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Invalidation stings. It erodes. It separates. Particularly when it comes from people we are knit together with in life: family, close friends, co-workers we collaborate with regularly, and so on.

Many of us journey through life with the ache of invalidation, a yearning and a pain beneath the surface - a longing to be met in a way that goes unmatched.

We are meant to be interdependent, to be able to trust key people in our lives with both the tactical parts of our lives and the emotional parts of our lives. This is simple biology. Simple HUMANITY. Yet, many of us grow up and live as adults in a world which minimizes this through a kind of hyper-individualism, hello North America!

The hyper-individualism erroneously sanctifies being “unaffected” by others, despite the reality that often deep down, we are very affected, but lack the framework, language, and social systems to support us in unpacking this knowing, this pain, this ache.

This episode is going to delve into these things so, we can understand our individual humanity and our collective humanity better.

Want to eke out some of these ideas further? Get a paid subscription to the Delicate Machinery Substack. That will give you access to the private chat, a place with weekly prompts to facilitate dialoguing with others about these ideas, renewed views on seeing self and others, and supporting each other in building the ways of being we long to live within.

So, you realized you're human, and you're trying to figure out what that means — how to be that fully, how to feel it in your body and not just your head. Yeah, me too. That's what this whole show is on a quest toward.

This question of “What does it mean to be human?” has chased me my whole life. From gentle beckoning in the wind over a turquoise sea in Italy while I was backpacking Europe for a couple of months as a 22-year-old, to jump scares while innocently traversing this thing we call “life” as a woman living in California with a husband and three kids. This question is beautiful and scary.

As a kind of do-si-do (did anyone else have to learn square dancing in fourth grade?) with this question, I got three master’s degrees: religion, counseling, and Middle Eastern cultures and religions. I lived in the Middle East/SWANA for three years. I went on to get a PhD. My PhD focused on Embodied Validation—how we physically experience validation or invalidation in our bodies, how these sensations register somatically, and the role validation plays in transformation and liberation.

I’ve sat with sheikhs in Baghdad and asked this question. I’ve sat with my three squirrelly kids on white spin-ny chairs in our living room and asked this question. I’ve sat with my own pain and asked this question.

Now, let’s get at this question together.

What does it mean to be human and how do we get more humanity back into the places it’s been proceduralized out of?

Thanks for being on this journey with me. I really mean that.

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