: If someone tells you they are struggling with PTSD after experiencing a violent crime, you can start by listening (being present), then ask them questions to flesh out their experience of the anxiety (so you can reflect).
Then you might move on to saying something that vaguely summarizes their experience (mindreading, for example, “You’ve been under so much stress, I’m sure”) and extend this by embedding it into the bigger context (“given what you’ve already been through, it’s no surprise that you feel like this”).
Step 5 – How to normalize: refrain from judgment
Judgment and acceptance cannot exist at the same time.
When we validate people, we acknowledge that their experience is valid and their own, whatever it is.
We can’t do this properly if we have loads of criticisms or judgments about what we think of them.
Maybe we don’t agree with their appraisal of events.
Maybe we think they’re being foolish or missing something important.
Maybe they’re angry with us, and we want to defend ourselves.
Or maybe we can’t quite understand their response and it really does seem irrational to us.
Nevertheless, when we seek to normalize someone’s experience, what we are really doing is telling them that it is acceptable, and that we don’t judge them for what they’re going through.
You don’t have to agree or share their opinion.
You don’t have to relate to the way they’re telling their story or what they’re choosing to focus on.
But you can still communicate that they are entitled to feel that way, regardless of how your experience compares to theirs.
Many people have had the experience of reaching out to others for support, sympathy or (let’s face it) a good old-fashioned rant, only to have their experience judged.
They want to feel validated and heard, but instead, the other person might launch into a fact-finding mission, trying to root out who’s to blame, and why, and what the logical and “correct” answer is.
Alternatively, some people may see the emotions of others as quite threatening, awkward or uncomfortable.
Because they feel unable to validate and accept, for example, sad feelings in themselves, they react badly when they see them in others.
Their response then is to judge.
“Oh you’re overreacting, it’s not that bad” or “come on now, you’re being a bummer, cheer up!”
When we normalize, however, we communicate that all feelings and all experiences are valid.
Just because some feelings are uncomfortable or confronting, it doesn’t mean that people are wrong for experiencing them.
The other side of the coin, though, is that we can also be guilty of judging in the opposite direction, especially if we are trying to be supportive or helpful.
When we say something like, “Oh it’s so healthy that you’re finally grieving that loss” or “you go girl, get mad!” we are also passing a value judgment on an experience.
We need to look beyond the specific emotion, thought or experience and to the person having it.
We need to be able to say to that person: “It’s OK to be who you are right now, and feel how you feel.” Deep down, don’t all of us want to know that we are not bad or wrong or strange?
Don’t we all feel a little better when we know that we’re not the only people who feel the way we do?
Ways to express non-judgment and normalize:
“I think that most people would feel that way if they were in your shoes.”
“It’s totally normal that you feel like this.”
“I would be upset too.”
“There’s nothing wrong with thinking these thoughts.”
“You’re not alone.”
“Hey, I’m glad you told me how you feel.” (normalizing the act of sharing)
Sometimes, the best way to show our acceptance and convey a sense of normalcy is not in the words we say, but in how we act, and what we don’t say.
Try to avoid making a pronouncement on what thoughts and feelings are good or bad.
Don’t comment on the strength or appropriateness of the feeling, for example, by suggesting an emotion is too much or too little.
We’ll look more at how not to validate in a later chapter.
Examples: A child reveals a rather shocking secret to their mother, but the mother is careful not to act horrified.
By saying “I’m glad I know, you were right to tell me, and it’s understandable that you’re upset about this,” she communicates both that the child’s feelings are valid, and also that reaching out and sharing is welcome and acceptable—a profoundly reassuring position to take when someone is in distress.
Normalizing can be done briefly and as a matter of course, too.
For example, someone shares something with their therapist and finishes with “but I’m sure you’re used to seeing way more important problems in your practice.” The therapist can respond, “Your problem is important.
And many people come here with the very same concerns as you.”
Step 6 – How to show genuine validation: Be real
When someone reaches out for help and support, the last thing they want is to feel like doing so makes them weak or wrong.
When opening up to others, we all like to imagine that they understand a little about what we’re saying, because they’re human too, and have experienced suffering, loss, confusion, and other negative feelings.
When the person listening can open up a little in return, we can feel immensely validated.
We are not just being told we are OK and not alone—we actually experience it for real.
This final step of showing genuine human care and understanding is something that can’t be faked.
But one way to do it is to offer up something of your own experience.
This isn’t to derail the conversation or hog attention, but to confirm that you, too, know a little of what it feels like.
“I lost my father last year, and I remember feeling that way, too.”
Yes, it’s always better to listen more and talk less, and you don’t want to succumb to a preachy bit of advice or a story about how you did things better, but being a little vulnerable yourself can be a powerful thing to do.
Don’t share a story just to make a point or sneak in some advice—for example, “When my father died, I took up jogging.
It was the only thing that kept me sane” (i.e.
I think you should do the same).
Rather, you are showing them that you are familiar with their emotion on a firsthand level.
We won’t look at helpful phrases or examples here since the point of this step is to react genuinely, as the real person you are.
Be honest.
It can be as simple as saying “I know how you feel,” but, if you can truly show that you know, even better.
“Did I ever tell you that the same thing happened to me last year?” And if you can’t relate, it’s probably better to just say that you can’t, instead of trying to shoehorn your own experience in an attempt to match theirs.
As you can see, at no point in this process are you fixing any problems, offering any solutions, advice or suggestions, arguing, blaming, figuring out “the truth” or deciding whether the person’s reactions are reasonable or not.
You’re also not trying to “help” by giving sagely words of wisdom or using your own experience as an inspiring example.
The above process may take an hour to unfold, with several loops back to previous stages.
The person may need to dig deeper, rehash some things or tell the tale again before they’re ready to move on or even ask for advice.
Or, the process may be over in a minute, and not proceed all the way through.
The way validation unfolds depends on just two things:
• The needs of the person receiving the validation
• The capacities, limits and skill of the person giving the validation
Summary
• Marsha Linehan has come up with a comprehensive, six-step model of validation that we can use when listening to others.
Each step in this model relies on the previous one.
One can’t jump from step 1 to step 6; they must follow each step in the same order to validate someone in the best, most reassuring way possible.
• The first step in this model is simply being present.
Here, you must actively listen to the other person and pay close attention.
Give the other person subtle feedback through verbal and non-verbal cues which indicate that you’re listening to them.
This will make the other person feel more comfortable with you.
The second step is called accurate reflection, and here you need to summarize what you’ve been told to provide further reassurance that you’ve understood what they’ve told you.
Keep it simple, but significant.
• Next, try to read subtle cues the other person is giving.
This involves some guesswork, but you only need enough information to be able to label their words with an emotion.
For step four, try to contextualize the person’s thoughts and emotions with either recent events from their life or past experiences which might be influencing their reaction.
• Step five is to simply reassure the other person that their reaction is reasonable and anyone else in their position would feel the same way.
Lastly, for step six, you can relate their experiences with your own if you’ve been in a similar situation.
Being vulnerable here can establish a stronger bond and invite further conversation and trust.
So there you have it, folks.
If you're tired of misunderstandings, conflicts, and loneliness creeping into your relationships, this book is for you.
It'll show you the mistakes we often make when trying to listen, and give you practical techniques to communicate more effectively.
Most importantly, it'll help you become that person everyone wants in their life - someone who truly listens, understands, and validates others.
So don't just take my word for it.
Check out "How to Listen, Hear, and Validate" by Patrick King.
It's available on Amazon in both physical and audiobook formats.
Trust me, your relationships will thank you.
Go ahead and get your copy now.
The world needs more empathetic communicators like us.
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Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time!