Previously I talked about how to speak from your own experience. In that I noted that speaking from our own experience is hard. It can be terrifying at times. The question then is how do we create safe space for others to do such a difficult or scary thing in our presence? It is about creating safe space for others to be vulnerable. People find this hard to do because they don’t know what creating safe space looks like. It can be either they had them, so didn’t pay much attention to how that happened, or didn’t have them, so not sure what to do to create them. Some people who have had a combination of safe and unsafe environments have figured out what a safe space looks like and what created it, but sometimes still do not know how to consciously create it themselves. Figuring this out starts with remembering why it is hard to speak from your own experience.
One reason people sometimes find speaking from their own experience hard to do is that they don’t know themselves. They are so used to pointing their awareness outside of themselves looking for what or who is responsible for what is happening inside of them, that they are not truly self-aware enough to speak to what is going on inside. Another reason people do not feel safe pointing that awareness inside and then sharing that awareness outside is their history of doing so. People who have experienced abusive relationships in the past where they were emotionally or physically intentionally harmed either for no reason or for showing their heart and sharing their feelings, will usually have a hard time sharing openly with other people. There is an internal expectation that the result of being vulnerable is abuse. This sort of traumatic past creates not just awkward and difficult feelings around sharing vulnerably, it can create a feeling of terror. People are less likely to feel safe to share vulnerably when they have this history. AND doing so is necessary to build trust and connection in any relationship. The question for us then is how to open safe spaces for people who might be nervous, inexperienced or terrified to share with us?
The first skill for us to learn in order to create safe spaces for other people is to learn to speak this way ourselves. If we work on our defensiveness, our self-awareness, and our language around speaking from our own experiences, it will show the other person trust in them. If we demonstrate trust, that goes a long way to show we can also be trusted. It also role models how we want to communicate with one another. In addition, speaking like this feels less like attacking, which ultimately will feel safer to the listener. That is one reason why we want others to speak to us like this too. We want to feel safe. Step one, practice speaking from your own experience to show others it is safe to do that with you.
Second thing to do is our best to master our reactions to others. There is no guarantee what will happen inside of us when someone speaks openly and vulnerably with us. We may not automatically react internally with calmness and without feeling defensive. If we feel defensive and then react defensive by lashing out or shutting down, that will likely not feel safe for the other person to be vulnerable with us in the future. To create a safe space, we need to work on staying calm inside, and if we are not calm, at least responding from our own place of vulnerability rather than defensively. Stay humble. Stay calm. Share how you feel. It’s basically the first skill but as a reaction not an opening statement.
Third skill is grace and compassion. People might be trying to do this with us, and as we know, it is a hard skill to master. If we do our best to hear the other person as though they are speaking from their experience, even when they are not, it might feel safer for them to do so for real in the future. For example, if someone says something accusing to us, we can try to hear through the accusation to what they are experiencing. Like if someone says, “You hurt my feelings, or you are being mean.” Our instinct might be to defend ourselves and say that we are not trying to be mean or hurt them. If instead we hear that they are hurt, and can ask more about that hurt instead, they might shift their speech. Like we might respond to accusation by not reacting to the accusation, but responding to the emotion we hear, saying, “I hear you are hurting.” We can also validate and check on other emotions we suspect, “It feels like you might be feeling angry with me, is that correct?” We can encourage them to open up more about what is happening with them by taking accountability for what we see was our part, and asking to know more, saying, “I’m sorry I chose words that were hurtful to you. Can you tell me what about those words felt hurtful so I can do better in the future?” Maybe we do not use those exact words, but finding a way to validate what you hear is true for them emotionally, taking accountability for your actions, and then opening up space for them to share what their thoughts were that led them to the accusation. Those thoughts are their experience of what you said or did. It starts the conversation about what is their inside environment.
It is important to remember that if someone is hurt by something you are doing or did, you do have some responsibility or accountability in that hurt. Not 100% of it is on you, usually, but some of it almost always is. What happens is, there is an event where you did or said something and there are things happening in the environment that we are involved in. We as humans, evaluate the things happening. We assign meaning to them based on our history and experiences, then as we develop feelings about the thoughts we are having, we begin to assign blame to what is causing our feelings. We sometimes do not recognize the part of the cause that comes from our thoughts. We move directly from this thing happened to our feelings and so the cause of the feelings is the thing that happened. We forget that we passed that experience through our thought filters before we started to feel a certain way about it. That means our feelings are some about the event, experience, or happening, and some about what our minds did with it during perception. Sometimes the event happening is 50% the cause of the end feelings, with 50% being our minds perceptions. Sometimes it is closer to being a really big thing happening making it 90% the cause of the feelings, and our perceptions are only 10% adding to it. The point is, no matter what is going on and how much our actions are the actual cause of someone else’s feelings, there is always some of it we can be accountable for, and so, it is helpful in creating safe spaces for people to open up about what else is contributing if we do our best to take on that accountability as quickly as possible. Validate their feelings. Take accountability for our part in them. Ask them what else they are thinking or feeling about the situation. Ask them to help you understand how what was said contributed to them being hurt, for example.
Sometimes people go to a place of, “If you don’t know what was wrong with what you said, then there is no point in telling you,” or something similarly defensive or attacking back. I don’t think I am out on a limb here if I say, if that is the sort of response you get, the way to create safe space is by backing down for the moment. This comes from a place of protection. It’s almost as if they are saying, I’m not going to tell you about my inner experience so you can hurt me more with it. It is defensive and a huge sign that the space is not safe for someone to open up. It is your cue to ask for a break in the conversation to give both of you time to feel safer. We might respond to that sort of reaction with something like, “I get that. I’m going to need some time to figure that out then. Let’s talk about this more later please.” You probably need some time too, to think about what you are feeling before getting into a debate about the situation with someone who is in this state of mind or emotion, and they likely also need time to calm down before being able to continue with any sort of openness.
We are going for creating safe spaces. One safe space is time, time apart or alone to calm down and consider how we want to move forward. This is hard for those of us who like to resolve things quickly. We don’t want to take a time out or wait while people calm down. This is extremely hard for me, for example. I want to resolve things right away. I also realize that pushing for resolution quickly does not in any way create a safe space for the other person to open up. It creates a trapped feeling.
Okay, so I feel like I need to summarize this one. Step one, do our best to speak from our experiences. Step two, do our best to not react defensively, no matter how they speak to us. Step three, hear through the other person’s accusations or attacking speech to their inner story they might not be sharing. Step four, validate their emotions and take accountability for our part, then ask for more information (going back to step two and three as they open up). Step five, take a break if either person is not feeling safe enough to be open and try to circle back later.
One more thing, people defend, lie, attack, accuse, etc. when they feel like they need to armor up and protect themselves. If someone is armoring up, they do not feel safe, and they will be unlikely to speak in a vulnerable and safe manner with us. We might be causing that fear and need to protect, and we may not be the cause, just the current recipient. Sometimes people have had deep trauma and have to work hard to feel safe even in very safe environments. Either way, if we adjust how we are in conversation, we can sometimes affect their feelings of safety with us. Maybe not the first time we try, or even the second, but over time, if we are consistent in creating a safe space to be with us, people will start to feel safe with us. That creates a safe space for not just the other person, but also for us. If we all feel safe, we can leave our armor out of the conversation, be real, be vulnerable, and have meaningful conversations that allow us to connect deeper and become better human beings. This has always been my goal in life, simply to learn to be better at being me.
Until next time, Namaste