What if every conflict you've ever had was actually just your soul trying to teach you something about unconditional love?

And I know how that sounds, but stick with me for a second.

We throw around the word validation, like it's some basic relationship skill.

Like it's about saying, that sounds hard when someone's having a bad day.

But real validation, the kind that actually transforms relationships and heals trauma,

I think it's something entirely different.

I think it's about learning someone so completely that they remember who they really are underneath all of their

defenses and patterns and pain. It's about holding space for another person's truth without

abandoning your own. It's about loving someone exactly as they are while they're making choices

that you can't understand.

I feel like most people have gotten pretty good at the basic validation stuff now,

or at least in my circle, and I know I live in a bubble.

But thank God for that viral reel on Instagram teaching us all to ask,

do you need support or solutions?

So we figured out how to listen without immediately jumping into fix-it mode.

But there are situations where it's a lot harder to validate.

Like when you're watching people you love make choices that feel completely wrong to you.

Or when your values and their values seem to be on different planets.

The kind of disagreements that are tearing families and friendships apart because there's

just so much division right now. The kind of conflict where people realize that they're not

just trying to be right, they're fighting for their entire sense of self, their worldview, their identity,

everything they thought they knew about who they are and what matters, which is one of the reasons

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