How to Validate and Normalize Yourself: Polyvagal Theory for Everyday Life Tip 3 (251)

You know the poly vehicle theory. Now what? How do you apply this knowledge to your specific everyday life? What do you do with it? I'm sharing five tips to answer that one question. This episode is the third in the five part series. This tip focuses on bringing a smidgen of compassion to your stuck defensive polyvagal state through two skills, validating and normalizing. Don't let this scare you, I promise I'll make it easy and I'll walk you through it.

Hey, my name's Justin Sunseri I'm a therapist and coach who helps you live more calmly, confidently, and connected without psychobabble or woowoo, welcome to Stuck Not Broken. This podcast is not therapy, nor is it intended to replace therapy. Ideally, we have lots of access to the ventral vagal safety state. Realistically we don't.

This is true for all of us, but more so for you if you've lived through a traumatic incident or had a life full of traumatic incidents- plus what, whatever social and family layers that are just stacked on top of those. To put it simply, you could probably use a bit of compassion. Some understanding, some empathy, validation, and to just feel normal. The problem is that neither you nor I can make that happen.

We don't control other people, but I can teach you to provide that for yourself in a few steps. Our goal in this episode is to validate. And to normalize your experience. To teach you this, I'm actually going to use the slides and lessons that I use within the Unstucking Academy. So if you're on YouTube, you'll be able to see those. I use these lessons within the courses and the live practices.

So this is kind of a inside peek into how things work in the community, along with the third Polyvagal theory tip for everyday life. All right, so let's do a skills practice here. The first part of it is validating. We're gonna cover what it is, why we would do it, why we'd validate, and then do a really light, easy practice. Validating means that we are acknowledging what is true and we are more concerned with the internal world than anything else.

So typically we're gonna validate or acknowledge what is true in our emotions and in our cognitions, our our thoughts. that's typically gonna be more accessible than things like our underlying impulses and sensations that come from a polyvagal state. So emotions and thoughts are typically gonna be what we could validate. It sounds like. I feel sad. I'm angry. I feel nothing or I feel hopeful. So we can validate things that feel good and thing things that don't feel good.

validation is not being okay with or liking what you acknowledge. I'm not asking you to be okay with it.

And it's also not accepting it either. You don't have to accept that it's permanent. You don't have to like it, and you don't have to accept it. We just have to recognize what is true. Invalidation is judging yourself, saying things like, there's something wrong with me. Other people aren't like this. That would be invalidating. Invalidation also uses what I call cognitive skills. These are things that we do to lessen the true nature of what we're going through.

That reduce the overwhelming nature of those things. So that would be like minimizing, denying repressing. That would be invalidating it. It could sound like it's not a big deal. I just need to keep my mind off of it. Invalidation is also not labeling or diagnosing your experience, your true experience. So saying, I feel distracted because of my AD/HD would be. Invalidating to the true experience of distraction.

It's enough to say, I feel distracted, or I am distracted, or I feel overwhelmed rather than I feel overwhelmed because of X, Y, or Z.

And I think we tend to over diagnose, um, in the therapeutic world, but also ourselves. I am positive that you may have tried to find a label for what you're feeling. And that you think of what you feel as a symptom of some sort of disorder rather than the natural consequence of your life, the expected, uh, consequence or expected result of the life that you've lived. And we'll talk about that next in normalizing. So why would we do this? You might say, I don't want to think about this stuff.

I don't want to. Feel it. I don't wanna talk about it. Justin, why the heck would I validate? Well, how can you get unstuck if you don't? If you don't acknowledge what's true, if you don't acknowledge how your stuck state shows up, how do you get unstuck? We have to be truthful. We have to acknowledge what is happening. What would the alternative be? To continue to repress and minimize and ignore or whatever's, you know, whatever you're doing? Maybe if there's some sort of behavioral adaptation.

Like overeating over exercising, overworking, or underworking or whatever. Like that's the alternative is just to keep your mind off it, to keep your, you know, out of your body, to not feel it? That, those skills or those coping skills, those behavioral adaptations, have served a purpose and gotten you this far and okay, but. It may not be working anymore or it may not be postponing the issue like it used to. So it just, it's time for something different. And that's why we validate.

Have these other things made your life better? I, I doubt it. Again, they may have gotten you here, but that's different than living a fulfilling life that's different than finding actual happiness. That's, um, that's just keeping your mind off stuff. And that has a role. But I think that may be played out at this point. you validate through acknowledging what is true. Honesty is a huge part of validation and you validate through being honest with yourself.

Your feelings are there and and be honest about that. You're not making this up. It's not random. You do have some level of stuck defense, like just we can start with those pieces. That's honest. And you validate through connecting with the present moment and whatever it brings. You connect with the present moment through grounding and safety, using your senses and then, uh, looking inward, and you would validate by noticing what you have inside of you and being honest about it. Naming it.

The good news is you've already validated, you're here, you're listening to this podcast episode, so you've already validated yourself. Something is uncomfortable enough for you to be honest and then to do something about it as well. So you didn't just validate, you actually are doing something about it as well. Congratulations. So let's shift into a a light practice. I'm gonna ask you to reflect on these questions. First, uh, number one, could you validate somebody else's emotions?

Could you acknowledge and name them? Their emotions? And I, I bet you could. So number two, could a therapist or other helper validate your emotions? Could they acknowledge and name what you're going through? And I would hope they could. And number three, can you validate yourself? This might be diff more difficult and your answer might be, "I don't know how to, but I want to," and we'll take care of that. On the next slide, your answer might be, "no, I can't. I don't want to,

and I won't." And at which point, I hope that you've enjoyed this episode and I hope I see you the next one. 'cause everything beyond this may not be helpful for you. Before we try validating, how do you feel about validating? What, what comes up inside of you? What emotions come up? What thoughts pop into your brain? How do you feel about validating your true experiences that maybe you have been minimizing or repressing?

And if you can name that, if you can say, "I feel anxiety about it, I feel fear, I feel overwhelmed." Congratulations, you have validated yourself. So let's try validating. One experience of your stuck defensive state or just whatever you're currently experiencing right now, that's fine too. But let's say you're in a stuck fight state and you feel anger all the time. Well, you would validate it by saying, "I feel anger." "I do feel anger." That's one way. So just fill in the blank.

I do feel blank. If you have a stuck shutdown state, you could probably validate experiences like hopeless or unmotivated. So fill in the blank again. I do feel blank. I, I don't like it, but I feel blank. I hate to admit it, but yeah, I feel blank. And yeah, fine. Justin, I guess I do feel blank. So how did that feel to validate yourself to, to name, to acknowledge and name one emotion or one thing that you're going through? How did that feel?

And you might say it was uncomfortable, it was anxiety producing, or maybe another emotion surfaced. And if you can name how it feels to validate yourself, congratulations, you have validated yourself yet again. You are on a roll here. The next thing we're gonna go to is normalizing. So what is it? Why would we do it? And then we'll do a practice, just like we did with validation. Normalization is not being okay with or liking your valid experience. I'm not asking you to do that.

It is not, uh, accepting that your experience is permanent either. I'm not asking you to do that. You don't have to like it, you don't have to accept it. But what we wanna do is validate it and then normalize it. Normalization is also not judging yourself. It's not using those cognitive skills I talked about, and it's not labeling or diagnosing your valid experience. So what is it? Normalization means making sense of your valid experience based on context.

And that context would be, uh, past and present context 'cause the future's not here yet. I'm gonna ask you a weird question and just whatever pops in your mind, just roll with it. Is the number five normal? That's the question. Is the number five normal? Does the number five make sense? If you're confused, that's fine. If you have an answer, that's fine too.

I, I would love to read what your answers are. If you're on YouTube, put 'em in the comments. I would love to read what your initial answers are to this. Well, let, let's, let's build on it. I'm not gonna leave you hanging. Let's build on this. Is five a normal result of two plus three? I would hope you say yes. Does five make sense within the context of four plus one? I would, again, hope you would say yes. So let's follow this logic.

Is your stuck state normal or expected as a result of your life context? Does your stuck state make sense within the context of your relationships, your attachment, your professional life, and on and on? When you take these different pieces of context, text into mind, born to account, does your stuck state make sense based on present and past context? I believe that your stuck state makes sense.

I, all my client work therapy and, and coaching and my couples therapy, my, my, uh, group stuff, my psychoeducation stuff, the community I'm running, it seems to always make sense. It doesn't seem to be random to me. So I believe that your emotional and cognitive experiences are there for a reason. They're not random. They are the response to some sort of danger in your environment. And that could be passed.

It could be present, it could be maybe not literal, like you're being attacked, but the way you were raised, the lack of attachment, lack of healthy

attachment, the lack of love, the lack of healthy communication, or maybe the outright danger in your home. You intercepted danger and maybe you got stuck there. That's. An expected outcome of certain types of homes or relationships or lifestyles, it makes sense. Why would somebody would be stuck in defense based on that context? And if somebody else had your life, if they had your context, they would likely have a similar stuck state. Normalizing is different than evaluating.

Evaluating is rating it. It's saying good or bad, but normalizing is recognizing that a stuck state shut down, flight, fight, freeze. It's biological, it's not good or bad. It's not positive or negative. It, it, it just is. It's biological. It, it's an autonomic shift based on the context of your life and maybe something you needed to exist in in order to get your needs met.

And you are, at least in part biological, I don't know what, what you believe as far as spirituality and whatnot, but we're at least in part biological, right? So that biological shift from the past comes to the present and is

probably reinforced in the present. So there's no value to this. It's not good or bad. It's not a reflection of your worth, and it's not a never ending limit to your potential. It probably limits your potential today, but in the future, we don't know that. Normalizing sounds like I am temporarily stuck in shutdown due to the context of my life. Evaluation. Sounds like I'm in shutdown because something's wrong with me. Other people don't feel this way.

Even though their lives are worse than mine, I will never get better. There's a clear difference in the way that those two things sound, right. Normalizing sounds like my feelings are normal. My feelings make sense. My feelings make sense. In this context, my feelings are not random. Other people would probably feel similar, and I see other people's feelings and they make sense in their context. Mine are probably the same.

So let's do another, uh, exercise here and I want you to reflect on these questions. Could you normalize someone else's emotions? Could you make sense of them? You know, a friend of yours was saying how sad they feel and how much grief they're going through. You'd probably say, yeah, you just lost someone close to you. That makes sense. Could a therapist or other helper normalize your emotions, your experiences, and I would really hope so. So can you normalize yourself?

And you might say, I want to, but I don't know how. And okay, we'll take care of that in the next step. So how do you feel about normalizing your, your experiences by the way, before we get there? How do you feel about that? What emotions, what thoughts, uh, come up for you? What pops into your brain or your body as we consider normalizing our experiences? So let's briefly normalize one experience of your stuck state or whatever you're currently experiencing.

And if you need to use your sense of touch, I think it's really helpful to squeeze, to pull, to push, you know, maybe into your palms. Just use release if you have something coming up within you that's a bit too much. Use some sort of, uh, physical means to release it. And I, I think those are pretty good ways. Uh, but if you just need to get, move around, go ahead and do that too. The step one here is to validate. I do feel, what, what do you feel?

It can be the same thing as before or something brand new. So let's say that you feel, uh, hopeless. Lightly ever so lightly reflect on past context, which could contribute to your stuckness. So if you feel hopeless, you might say, well, in my past I've been let down a lot, or I've never lived up to what I wanted myself, or people didn't believe me in me, or I was constantly rejected as a kid. So just keep it pretty darn light. Just one sentence, just like that.

Okay. Same thing in your current context, lightly reflect on current context that could contribute to your stuckness. That could be behavioral adaptations or cognitive adaptations. That would be things you do to feel better, that don't really help. So you might say, yeah, I tend to overeat, or I isolate myself a lot in darkness. Or maybe there's a relationship that you're in, a friendship, uh, a professional relationship that is just. Really keeping you stuck.

Someone is, you know, invalidating your experiences or putting lots of pressure on you to change. Those could be things that, and reinforce your stuckness, but again, keep it really, really light. And step three here is to normalize it. Does it make sense why you're stuck? When you take in those contexts, when you take them into account, does it make sense why you're stuck and why you stay stuck? Does it make sense why you think and feel the way that you do?

So if I felt hopeless and I was raised in a home where I didn't really have healthy attachments with my caregivers and didn't really receive positive encouragement, and now I'm in a relationship where this person's pressuring me to be someone I'm not. Would it make sense why I feel hopeless? Yeah, of course it does. We will take it a step further here. We're gonna create a short normalizing statement for your experience. Just fill in the blank. I feel blank, which makes sense.

Based on the context of my life, I think blank, which makes sense based on my life context. I always feel blank, and I think anyone else would too. And in the context of my life, my feelings of blank make complete sense. Polyvagal, ladder climbing is difficult. Self-regulation is difficult. It's not easy. Change is not easy. Not just for you. It's not a you issue. It's everybody. All of us. All of us.

By the way, it might be new, so change is difficult for anybody but this inward, mindfulness, polyvagal, self-regulation stuff, it might be brand new to you and you've been, however you've been for years, decades maybe. And here you are trying to change it. So let's normalize. Like that's not easy. change might not come easily, and that is very normal and very okay. And if when you do change, it probably won't be all at once.

It's gonna be in slow, small steps, your stuckness is normal, but so are moments of connection. Even though you might be stuck in a defensive state, you do have it within you to have at least small moments of connection. Here you are looking inward, listening, learning, and trying to get more in touch with yourself. So moments of connection are possible. You're doing it right now, so even though you're stuck, you, there is some hope here. There is, there are potentials for connection.

Y not just with yourself, but the outside world. Using your senses, maybe with others in including your pets. You're here. You didn't have to be here, right? You made a choice to be here. You've made many choices along this pathway. Maybe you've been to therapy or retreats or tried medications or this or that. The other thing, so you, you probably made a bunch of choices and here you are. This is another one of your choices. You're already on the path.

You're already on that path of change and you are moving forward. I know you want more, but, but here you are. All you're doing is taking that next step and hopefully learning to validate and normalize is a nice, solid next step for you. So you are less stuck now than you were in the past and in the near future you're gonna be even less stuck. Congratulations. Keep going down the path. You're not done yet. No, I don't think anyone's ever quite done.

Hopefully, we're always walking down the path of self-development, right? And unstuck. So you haven't gotten to where exactly where you want to be yet, but you're firmly on the path, and I hope this skill helps you keep walking down that path. Thanks so much for joining me on Stuck Not Broken. I hope this episode has helped you to validate and to normalize your stuck states and how it shows up for you in your daily life, and maybe even right now in this present moment.

You can use this little validation and normalization practice at any time. Just come back to this episode and relisten to it. There's always something to validate or normalize. Like right now, you're having some sort of experience that you could validate and normalize. And as you practice this, especially with your stuck defensive state, you may notice that other experiences come into your system. Like as you validate and normalize one experience, something else pops up.

So it never really stops. Validation and normalization just kind of keep going indefinitely in the present moment. So that's your homework from this episode. Keep practicing validation and normalization. Listen back to this, not just when you need it, but before you need it. Practice the skill before you climb further down your polyvagal ladder and into more dysregulation. Practice it when you have a positive emotion, like calm, just as much as you have, um, a negative one, like anxiety.

These aren't really positive or negative, but we can, we tend to group 'em in that manner. If you like this lesson, you're going to love what I have within the Unstucking Academy. I have courses, a private community, more skills practices, Q&As, lots of stuff to ensure that you're learning clearly and that you know what your next step is, and that you're not alone. And if you're brand new to the Polyvagal Theory, I created the Foundations Membership just for you for only 10 bucks per month.

Learn more at justinLMFT.com/unstuckingacademy, justinLMFT.com/unstuckingacademy. The link is in the description. Thanks again for joining me. Bye.