Monday, March 26, 2012

Creating a Safe Environment to Talk

Something interesting has just happened. I had briefly told my mom, “I bet you were wondering what I was doing in the backyard yesterday by myself” and she proceeded to ask what I was writing about. She knows I keep a journal of my thoughts and feelings. Right after she asked, I felt a hesitation to tell her, and I’m curious to know why I felt that way. I also want to know what I can do about it for future situations where I try to bring conversations deeper with other people.
                                                                                                                                  
This article relates to a previous article, but this one is slightly different. Creating a safe environment for another person to express themselves emotionally is very important. It is a must, to bring the conversation and relationship deeper. What constitutes a safe environment? I know for me just when my mom asked me what I had written about, I was hesitant, because deep down, I wasn’t sure how she was going to react to it. This is one that is huge. The person telling someone personal about themselves needs to know the listener will accept them for who they are without any negative retribution. This means the revealer needs to know they won’t be teased even in the slightest manner, especially in the very beginning of attempting to take it deeper, in the relationship. How can the listener show the revealer that what they say will be accepted and free of judgment and teasing? The only way is to have that reputation of being someone who is nonjudgmental, accepting, respectful, and understanding of everyone, no matter who they are. This means, in prior conversations, they have to feel like this is a person they can trust and tell things about. So initially in the relationship, or as new start for when the next time we meet them, we to convey through our voice tone and body language that we are accepting of them. This means open body language, an appropriate amount of soft eye contact (avoid giving them the feeling that you are trying to stare them down), and with your voice tone, speak more gently and softly. Inside, genuinely feel what they are feeling, that way our voice tone will naturally express understanding and acceptance.

Demonstrating to other person that they can trust us is absolutely crucial when we ask them slightly more personal questions about themselves. Again, I believe we have to start slightly deep and gradually go deeper and deeper from there. It all depends on the atmosphere of the conversation. If the atmosphere is one of depth already, it’s not necessary to start light again. If it’s not deep yet, it would be difficult for the other person to jump straight into a question with lots of depth. But when we ask them a question that slowly helps us understand who they are as a person, we must, show them that no matter what their answer is, we will be free of judgment, understanding, accepting, and respectful of them. This means absolutely no teasing in word choice or voice tone. Starting with slightly deep questions, asking out of genuine curiosity, listening actively, showing them that we respect them and accept them, and really allowing them to express who they are to you is the crucial first step to go deeper in the relationship. That is why before we plan to take a relationship deeper, we should not be teasing other people. Imagine seeing someone who is loud, talkative, and slightly condescending through his jokes and attitude. Are you going to feel safe revealing yourself to him? No, you won’t. You will keep the conversation to surface level and will try to end the conversation as soon as you can. Compare that to someone who is curious, understanding, and accepting of others. That is why if we ever find ourselves joking around a lot and teasing, even in the most harmless manner, know that in the back of our minds, that we are destroying the chance of taking the conversation deeper. This is not to say you can’t ever joke, but it does mean, avoiding any cheap-shot jokes, insulting jokes, and anything that may be perceived as competitive, indirect-insulting banter. We can laugh by all means, but laughing at the expense of lowering the other person’s social status kills the opportunity of taking the conversation deeper because we have made it unsafe for them to reveal themselves.

 It all depends on the familiarity, level of comfort, and trust between each individual towards each other. With my mom, we had never talked about anything of real depth before, so suddenly wanting me to reveal something relatively personal about myself did not make me feel too comfortable. My thought was, “you don’t normally ask about my life besides academics, so why do you suddenly want to know about what I write in my journal? And my journal contains the deepest, most personal things about me.” In my mind, it went from superficial topics about my grades and classes to suddenly, “I want to know the most personal things about you.” It felt scary and felt unsafe. I answered with an answer that did not yield any further questioning. Another reason did not feel too safe was because my mom tends to react in a voice tone that conveys worry. Although I can understand why she may worry, as what moms tend to do, it does not make me feel safe to reveal myself without her trying to probe more and more only to answer in a more worrisome tone. The main problem is that I can feel that she was asking out of worry than out of genuine curiosity. Worry can be perceived as a form of curiosity, but it has a negative feeling attached to it. When we convey that worry tone of voice, the listener can feel it, and in turn, feel unsafe to talk further because the revealer won’t know if the listener will react in an unaccepting, judgmental manner. Again, we can see how important it is to convey to the revealer through our voice tone that we are accepting and nonjudgmental of them.

Being nonjudgmental requires a pause and response mechanism when reacting to the revealer’s response to a question. If we react without the pause, we may convey with our tone of voice and facial expressions a form of judgment without even verbally responding to what they said. Remember yourself the last time when you were in a joking, teasing mindset, and before the person had even finished talking, you had already decided in your mind how you were going to react? Exclamation responses of, “Oh wow, are you serious?! You’re joking right?”, all happen because we were in a teasing mindset, hence judging them. Before they had finished responding, we could feel that urge to burst out laughing. Teasing can seem fun when it’s not us being teased, but it kills the safety in the conversation for the one being teased. Therefore, I suggest we should pause, really hear out what they are saying, and using curiosity, lead them deeper.  

Another reason I didn’t feel comfortable revealing what I was writing about to my mom was the lack of safety in the conversation from my brother and sister being in the room next to us. More introverted individuals are not likely to tell people personal details about themselves when there are other people nearby who can potentially here the conversation. Again, it’s a loss of safety. We can’t guarantee that the people who overhear the conversation will react in an accepting and understanding manner. As an introvert, I am sensitive to having people overhear conversations of more personal detail. I’ve read that more extroverted individuals don’t mind sharing more personal details about themselves out loud in situations where there is less privacy. That is why I stated one on one conversation in a quiet place, without major distractions, is absolutely necessary to take a conversation deep.

From analyzing why I felt hesitant to express what I wrote about, I’ve learned a few things from the mistakes my mom made. One, her worried voice tone conveyed an unsafe feeling to me as I felt like she might react negatively. Lesson learned: use a calm and genuinely curious tone of voice. Two, my relationship with my mom has showed me that she tends to react in a judging manner. She may be trying to understand, but the words she’s used and worried voice tone she’s used comes across as judging and not completely accepting. Lesson learned: avoid teasing and laughing at others as that destroys the safety in the conversation. Laughing with others is fine when it doesn’t lower anyone’s social status. Showing others through your voice tone and body language that you understand them, accept them for what they are saying, and you aren’t going to judge them is crucial. Remember to use the pause and response mechanism to avoid reacting negatively if you find yourself in a judging type of mindset. The mindset to adopt is, no matter who you are, and what you’ve done, I will learn and hence understand where you are coming from and your point of view. The fact is that people view things due to the way they feel about them. People don’t view things based on the logic. Feelings always have a basis for its development. People don’t feel depressed out of nowhere- unless it’s purely a chemical problem in the brain. Find out why they feel that way and then it’s easy to understand their viewpoint. Plus, when we learn about why they feel a particular way, we can come to accept them for it as we can empathize with what they’ve been through. Three: having a private one on one conversation is a must to allow more safety to be felt in the conversation. 

To conclude, I’m going to mention some other necessities to allow for safety in conversations. So to continue from the previous list, here’s number four: Both sides must realize deep down that each person has the same common purpose in the conversation- to spend time with each other, to learn about each other, and to connect. People have to feel like there is no specific agenda of the other person. We become suspicious when we feel that the other person is trying to get us to help them with their financial trouble. We then feel like they aren’t in the conversation to actually get to know us and we begin to judge their character and inner motives. Five: we have to show genuine care and interest in their well-being. We show them that we aren’t trying to get them to do something for us, besides social needs of course, so that’s good. But what if they don’t show us any interest and care for us? They aren’t in the conversation for us, but for themselves socially. No relationship will last when it’s a completely one-sided interest. Six: Common respect is crucial and never act condescending to others. People who aren’t respectful of others are seen as condescending pricks who think they are above everyone. Even if the person taking the insult doesn’t seem to care, deep down, they will resent us for acting superior to them.

Seven: Listen attentively, show present minded focus on the person who is talking, and don’t interrupt. I have a friend who will say, “oh, I’m sorry, what were you going to say?” when he accidently interrupts. It shows respect and deeper down, it communicates, “What you have to say is important, so I’m going to do you the honor of listening to you and allowing you to fully express what you feel.” When someone interrupts, they are saying that what you have to say isn’t as important as his own. They are impatient as they feel like they have to blurt out their own thinking before they forget it, and interrupting can be seen as a general disregard for common courtesy. No matter how painfully slow it may be to listen to a person get their thoughts out, as it can be when they do not know how to express themselves, we need to give them the patience that they probably do not experience in their own lives, and we can show ourselves to be the better by not interrupting.          

Eight: avoid criticism. I don’t believe I need to explain this one any further. Nine: Drop the pretenses and be real with other people. Tell people what you really think and feel and don’t try to hide something up with half truths or a clever phrase. I need to work on this one. Ten: avoid gossip and rumors. This is a tough one but it needs to be done. Gossip and rumors feed drama and energy to the conversation. It may be funny to laugh at people when they don’t know we are talking bad about them, and it makes us feel better about ourselves, but if we could talk about ideas and possibilities related to those people and dramas, we become better people. I believe in talking good about other people, and for those people we may dislike in our lives, talk about how you feel about them, but avoid having gossip and bad-mouthing others be the main staple of the conversation. I don’t judge people who talk gossip because I know how tempting it can be. For me, I’ve been taught since an early age to not do something to someone else, what I don’t want done to myself.

Lastly, number eleven: treat everyone as if they are the most important person in the room. This shows genuine curiosity for other people and it will really get them talking about themselves. Even for those who may be silent and barely speak their minds, when shown a genuine amount of curiosity, they will talk on and on about their own lives, their past, what they think and feel intimately, the dreams and fears they have, and brilliant insights they have to things they think a lot about. I know so because I am one of them.

A lot of these are really just basic communication skills, but many times, with many things in life, it’s the basics we need to get back to. Dropping the pretense and being 100% genuine with my more intimate thoughts and feelings is one I need to work on. I have just sat here for more than two and a half hours writing this and I even after so much writing, I still don’t feel like I’ve done enough justice to my thoughts and feelings towards expressing how I feel about creating that safe environment for deeper conversation. I’m just trying to learn all I can to develop those deeper relationships. Perhaps all these writings I’ve done will really pay off one day in ways I can’t imagine. Until that day comes, work hard and stay true to who you are Michael, and everything will take care of itself.       

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