Validating another person’s feelings often just means listening when they tell you about something that’s wrong (or worrying them, or stressing them out) and then commiserating if appropriate.

In my experience, folks who share such things are seldom looking for solutions. They want to be told they’re not crazy for responding to the situation as they’re responding to it, and to be reassured that however they feel, whatever their emotional state, it’s okay. It’s a normal reaction to what happened.

Remarkably, research has shown that simply repeating someone’s words back to them in such moments can help them feel better (probably because it shows you’re listening and that you actually heard them). This can be validating unto itself.

That said, I would argue it’s even better to sympathize, even if you don’t completely agree with the conclusions to which they’re coming (if you feel they’re unnecessarily anxious about something or responding to a social slight that probably wasn’t intended the way they feel it was intended).

It’s possible to put yourself in their shoes and to imagine how it must have been for them, as them, rather than guessing at how the same situation would have felt and played out for you, had you been in their place. Different people have different personalities and histories, and will thus have different responses to conflict and other stressors.

Countless variables influence our perception of things as they happen, too. What’s clear to us as we hear such retellings, then, might not have been so obvious in the moment.

Saying something like, “That sounds really difficult, I’m so sorry that happened to you,” doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t make those feelings go away or remedy the situation (if indeed there’s something that can be remedied). But it does acknowledge something happened and accepts the way they’re responding to it. It says, “I’m here with you, and I know you’re not feeling great, and that sucks.”

Which might not seem like much, but there are times when something this small and simple can make a world of difference to someone who’s hurting.

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