The next person who I hear tell someone else "your feelings are valid" or some other wishy-washy line of buzzwords instead of actually engaging a friend's feelings in a non-HR capacity is going to end up pondering the positive, empathetic peer-choice-orientation goal of a zebra-hoof-peer-face-encounter situation. :)

Believe it or not, this is not a subtoot. Just a frustration that came up in an outside conversation. I'm sure it's not the last you'll hear from me about it.

@zebratron2084 When you want to validate the emotional content of a message without validating the factual claims being presented in the message, how would you suggest people proceed? I never want to suggest that people don't know what they're feeling, or that feelings themselves are bad or wrong, but a lot of times people -- myself included -- get their emotions knotted around things that aren't true, or at least are open to multiple framings.