Join us for part 2 of Dr. Rivian Lewin’s Self-Care series, in which she shares a simple reflection and exercise on the power of Self-Validation.
Self-Validation…
The process of exploring how our emotions/experiences make sense within the greater picture of our lives.
We arrive to every moment of our lives with all the many aspects of who we are—past experiences, values, beliefs, societal conditioning—that we carry with us. On the surface, we may have responses to situations that seem “out of the blue” or “disproportionate” to the situation, but if we explore how our emotions and responses make sense, given pieces of our story, social learning, psychological vulnerabilities, etc., we will understand these experiences. Self-validation is the process of exploring how our emotions/experiences make sense within the greater picture of our lives.
One way to practice self-validation is to notice an emotion, acknowledge it, and think about all the factors contributing to the emotion.
For example, this could go a little something like this, “I notice I’m angry in this moment. This anger makes sense given my previous experience with something similar in the past, my lack of sleep last night, and my values related to work-life balance.”
Self-validation allows us to look at our own experiences with a sense of curiosity and care, which are important precursors to both acceptance and change.
