The Power of Being Invalidated

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Okay, today we're going to talk about the power of being invalidated.

Let's put a disclaimer at the beginning of this.

Nobody likes feeling invalidated.

Nobody that I know likes being wrong.

Now there are some people that don't mind it or can handle it, but that's different

than liking it.

And there's only one class of people that I can think of at the moment that actually wants

it, and they only want it in certain arenas.

They only want it in a certain arena of their life.

And those are scientists, actually, for as much as I've given them some heat about

some things, their mentality about certain things is really pretty remarkable.

When doing science, and this includes academic disciplines in general, like people who have

a specialty where they focus on this and they're seeking to understand it better.

So in the learning process, scientists, academics that are seeking to try and make a theory,

they see something going on, they have an idea, and they have this theory, and then

they've got to go test it, they've got to go validate whether or not that's the case.

And in many cases, the hypothesis or the experiment design is specifically to what could I,

what experiment could I make that would prove this wrong, that would invalidate my hypothesis?

And because if it can beat that one, then wow, there's a strong chance of it being true.

And so they don't go looking for confirmation, necessarily, of their ideas, although they

will see that, they will see it in other places, and that's where their hypothesis typically

comes from. And they may see examples of it in all other places, but they're actually looking

for places where it's weak, if they're looking for the weakest spots on it, because if they can

invalidate their hypothesis, then that means they have the opportunity of making a stronger one.

Now, these very same scientists and these very same academics has even handed, and it's

capable of they are of handling different opinions in their lives.

And I remember being in a philosophy class in graduate school, and I was so amazed at the

philosophy teacher, because we're talking about things like, do does free will actually exist?

This is like, we weren't talking about like the philosophy of art, this was metaphysics, you know,

making claims about the nature of existence itself, and people have strong opinions about this,

so the class got pretty riled up, and people were arguing for it, and people were arguing against it,

are you determined, are you libertarian? And so the teacher presents one argument that's been

around for a number of years on the board, and some people in the class just flipped. And she just

turned around without not fazed at all, she'd probably seen this for a number of years by then,

and was just like, oh, okay, so you have a different idea about this. What's here? What do you think

it? And that was it, like it diffused the anger, I mean, the person was still a little bit hyped

up about it, but her response was like, oh, good, okay, you have a different opinion. Like,

oh, good, there is something that might invalidate this thing, this might be worth looking at.

Now, these same people in the rest of their life aren't always these philosophical,

cool heads, they're not stoics all the time. Marcus Aurelius, I imagine,

as far as much as he wrote his meditations of stoic philosophy loves him, I imagine he's still

got picked off at times. And that's because he's not operating in an area where he wants to be

proven wrong. Nobody likes to be invalidated because there's embarrassment that comes. There's a

sense of like feeling like you just got your pants pulled down in front of the school bully,

and everybody else has seen you. And now for the rest of your life, you'll never be able to live

that down. There's a sense of social ostracization, if that's a word. And to the point where even

privately, if you show somebody that they are incorrect, or if you invalidate their opinion about

the world, the thing that I most often hear are people like, gosh, I'm so stupid. Why didn't I

see this before? And they begin to beat themselves up. Which, if you ask me, is something they probably

learn by watching other people do it. Like, if I beat myself up, then they won't beat me up.

If I'm already calling myself stupid, then the other person, I've already stolen their ammunition.

And, you know, if I do that, then my mom sees that I have remorse about what I've done, and then I

get less punishment and all those things. So people frequently, it is a high percentage of the time

that when a person discovers that they've been wrong about something, especially for a long time,

and when we're talking about things that have been labeled as traumas, when we're talking about

addictions, when we're talking about, you know, views about their spouse or something else,

like very often, alongside the relief that comes from being freed of this nasty little thing.

But very often, there is a sense of embarrassment, a sense of shame, a sense of guilt, a sense of

looking at themselves as this inferior person because they got something wrong.

But I want to talk today about the power of being a little bit more like these scientists in

these academics, where if you seek out being wrong first, if you're seeking it, the response is

something different. If on a day-to-day basis, instead of just always celebrating, only the good

things that happen, but taking time at least once to, like, look for where you might be wrong about

something, what happens is this strange thing. It's almost like chormetic stress, you know, like an

ice bath, not ideal to live in that weather, but in short bursts. It's a shock to the system,

and it demands that the bodies start to adapt to discomfort. It demands that the bodies start to

adapt to the fact that it might have to go through a range of different neurological stimulation

and stuff, so that it doesn't get comfortable in one area, and more and more sensitive to any changes.

It becomes really resilient. And in the same way, this strange thing happens. Now, when I first started

helping people out, the first person that I was helping with this was me, and that was for four

years. Like, I didn't help anybody for a long time. I just thought I was a weirdo, and I was just

like trying to find the way that would help, and 12-step programs did not seem to be the thing.

They didn't seem to be the thing for the people in there. They seem comforting to people.

They seem to validate certain things. They did invalidate some things. Like, I can manage my life.

Nope, you can't. And that invalidation was powerful for the people that were finally able to say it.

I remember the first time in a 12-step program that I said that I was an addict. Oh, man, I did not

want to believe that. And now, I'm not sure that it's the most helpful thing. But at the time,

it was a helpful thing. Maybe not the most helpful thing, but it was helpful. And I think that's

important. And it was helpful for me to say, no, I'm actually not capable of managing my

life at the moment. That was very helpful. It was helpful for me to get past this idea that if

somebody knew about what was going on with me, that somehow my whole life was going to fall

apart, I was helpful because I got to do that in a room of strangers. So there's some really

helpful things that happened in those 12-step meetings. What they teach, how they indoctrinate you,

not long-term benefit. But great short-term benefits from going there. My dad went once and he said

it was the most depressing experience of his life. Admittedly, but when you're more depressed

than what you find in those meetings, it's uplifting. So it was a step-up. Where for him, he wasn't

dealing with addiction or anything else. So for him, it was a way step-down. Fair enough. Wherever

you're at on the ladder, the next wrong is a step-up. And so looking at what you think might be

wrong is important. I bring this up recently. I've been working with a couple of people

who have been struggling because they, of the way that they identify themselves in relation to

the world, that they are different, that nobody understands their plight in life, and unless

they're exactly like them, and that anybody who isn't like them can't help them. And they have

these opinions. Now these are people who are dealing with homosexuality or their black in a white

society. People who are dealing with things that they didn't choose, they just know that hey,

I have this kind of attraction, or hey, I have this color skin, or I have both, or you know,

I am this gender. And like these are all these different things that people, you just sort of

inherit. And they developed ideas around this stuff that nobody would ever understand them,

that nobody could help them, and that God was after them. And they have, we all have these

opinions that we form that seem to make sense of the situation. And so because they make sense,

there's a little bit of relief, because nobody likes confusion either. And so we're looking for

some sort of explanation that seems to deal with all the details. However, they're in a lot of pain,

and so they've come to me for help, and the difference between the two of them is remarkable.

One of them, they both argue for their position, like really intelligent people tend to do,

but one of them is determined to not even countenance the idea that he might be wrong. And the other

one is determined to just get down to the bottom of things. And so one is just angry, and wants

somebody to validate his worldview, and to help him feel better, and allow him to continue living

with the thoughts that are causing all kinds of misery for him. And the other one is like, I don't

want these thoughts. I don't know what they are for. And so even though they make sense to me at the

moment, if I find a better solution, I want them. And so at one point, I challenged both of them

with pretty much the same thing. And one of them fought back, and the other one fought back,

both at the same time. But then the other one, like 20 minutes later, sent me a text message and

was like, you know what, I just realized this thing. And I didn't, it really hit me hard. And I

realized I don't actually know this about other people. And I thought I did. I thought I knew what

they were thinking, and I thought I knew what their experience was like, and I realized I don't

even know that. I don't even know what other homosexuals have an experience of, or I don't even

know what other black people have an experience of, or I don't even know what other other people

of the same gender as me have an experience of, I don't actually know. I just think I know.

And so I've been making up all these ideas, and all of these hypotheses, assumptions about

people that might not even be true. And I didn't realize how trapped I was by that. And that's

the trap. The trap is that our thoughts, our conclusions, our assumptions, our explanations of

reality are always insufficient. They never cover the whole thing. And it's not because we're dumb,

it's because we're incapable in our minds of containing the whole of creation in a sentence.

It's just not going to happen. If you call somebody a name, like that person is stupid. Yeah,

except in the places that they're not stupid, you know? That's not their identity is stupidity.

Like, you cannot label something and actually be telling the truth. You can only label something

and be using the label as an attempt to express how you feel. And that's where our thoughts and

our feelings become huge liars and they don't set us free. Now, people seek validation,

not because they're dumb either. Validation does offer comfort. We want people to think,

oh, it's okay that you feel this way. It's okay that you think this way. And so frequently,

even in conversation with others, I'll tell them, like, look, you're not dumb for thinking this,

lots of people think this. That doesn't make it true. But like, you know, it's natural that this

would happen. I mean, think about where you would have gotten this experience. See, you know,

so in a way, I'm validating the fact that, yeah, they arrived at this conclusion,

but I want to invalidate the actual conclusion. And in many ways, it is my job to invalidate people.

It is my job. They go to people looking for comfort. They want validation. They want someone

on their team. They want an ally. They want all that stuff. And I just, that's not how I roll

because I have seen how long it takes for a person to finally let go of something when they keep

getting comforted and validated for it. Because when you validate something, it has no,

it has no reason to stay put. Only getting a wrong answer on a test does a person makes a person

freak out and want to learn the right answer. And maybe not everybody tests that way. Some people

don't care admittedly. But only having making a mistake in public or doing something embarrassing

makes a person want to change many times, many times, not all the time. At least in our society,

most of us are driven by these mistakes and fears and everything else. And maybe in part,

that is a primary way that humans learn. It's not the only way humans learn. If you watch children,

they learn through curiosity and play and joy and love and wonder and interaction and connection

and laughter. They learn, they learn a lot of different ways. And you know, games, it's why

Duolingo works. People learn because they're getting rewarded and whatnot. So it's not always,

oh, I learned because I made a mistake. But there is some level of like I guessed and did my guess

work. And so we're going to adapt. And that's proprioception at its best human nervous system.

It's also an earthworm nervous system. That's a tangent. Here, validation, when you get a reward

for thinking something dumb. And I'm, you know, these are my dumb thoughts, right? So I'm not calling

anybody dumb with that. But when you get a reward for thinking something dumb, then you got rewarded

for being dumb. There's no reason to stop being dumb. Stop to stop thinking dumb things.

Only when you get, when, when the reward disappears and you have a chance to look at it and say,

hey, maybe that's not actually accurate. Is there a chance for real change and rapid change to

occur? So today, the invitation or the something to consider is that instead of like looking around

for confirmation that your worldview is wrong, what would happen if we just accepted that we're

wrong pretty much about everything, almost all the time. And yeah, we might make some minor guesses

right. We might, and we might say, I knew it. But when we say I knew it, usually we didn't know

all of the different details. We're just trying to make ourselves feel right about one thing that we

guessed, but we were wrong about so many other things. And we're usually wrong about people's motivation

and whatnot. But when it comes to your mental health, when it comes to what people, what things you

read, the things other people say, even assuming that you understand them is already problematic a lot

of times. Because very often, if you've had a spouse, you realize that you think you understand them

and you were wrong. And that goes both ways. It's not just guys and girls. It's girls and guys.

I can't tell you how many times I have been totally, woefully wrong about what Jasmine was feeling

or thinking when she made a facial expression or when she said a certain thing. Or even that I heard

the words wrong and thought she said something else. And vice versa, how many times she has

set words back to me that are the actual words that I said. But that's not what I meant. And that's

not even close to what I meant. And yet she's been operating on, no, but I know what he meant.

And that's not the truth. And so if you take a minute today and just like play with this little

cool new toy called being wrong and see if you can invalidate something, some opinion of yours,

especially opinions that you have that are causing problems. So start small, start with minor

frustrations or something like, what if I'm wrong about this? And just use the question. What

if I'm wrong? And see where it takes you. And that's enough to chew on for now. To dive deeper into

any of this and experience what it's like to build an automatic muscle memory that produces joy

and freedom, even in difficult circumstances, visit findtheorigin.com. And don't forget, God,

the real origin of both life and happiness is closer even than your heartbeat and the very

reason you and I still have one despite everything we keep doing to push him away.

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