Brianna Wiest - The Mountain Is You_ Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery (2020)

THE MOUNTAIN IS YOU
193
Validating the way someone else feels is an exercise in radial
empathy. It is starting the conversation with: “It is
okay to feel this way.” Because when we point out how
wrong someone is to feel the way they do, they shut down.
And they shut down because they feel shame. They already
know it’s not right to feel the way they do. If you
start the conversation by heightening someone’s defenses
or making them panic and suppress even harder, you make
the situation worse.
But if you start with reminding them that anyone in their
situation would probably feel similar to how they do right
now, and that it is very possible that they can have strong,
overwhelming emotions that don’t necessarily mean their
lives are completely ruined, and that it is okay to feel devastated
when devastating things are before us, we lighten
their load. We know this because when we stop resisting
feeling sad and just let ourselves be sad, we realize that it
will not last forever. We see that sometimes, the biggest
problem isn’t that we are devastated, but that in refusing
to accept what is in front of us, we create so much more
suffering than we would if we had just had a cry when we
needed to have a really good cry.
Validating other people teaches us how to validate ourselves.
And when we learn how to validate ourselves, we
become stronger. We see that our emotions are no longer
threats, but informants. They show us what we care about,
what we want to savor, and what we want to protect.
They remind us that life is fleeting, and challenging, and