Positive Communication, Relationships

The Power of Validation: Why Feeling Heard Matters

So many people enter counseling because they want to feel that their thoughts and feelings matter. They’ve grown up in families or relationships where they weren’t made to feel important or worthy. At the heart of it, they want one thing — to be validated.

There are several definitions of validation, but the one that most people long for is this:

To recognize, establish, or illustrate the worthiness or legitimacy of another person.

Why Validation Is Hard to Give

When we’ve gone through life without much validation ourselves, it’s no surprise that we often don’t know how to offer it to others. If no one has modeled genuine validation for us, we simply haven’t had the chance to learn what it looks or feels like.

That’s where counseling — and specific communication tools — can help. One approach that teaches validation beautifully is Motivational Interviewing (MI).
(Click here for more information on MI.)

The OARS Skills: A Simple Framework

In MI, we use the acronym OARS to remember the four main validation skills:

  • O – Open-ended questions
    Invite conversation instead of shutting it down.
  • A – Affirmations
    Recognize strengths and efforts, not just outcomes.
  • R – Reflective listening
    Mirror what you’ve heard to show true understanding.
  • S – Summarizing
    Tie things together so the person feels seen and heard.

Practicing these skills helps you do more than just validate another person. They can:

  • De-escalate tense emotions when someone is overwhelmed
  • Reduce defensiveness—both yours and theirs
  • Create space to think when you’re unsure what to say
  • Build bridges in conversations that otherwise go in circles

Ultimately, these skills help people lower their defenses so genuine communication can happen — the kind that leads to connection and resolution.

Practice Over Perfection

Like any new skill, validation takes practice. You’ll make mistakes. You might catch yourself adding a “but” after a reflection — sliding right back into defensiveness. That’s okay. Each time you notice and correct it, you strengthen your ability to stay grounded and compassionate.

With time, you’ll notice that validating others (and yourself) brings more peace, confidence, and depth to your relationships.

To see a couple of sample conversations demonstrating OARS please click here to subscribe to our bonus content library.

Anatomy, brain, research, Yoga

What is Vagus Nerve Stimulation?

The vagus nerve is a very long nerve that carries signals back and forth to your brain, heart, lungs and digestive system. It is the longest cranial nerve in your body. It is said to run from the brain all the way to the large intestines. It also has branches that reach all of our major organs.

I tell clients that the vagus nerve is what people consider to be the “lizard brain” of the body. It is responsible for fight or flight responses and also freeze and hide. It controls involuntary sensory and motor functions like your heart rate, speech, mood and urine output. It is a very complex system of communication with our entire body but it has a very important role in how we respond to stress. The role it plays is regulating the way the body switches from the rational brain (the parasympathetic nervous system – relaxed state) to a fight or flight response (sympathetic nervous system – alert state).

Apparently the vagus nerve can lose its ability to switch back easily to the parasympathetic mode due to factors like stress or age. Also Known as vagal dysfunction, this can put a person at risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety.

Professionals say that stimulating the vagus nerve will help our body to switch more quickly to a relaxed state. They recommend a variety of things to do to “stimulate” the vagus nerve. These include: 1) meditation, 2) exercise, 3) music, 4)massage, 5)cold exposure and also through 6) a medical intervention, applying an implanted or transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation, VNS/tVNSSo “stimulation”.

These activities create a cascade of events in our body that lead to activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Sensory signals initiate when we participate in one of the above activities. This signal then travels up to the brain stem from the lower part of the body that is participating in the activity/sensation. The brain stem then sends signals to activate certain parts of the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn, decreases cortisol, heart rate, and increases metabolism. This mechanism triggers the release of chemicals like serotonin and anti-inflammatory related chemicals that help our body feel calm and less pain. This series of events isn’t just for experiencing relaxation — it’s a multi-system communication event linking the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. It affects not just an emotional state but the entire body.

The reason that the above activities trigger a response that activates the parasympathetic nervous system is the need for our body to seek balance and recovery. When we shock it with cold our body wants homeostasis, so it activates a series of events to calm us down. This idea of trying to return back to its original state and achieve homeostasis is also at work with activities like massage/yoga/exercise. These activities create specific changes in our body systems that makes the body want to return to it’s original state. Our body registers the sensations and our vagus nerve sends out messages to release chemicals to balance excitement or other changes. These chemicals make us feel calm and “okay”. Breathing/humming/music can also do the same thing. Basically any sensory activity that is not overly stressful or perceived as actual danger, can stimulate the vagus nerve in a healthy manner. The more we do these activities, the more training we do for our system to be stronger and recover quickly from changes and imbalances, ie stress in our environment.

On a side note, a big chemical messenger that is responsible in this process is Acetylcholine (Ach). It’s a little bit more technical for me to explain so for further information on this process, go to this link.

Also for more info on polyvagal theory, click here.

For a quick yoga routine the aids in stimulating the vagus nerve, subscribe to access our bonus content.

Breathwork, Stress Management, Yoga

Mindful Warrior Practice

Last week I posted a piece on Mindfulness Practicing for ACT.

Here’s another practice , this time using a warrior II pose. I like Warrior II, Virabhadrasana II (veer-ah-bah-DRAHS-anna), for generating a feeling of power and focus. Try this exercise when you are having difficulty with finding motivation.

Part one: The pose

  1. Face the long side of your mat with your arms stretched straight out from your shoulders and your feet parallel to each other in a wide stance. You want your ankles approximately beneath your wrists.
  2. Turn your right foot and knee to face the front of the mat.
  3. Angle your left toes a little in toward the upper left corner of the mat.
  4. Bend your right knee so that you only see your right big toe.
  5. Check and distribute your weight evenly between both legs. Press down through the outer edge of your back foot and four corners of right foot.
  6. Check posture and keep the crown of your head stacked over your pelvis and your shoulders over your hips.
  7. Reach through both arms toward the front and back of the mat and turn your head to look past your right fingertips.
  8. Engage your abdominal muscles by creating a “lift” in your lower ab area.

Part Two: The practice

Hold the pose and breath in to the belly, reversing the exhale constrict the belly as the air empties. Continue even breathing as you look out over your right finger tips, envisioning that which you to accomplish. Switch sides and think of another project/task you would like to accomplish.

Additional:

For a full Warrior Sequence subscribe to our bonus content.