Monday, January 19, 2009

Who are you "validating" today? ...

I looked up the word "validation" on Wikipedia, and there it says;

"Validation is the reciprocated communication of respect which communicates that the other's opinions are acknowledged, respected, heard, and that they are being treated with genuine respect as a legitimate expression of their feelings, rather than marginalized or dismissed."

I think that our words to others and our ability to listen generously (that's another topic, from a great podcast I recently heard) can have a huge impact on those around us.

We all have value, God is very clear on this. So I wanted to share with you this great video clip by Viktor Emil Frankl M.D., Ph.D. He was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor and you'll get a good reminder of how we can make such an significant impact on the lives of others by how we treat them.

It also goes hand in hand with this great quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.



No comments: