We’ve all been there: sharing space with someone we care about, working to tune in to their experience fully…and we find what we think are the perfect words to capture those painful deep feelings. Suddenly we see a flash of anger, annoyance, rejection. We know we tripped a wire but are utterly confused as to what we actually got wrong. 

Whether you are a therapist, parent, friend, partner or boss, at some point and in some relationship, your earnest attempt to connect, signal understanding and offer comfort was ignored, flat out rejected, or perhaps even amplified the other person’s distress. And you wondered to yourself, “what is going on here?” 

These ‘misses’ highlight the complexity of empathy and validation. Empathy, the process of making sense of another person, or even yourself, involves connecting a lot of dots:  what is happening in the moment, the person’s past experiences, their motivations, belief system.  To have empathy we must be able to imagine how the other person is seeing the world, us and themselves.

Validation, while related, describes a process in which you signal to the other person that you understand accurately what they are going through, even if you do not agree with the conclusions they have come to or their gut reactions.  Validation signals: I see you, I accept you and even though I am a separate person who might have experienced the same encounter differently, you make sense to me and are understandable. Of course, validation requires a capacity to have empathy for the other person or else our ability to make sense of them will falter. 

But what if the other person does not want you to see their distress? What if their distress signals to them that they are weak, needy, and too much?  That in fact, they want to hide their discomfort and insecurities from you and maybe from everyone? That instead of providing comfort and connection, empathy feels harsh and exposing, too vulnerable?

Have you ever felt so angry at someone and then felt silly or like you were overreacting? Or perhaps felt jealous of something good happening for a friend that you wished you could experience, and then felt ashamed because what type of person can’t be purely happy for their friend?  We don’t just have feelings, pure and simple. We have feelings, and then we have feelings about those feelings. You might not want the other person, or perhaps anyone, to fully see your pain, because of what you fear your pain says about you.

When another person wants to conceal their difficult feelings, it is likely that their pain is bound up with shame. Not only do they feel hurt, ignored, misunderstood, or sad, but they also feel ashamed of having those feelings in the first place. When we signal, through empathy, that we see the other person, but they do not want to be seen, it exposes their shame. They might react dismissively, withdraw, or just reject the empathy outright as a way to save face and keep their shame hidden.

But it feels rejecting to us when someone we love seemingly refuses to take in our compassion, so naturally we attempt to blame them, blame ourselves, deny or withdraw. Our shame in response to the rejection of our reach towards the other can feel confusing and just plain awful.

So what do we do when we trip that wire? The first step in acknowledgment. Naming first to yourself and then the other person that you seem to have gotten something wrong there and you did not mean to upset them. The next step is to ask them for permission to keep talking about it or if they would prefer to move on. If they want to keep talking about it, you can ask them what would be most helpful for them.  Not all will get resolved right away here, but it does give you a deeper understanding of the other person.  Now you understand that, for example, their sadness being exposed is very uncomfortable for them, and perhaps that would make sense given their history of being told not to feel sorry for themselves when they were a child. Staying curious, even amidst the impulse to withdraw, helps us ask about what happened rather than what is wrong with us or the other person.

We have all experienced the phenomenon of our empathy failing to validate, because everyone has feelings about their feelings, and sometimes our feelings are bound up in shame. Most of us have also been on the receiving end of being seen when we want to remain hidden. But if we are able to stay steady, and not get stuck in our own shame of getting it wrong, reconnection and repair are possible.