Relationship Skills: How to Develop Self Awareness Skills to Improve Your Relationship

This is the third in a series of articles about developing self awareness as a relationship skill 

See my articles: 

Relationship Skills: What is Self Awareness?

Why is Self Awareness Important to You as an Individual and in Your Relationship?  

In this article, I'm focusing on how to develop these skills.

Developing Self Awareness Skills to Improve Your Relationship

How to Develop Self Awareness Skills

There are many ways to develop self awareness skills.  Here are some tips:

• Get Curious About Yourself: Becoming curious about yourself is the first step in developing self aware.  This is the best way to get ready to explore your inner world and to become more psychologically aware.  By getting curious, you're also opening up to self discovery.

• Allow Yourself to Open Up to New Experiences: Whether the new experiences include taking an improv class or traveling to a country where you've never gone before, allowing yourself to try something new and interesting can provide you with the kind of experience where you learn about yourself.  You can share these experiences with your partner or you can experience them on your own (see my article: Being Open to New Experiences).

Open Up to New Experiences

• Write in a Journal: People who journal on a regular basis are able to reflect on and learn about their thoughts, emotions and behavior.  Taking the time to write in a journal can help you to develop insight into yourself.  Journaling is having an inner dialogue with yourself (see my articles: The Benefits of Journaling).

• Practice Mindfulness Meditation: Observing your thoughts and emotions without judgment is a good way to develop self awareness.  When you quiet your mind and just allow thoughts and emotions to flow, you're able to enter into your inner world.  If you find yourself distracted, you can just observe the distracting thoughts and then let them go (see my article: The Mind-Body Connection and Mindfulness Meditation and The Benefits of Meditation).

• Attend Psychotherapy:  One of the best ways to get to know yourself is by attending therapy--whether it's individual therapy or couples therapy.  You'll learn about yourself in ways that no other process provides.  Experiential therapy, which focuses on the mind-body connection, is the most effective type of therapy (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy).

Using Your Self Awareness Skills to Improve Your Relationship

Talking to your partner and sharing your thoughts and emotions with each other can increase emotional intimacy between you.  When I say talking, I'm referring to face-to-face talking--not texting, which is not intimate at all and often leads to misunderstandings.

Share Your Thoughts and Feelings With Your Partner

Although it can be frightening, especially if you're sharing more vulnerable emotions, you can strengthen the bonds between you and your partner by allowing your partner to experience you on a deeper level (see my article: Vulnerability as a Strength in a Relationship).

Sharing yourselves builds trust and strengthens your relationship in a meaningful way. 

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I am a sex positive therapists who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Relationship Skills: Why is Self Awareness Important to You as an Individual and in Your Relationship?

In my last article, Relationship Skills: What is Self Awareness?, I began a discussion about self awareness and how it begins to develop in basic ways during childhood with the help of a primary caregiver.  

In this article, I'm focusing on adult relationships and why self awareness is an important relationship skill for you as an individual as well as for you in a relationship.

Self Awareness

What is Self Awareness?

As a recap from the previous article, let's define self awareness again.

Self awareness is the ability to:

• tap into your own feelings, thoughts and actions
• recognize your own strengths and challenges
• recognize how your feelings, thoughts and actions affect how you feel about yourself and others
• recognize other people's emotional needs and feelings
• recognize how you affect others
• recognize how other people see you (seeing yourself from their perspective)

Why is Self Awareness Important to You as an Individual?

Before we discuss why self awareness is important to a relationship, let's first discuss why it's important to you as an individual--regardless of whether you're in a relationship or not:

• Being able to identify your own thoughts, emotions and behavior allows you to grow as an individual.

• Being aware of your thoughts, emotions and behavior allows you to feel responsible for your overall well-being rather than relying completely on someone else.

• Being self aware allows you to be more aware of what you want and what you don't want.

• Having greater self awareness allows you to look at your own patterns so you don't continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.  Instead, you're able to observe yourself so you can grow from your experiences and make necessary changes.

• Being aware of patterns that haven't worked before allows you to reflect on what might work better in similar situations in the future.

Why is Self Awareness Important to You When You're in a Relationship?

• Being self aware is key to being in a healthier and happier relationship.

• Being self aware helps you to be attuned to your partner.

• Being self aware and attuned to yourself and your partner will help you to be more aware of how your actions will impact your partner, yourself and the relationship.

• Self awareness will help you to be more compassionate towards yourself and to your partner.

• Self awareness allows you to set boundaries with others because you're aware of what you want, what your partner wants and what you think will work best for the relationship (see my article: Setting Healthy Boundaries in Your Relationship).

Next article

In my next article, I'll focus on how to become more self aware.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I am a sex positive therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How to Develop and Use Emotional Validation Skills in Your Relationship

 In my last article, What is Emotional Validation and Why Is It Such a Powerful Relationship Skill?, I defined emotional validation and gave examples of how you can validate your partner's emotions.  I also gave examples of common invalidating responses that  people often make to their partners followed by an example of a validating response for the same scenario.  

In the current article, I'm focusing on the next step, which is how to develop and use these skills (see my article: 10 Relationship Goals to Create a Stronger Relationship).

Developing and Practicing Emotional Validation Skills

A Brief Recap From the Prior Article 

Emotional validation is

• seeing
• understanding
• respecting and 
• accepting another person's emotional experience--even when you don't agree with what they're saying

In other words, you're validating their emotional experience whether they're sad, angry, confused--not whether they are right or wrong about whatever conclusions they're coming to about the issue.

By validating their emotional response, you're not invalidating their emotions by

• defending (being defensive)
• ignoring (pretending not to hear them or walking away)
• dismissing (minimizing their concerns or telling them you don't want to hear it)
• rejecting (telling them they don't really feel that way)
• criticizing (telling them they shouldn't feel that way)

For a more detailed definition and related examples, see the prior article.

Developing and Practicing Emotional Validation Skills

Just like any skill, emotional validation skills require practice.

Developing and Practicing Emotional Validation Skills

Once you have developed emotional validation skills, you can use it in any situation, including with partner, friends, relatives, colleagues as well as with your self, which is called self validation.

If you're accustomed to making invalidating statements, don't expect to develop emotional validating skills over night.  Just like any other skill, you'll need to practice and there will be times when you don't get it right.  If that happens, just acknowledge it and try again.

• Identify and Acknowledge the Emotion:  Start by finding out from your partner what emotion they're feeling.  Sometimes, this might be obvious because they might have told you, but other times you might not be sure.  If you don't know, asking what they're experiencing shows that you care.  

Validate Your Partner's Emotions

• For instance, if your partner is angry with you and it's clear that this is the emotion they're feeling, you can say, "I see that you're angry."

• If you're not sure about the emotion, but you can see they're upset, you can say, "You seem angry" and if your partner is feeling something else ("I'm not angry. I'm hurt"), you can acknowledge that.

• Find Out What Triggered the Emotion: If it's not obvious or if your partner hasn't already told you the source of the emotion, ask what triggered the emotion.  If your partner is too upset to tell you, ask if it would be better to talk about it when they're calmer or just say that you recognize that something is upsetting them.

• Validate the Emotion: Assuming your partner is able to tell you what they're feeling and you know what triggered it (possibly something you did or didn't do), validate their emotion (see my article: Having the Courage to Admit When You Made a Mistake).

• For instance, if your partner is angry because you forgot to buy milk on the way home, like they asked you to do, validate their anger, "I understand you're angry because you specifically called me this afternoon to remind me to buy milk and I forgot. I can see why this would make you angry."

• This is not the time to make excuses about why you forgot the milk--unless there was an extenuating circumstance, like you got into a car accident.  But this isn't going to be the case most of the time. 

Examples of Invalidating and Validating Statements

I gave 10 examples of invalidating and validating responses to particular situations in my  last article.  But this is important enough to give a few examples here to clarify what I mean:

• Invalidating Response: Stop making a mountain out of molehill.
• Validating Response:    I understand why you feel that way.

• Invalidating Response: You have it better than most people. Stop complaining.
• Validating Response:     That sounds really frustrating.

• Invalidating Response:   I'm not going to listen to this.  
• Validating Response:      I care about you and your feelings.

Conclusion

When you validate your partner's emotions, you're letting them know that you have heard what they said and you understand their emotions.

Validating Your Partner's Emotions

This will help you to be more empathetic towards your partner, and they can also practice being validating so it will improve your relationship.  

Just saying the right words isn't enough.  You really have to be attuned to your partner's feelings so that you are sincere (a sarcastic response will make matters worse).  

Be aware that aside from being attuned and empathetic, your facial expression and body language says more about what you're really feeling than your words.  

• A caveat: No one should ever tolerate emotional abuse and certainly not physical abuse. So, if your partner is being abusive, you'll need to set limits around this behavior first.

It's not your responsibility to fix their emotions.  Your only responsibility is to validate their emotions and, if you were at fault, to acknowledge this too.

Validating your partner's emotions can help to defuse an otherwise contentious situation and it can bring you closer together.

Also see my article: What is Self Validation?.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and people in relationships.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

  

         

What is Emotional Validation and Why Is It Such a Powerful Relationship Skill?

Emotional validation is seeing, understanding, respecting and accepting another person's emotional experience--even when you don't agree with them.  When you validate your partner's emotional experience, you show that you care and your partner feels heard and loved (see my article: Improve Communication in Your Relationship By Eliminating the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse and 10 Relationship Goals to Create a Stronger Relationship).

Emotional Validation is a Powerful Relationship Skill

What is the Difference Between Emotional Validation and Invalidation?

Emotional validation lets a partner know they are understood and cared about. Invalidation is the opposite (see my article: Having the Courage to Admit You Made a Mistake).

Emotional Validation vs Emotional Invalidation

Invalidation occurs when respond to your partner's emotional experience by

• defending (as in acting defensive)
• ignoring
• dismissing 
• rejecting or
• criticizing

Most of the time when someone in a relationship invalidates a partner's emotions it's not intentional. They're not intentionally trying to hurt their partner.  

Invalidation occurs because someone hasn't developed emotional validation skills. Most likely, they grew up in a home where their emotional experiences weren't validated.  Instead of being validated, their emotions weren't seen or heard a lot of the time (see my article: Growing Up Feel Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

The good news is that emotional validation can be learned.  It takes a lot of motivation and practice, but it can be done.

Scenarios of Emotional Invalidation vs Validation

You might recognize some of the following scenarios of invalidation as examples of when you invalidated your partner's emotions or you were on the receiving end of invalidation.  

You can also learn from the examples how to change the way you respond to your partner.

Here are scenarios showing an invalidating response and then the validating response.

Scenario 1

Jane: I felt so embarrassed and angry today. My boss criticized me in front of my staff.  

    Invalidating Response

    Bob: You shouldn't feel that way. You know he's an idiot.

Emotional Invalidation

    

    Validating Response

    Bob: You look really upset. I can understand how you feel that way.

Scenario 2

Jim: When I showed my dad my second place award for my artwork, he said I should've gotten first place for all the money he spent on my art lessons when I was a kid. I felt so ashamed when he said that.

    Invalidating Response

    Linda: Just forget about it. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

   Validating Response

    Linda: Wow. I can see why that was so hurtful.

Scenario 3

Lynn: When I told my sister that I signed up for acting classes, she told me that was silly and I should just grow up. She's been criticizing me ever since we were kids.

    Invalidating Response

    Jack: Stop being so sensitive. 

Emotional Invalidation

    Validating Response

    Jack: I know you've been really looking forward to those lessons, so I can see why your sister's comment hurt you so much.

Scenario 4

Ina: You really hurt my feelings when you said you think I'm too old to take dance lessons.

    Invalidating Response

    Bill: Well, Ina, you are too old.  You're almost 40. You're going to be in that class with people much younger than you. 

    Validating Response

    Bill: I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. There's no reason you can't take those lessons. Maybe I'm the one who's feeling old and I took it out on you.

Scenario 5

Tania: I feel hurt that you forgot my birthday.

    Invalidating Response

    Tom: Don't make a big deal out of it! I'm not perfect. Are you perfect?

    Validating Response

    Tom: I understand why you're hurt and I'm sorry. 

Scenario 6

Mary: You don't care about me--you didn't even notice that I'm wearing a new outfit. 

    Invalidating Response

Jack: Why do you need so much praise? You're so needy.

    Validating Response

Jack: I can see how you feel that way. I need to get better at noticing these things. And I do love you.

Scenario 7

John: I felt so hurt when you flirted with my friend, Joe, last night.

    Invalidating Response

    Barbara: You're so clingy! Get over it! It's not like I slept with him!

Emotional Invalidation

    Validating Response

    Barbara: I can see why you felt that way. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I won't do it again.

Scenario 8

Ona: You kept staring at that attractive woman last night and ignoring me. I felt hurt.

    Invalidating Response

    Brad: I'm married to you--not her. Can't a guy even look at another woman without getting the third degree?

    Validating Response

    Brad: You're right. I shouldn't have stared like that. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings.

Scenario 9

Joe: Whenever you fly, I get so anxious.

    Invalidating Response

    Nick: There's nothing to be afraid of. You know flying is safer than driving. Get over it.

Emotional Invalidation

    Validating Response

    Nick: I get that you're anxious because your brother died in a plane crash. From now on, I'll call you as soon as the plane lands.

Scenario 10

Paula: You ignored me when I told you I wasn't feeling well.

    Invalidating Response

    Lance: You know I don't like talking when I'm watching the game. It's not like you were dying.

    Validating Response

    Lance: You're right. I did ignore you and I'm sorry. You're more important to me than the game.

Discussion About the Invalidating and Validating Responses

Do you recognize yourself or your partner in some of these invalidating responses?  

What do you notice about the invalidating responses?  

You can probably see that they are insensitive and lacking in empathy.  

As mentioned earlier in this article, these invalidating responses are also examples of behavior that is either:

• defending (as in acting defensive)
• ignoring
• dismissing 
• rejecting or
• criticizing

In addition, some of these responses show contempt which, according to relationship expert, Dr. John Gottman, is very damaging to a relationship.  

In fact, Dr. Gottman, who has been doing research on relationships for decades and who has a 90%+ success rate at predicting when a relationship will fail, indicates that contempt, along with criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling, which he coined The 4 Horses of the Apocalypse, is one of the signs that a relationship in serious trouble.  

If you're accustomed to responding by invalidating your partner's feelings, you might not see it immediately, but take a look at Scenario 3 where Jack accuses Lynn of being "sensitive." His response goes beyond being invalidating--it shows contempt as well as being shaming.  

Scenario 6, where Jack responds to Mary with an accusation that she's being sensitive, is also a form of contempt.  Ditto for Scenario 7 where Barbara accuses Jack of being clingy.

What do you notice about the validating responses?

These statements are non-defensive so that the partners aren't trying to explain away or justify their behavior.  

They're also not ignoring, dismissing, rejecting or criticizing their partner's feelings.  And there are no signs of contempt.

The validating statements show that the partner understands what their partner is feeling--even if they don't completely agree with it  (see my article: Making and Receiving Loving Gestures to Repair an Argument).

For example, in Scenario 6, Mary concluded that Jack didn't care about her because he didn't notice her new outfit.  While Jack acknowledged he didn't notice her outfit and he understood her feelings, he also let her know that he does care about her.  So, he validated her feelings while he also told, tactfully, her how he really feels.

Conclusion

Emotional invalidation is hurtful.  

Unfortunately, it's also common, especially among people who were emotionally invalidated as children.  It becomes a learned response that people often have a hard time seeing when it's pointed out to them because it's so deeply ingrained in them since childhood.

Emotional validation is a powerful relationship skill because it allows your partner to feel seen, supported and cared about by you.

It's also a skill that can be learned.

I'll discuss how to learn and practice emotional validation in my next article: How to Develop and Use Emotional Validation Skills in Your Relationship.

Also see my article: What is Self Validation?.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.