Most of us wonder why the populations in the world who seem to have the greatest mobility and most material possessions are suffering from the yoke of despair and depression. One of the biggest causes is invalidation. As human beings we need to be both independent and interdependent. We need to feel a sense of love and of contribution. If either are missing we are sad, we are defeated, we are joyless.
Invalidation is to reject, ignore, mock, tease, judge, control or diminish someone’s feelings.
Constant invalidation may be one of the most significant reasons a person with high innate emotional intelligence suffers from unmet emotional needs later in life. A sensitive child who is repeatedly invalidated becomes confused and begins to distrust his own emotions. He fails to develop confidence in and healthy use of his emotions. The working relationship between his thoughts and feelings becomes twisted. The emotional processes which worked as a defense for him when a child will probably work against him as an adult.
Invalidation kills confidence, creativity, individuality… and if we do not find a way to re-empower our individual and collective lives and to connect with our humanity it will slowly erode all that we have built into a tower of sand.
The solution that we seek in our lives, in our work and in our world does not lie outside us but within us. We each have the power to move past invalidation by igniting the power of our heart, to touch our mind and infuse our life, and the lives of others, with validation and joy.
Gaslighting Abuse 