How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Page 413

Imagine that the listening friend, however, identifies how scared she
would be in that situation. She can't imagine the desire to pursue the
thief. The idea sounds quite stupid to her. She can still validate her
friend's feeling, however, by identifying her own sub-feelings.
She might ask herself, "Have I ever felt angry enough to want to fight
back against someone?". She may then remember wanting to slug a guy
who harassed her with catcalls on the street the other day. Having
contacted a similar anger within herself she can then validate her friend
by saying something like:
"I can understand being angry enough to want to strike back".
This validation is likely to feel genuine to her friend because she was
willing to feel a similar anger inside her-self before she said it. If she
had just said, "You are angry about the hold-up," without identifying
any sub-feelings of anger within herself, her response would likely
seem mechanical and not very validating.
Some readers might fear that validating someone's anger will make
them more likely to act it out. Quite the opposite is true. When
someone's feelings are validated the urge to act them out actually
lessens. The validation helps them let the feeling go and begin thinking
more clearly about a wise course of action.
The art of validation, then, requires that you actually feel some aspect
of the emotion the speaker is having. Your feeling does not have to be
the main response you would have to the situation they describe. It can
be a sub-feeling, or it can be a feeling you would have in another
situation that has some similar elements. What makes a validation
authentic is your willingness to call up and experience a part of yourself
that can connect with the emotion being described. When you speak
from that willingness, your message that the emotion in question is
understandable or okay will be truly validating.
Can All Feelings Be Validated?
There is a logic to every feeling we have. The source of each feeling,
however, is partly due to present circumstances and partly due to our
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