She told me that I was making it about me again. I calmly told her that it was not the case.
That is the opposite of validation, you invalidated her statement. You told her she was wrong. And she may have been, but the important thing to understand about validation is it is NOT agreeing/ disagreeing/ begging/ pleading/ negotiating. It is simply accepting her feelings as hers WHETHER YOU AGREE WITH THEM OR NOT. It's a very important distinction.
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I ended the call telling her that it is all going to be ok. That things will fall into place and it will work out.
I know you meant well but this is an invalidating statement as well. She feels like things are a mess, so you telling her it'll all be just fine makes it feel like to her that you are not listening to her or paying attention to what she's saying.
I'm not trying to pick on you, for the most part it sounds like you did pretty well in the convo. I just think there are a lot of misunderstandings about what validation is, so I try to help clarify it when I see some hiccups so people will have a better grasp of it moving forward. Validation is all about trying to see things from HER point of view. Trying to understand how what you say affects HER feelings. She may say some really outrageous things that make you want to roll your eyes, but you have to override that and really try to listen and make her feel heard and understood. It's the biggest 180 any of us can make.
