Confronting Chronic Invalidation
How I am emotionally regulating and trusting my instincts so I can do hard things.
As we near my Substack’s one-year anniversary, I can’t help but reflect on how difficult it has been for me to blog with the same regularity as the first three quarters of the year. The urge for procrastination has been real. I have been getting curious about my avoidance.
I’ve been increasing awareness of my emotions. This means noticing my thoughts and what I feel in my body when they come up. Somatic sensations can signal when we feel tense, calm, afraid, safe, in panic, happy, unsettled, and settled. Recognition of these emotions inform what we need in the moment.
I’ve intuitively been aware that danger was lurking on the horizon for the past few weeks. These feelings are scary, so naturally, I’ve been wanting to avoid them. It’s so easy to dismiss our fears. I’ve previously shared that I have generalized anxiety disorder. People who suffer from anxiety can often be plagued with feelings of fear or panic. Sometimes, I’m so afraid that I don’t even know why.
This frequent state of fear looks like racing and looping thoughts, shallow breathing, rapid heartrate and sometimes, even a freeze state out of fear for doing the wrong thing. Other times, it can look like a fawn state where I am over functioning, people pleasing, and clinging to whatever it is that I can control to mitigate the risk for danger. When these feelings surface with regularity, it can be so easy to grow numb to them. My instinct is to dismiss them. It’s just a thought. It’s not real. I’m overreacting. I’m living in the past. I’m seeing things that aren’t there.
What Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Teaches About Emotions
Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) has taught me that this thought pattern is biosocial theory in action. I’ve become numb to my emotions in response to chronic environmental invalidation. Chronic invalidation occurs when the people in our lives heavily criticize us for having different opinions or dismiss those thoughts or opinions. It can result in developing a habit of questioning one’s instincts or thoughts.
Each of us bring a unique perspective into the universe based on our experiences and lived reality. We process and react to these experiences differently based on our general biological makeup. Indeed, our brains are designed to store perceived dangers so we can avoid them in the future.
Emotions are signals that the brain sends to motivate us to act. They also are great communicators. They send signals to ourselves (thoughts and feelings) and to others (facial expressions and body language) when something is wrong and a boundary is necessary. They also can signal when something positive is happening so we can repeat that experience in the future. These signals can be incredibly important.
Repeated societal invalidation teaches us to ignore our instincts. This happens when others do not understand our thoughts, feelings, emotions, or actions. We also invalidate ourselves when we ignore our thoughts, emotions, and feelings for so long that we explode. Invalidation teaches us that our thoughts, feelings and emotions cannot be trusted. It is natural to think that if we cannot trust our emotions, then they must be contained. We respond by locking away our thoughts, feelings, and emotions and asking others for guidance in fear that we will respond “incorrectly”.
Well-meaning invalidators have taught me to engage in the following problematic thinking patterns:
Logic must prevail
There is a time and place for emotions
Emotions must be felt in private
Actions I take in response to my emotions are simply an “overreaction”
Using Mindfulness to Identify Emotions
I have been wrestling with the concept of what it means to overreact. DBT teaches skills to regulate emotions, reduce distress, and increase capacity for managing difficult events. Emotional regulation does not mean it is okay to dismiss a negative emotion. In fact, it can be helpful to track emotions, the positive and the negative, to identify and implement the necessary skills to process those emotions and respond in a healthy manner without validation from others.
The first step to identify your emotions requires mindfulness or awareness of the present moment by starting with the following questions:
What thoughts am I having?
What emotions am I experiencing? (use an emotion wheel if you aren’t sure)
What sensations am I feeling in my body?
We can avoid overreaction by observing the facts from a distance when answering these questions. A fact based response to these mindfulness questions looks like, “I notice that my thoughts are centered around my fear of the future. I am afraid, apprehensive, nervous, and overwhelmed. My heart is beating rapidly, my palms are sweaty, my breathing is shallow, the muscles in my legs and shoulders are tense, I’m clenching my teeth, and I am feeling butterflies in my stomach.” It’s important to conduct this inquiry without judgement.
Mindfulness practitioners commit to engaging with the present and when their mind strays, they notice it and return to the present. It can be helpful to begin this practice with small every day tasks such as washing hands or folding laundry. Soon, we can extend the practice to more complex situations like noticing our emotions and somatic sensations. The goal is to observe the situation neutrally. We don’t want to characterize it, label it, blame it, or tie it to the past or present. We also want to observe one experience or thought at a time.
Using DBT to Emotionally Regulate
Once we implement a mindfulness practice to identify our thoughts, emotions, and their somatic effect, we can use these observed facts to dig deeper and identify the underlying cause for the emotion. We can analyze these observed facts to reduce the intensity of our reactions. This analysis provides information so that we can act intentionally to improve the moment.
This week, was particularly difficult because it triggered my greatest fear multiple times over, losing a loved one. It was also enmeshed with intense work stress due to change and a heavy workload following vacation. I coped with this difficulty by acknowledging and validating my large emotions. This required me to examine the triggering events individually according to the intensity of the trigger. I identified preexisting vulnerability factors, changes in my body, and my reactions to triggering events to help me become aware of and name my emotions.
This process looked like asking the following:
What event triggered my emotion?
Are there any biological factors that may make it harder for me to regulate my emotions? (e.g., Is my blood sugar low? Am I recovering from illness? Did I get 7-8 hours of sleep? Have I taken my anxiety medication? Have I gotten in any movement to metabolize past stressors?)
Does the event remind me of something I experienced in the past? (e.g., Am I being triggered from a past event that I haven’t yet processed?)
Was I experiencing a negative emotion or mood before the triggering event occurred?
Am I interpreting the event or making assumptions about it?
How intense is my emotion?
Does the emotional intensity match the facts of the situation that I identified in response to my questions above, or is it based on my interpretation or assumption?
Here are tools to help answer and respond to these questions:
Once you understand the emotion you are experiencing, how that emotion feels in your body, the intensity of the emotion, the factors and events that led to the emotion, and how you have reacted to that emotion to date, the next step is to determine what to do with that information. The answer could be do nothing, identify a solution to the problem, or do the opposite of how the emotion is prompting you to react (e.g., tackle the fear head on or go for a walk when sadness is prompting you to isolate or avoid others).
This week, I noticed that I was holding onto fear about my family’s safety and wellbeing based on past events. After checking the facts so that I could distill the emotion from reality, I recognized that the fear had paralyzed me. I employed opposite action by moving. Literally, I went for runs and to the gym so I could shake out the clutter and sort through the facts associated with the fear. I then decided it was time to tackle that fear head on by asking uncomfortable questions so I could validate the fear and problem solve solutions:
Identify the goal. Get clear on the problem that must be solve and what needs to change for the problem to disappear. This requires an assessment of whether the goal is achievable, and whether it is in my power to take steps to achieve the goal. Here, that was protecting the safety and wellbeing of my family.
Brainstorm potential solutions. This requires sitting down and thinking through as many solutions as possible. I then opened up to my trusted circle (e.g., therapists, coaches, guidance counselors, family, and friends) about the challenges ahead to see if anyone had experience with these issues or had suggestions. While it was difficult, and at times I admittedly reacted with intense emotion, I am keeping an open mind as I collect information.
Choose a solution that fits the goal and is likely to work. I weighed the risks and benefits of the possible solution and implemented the best solution for the immediate problem at hand based on my informed judgement.
Next, I intend to return to step 1 by breaking down the larger goal into micro-goals that will help me get closer to the overall goal of protecting the safety and wellbeing of my family. This analysis helps me to recognize when I’m shoving my emotions away and disregarding my internal thoughts. Now, I am choosing to confront past invalidation, trust my instincts, and act in my best interests. Only I know what’s best for me. It’s time I recognize the answer is within.
To hear more about A Deeper Well and it’s origin story, check out this week’s episode of Elena Deutsch’s Women Interested in Leaving Law (WILL) podcast.
In case if you missed them, below are helpful resources I linked in this week’s blog:
If you are new to A Deeper Well and you liked this week’s blog post, below are links to similar posts that may be of interest:
Battling the Mean Reds (Feb. 3, 2025)
Releasing the Shame I Associate with Resting (Mar. 2, 2025)
Freeing My Inner Church Girl (Mar. 23, 2025)
A Pretty Mess (May 24, 2025)
What a thorough post about DBT. I learn so much from you @Gwen! Thanks for the shoutout to our podcast episode.