Com101 – A “No” from an Unhealthy Communicator

If someone is giving us a “no” or giving us a boundary, let’s assume they are doing their best and they mean well.  They might be stumbling through it making an accidental mess.  I had an art director friend once say to me, “when someone does something that messes up your hard work, assume accidental incompetence instead of intentional malice, then go check-in with them.”  It’s a great reframe.  Let’s start there.  Treating everyone as if they are going to manipulate or abuse us is a trauma response.  Let’s practice grace and at the same time, when someone proves to us that they don’t know healthy communication, let’s act accordingly.  Let’s be an example of safe-ask culture and use a few simple boundaries to hold the frame around our safe space conversation.  At the same time, if they prove to us that they have less then good intentions and are manipulative or abusive, let’s also act accordingly.  I’ll discuss that last case, in the next section, A “No” from a Manipulative Source.  For now, let’s assume we have a good intentioned person who’s communications skills are just not quite safe-ask or downright punish-ask culture.

That’s a big deal, by the way.  If we can see through the words and emotion that is coming at us and separate that person’s intentions from their communication skills, our ability to hold a safe space conversation will go up.  Our ability to hold a safe space life will also go up as we limit the access of manipulative people and accidently destructive good intentioned people in different ways, but without hesitation.

When someone with good intentions and unhealthy communication skills hits us with a boundary that is full of blame or seems like a big overreaction to us, we might want to call a timeout & check-in with ourselves.  We might want to make sure we can receive them like an adult; with the grace we would like to also be received with.  This is an opportunity to be an example of safe-ask culture to someone who may not be familiar with it.  Remember, their poor communication often has nothing to do with us and everything to do with their past experiences.  They are simply doing the best they can with the crappy tools they grew up.  As soon as we see this, we can realize, “Oh, we have to switch to healthy tools first, otherwise a real conversation will be a disaster.”

We may need to pause them long enough to make the conversation safe enough for both of us to continue.  We may say something like, “woah-woah.  I see you are upset.  I want to hear and understand you.  Your feelings are important to me.  I don’t participate in yelling.  If you want me to understand you, I need you to lower your voice.  If not, I’m going to have to walk away from this interaction.”  Yes, that is wordy, we’ll work on that.  As a major part of this book, we are learning, we don’t participate in yelling or arguments.  Those are two obvious cases of people not listening to each other.  That’s one of those healthy tools that they may not have yet: we don’t participate in yelling, we walk away.  We start with a boundary around that.  We check-in with them, “I want to understand you.  Is now a good time to talk?  Would we be better if we did this tomorrow?”

A few keys intentions there is to give them our full attention, let them know they are important, their feelings are important, and we want to understand them.  They are probably unconsciously yelling to get our attention and to get us to recognize their feelings, and to get us to understand them.  Yelling is a terrible monkey brain tool that is simply attempting to be heard.  So we start with that.  “woah-woah.  I see you are upset.  I want to hear and understand you.  Your feelings are important to me.”

They might be expecting us to fight them based on their past experiences.  Also, since humans mirror each other’s emotions, most people will unconsciously mirror back the yelling and intensity of the person in front of us.  That’s why it’s so important to simply declare to yourself and the world, “I don’t participate in yelling.”  Do that now while you are calm and clear.  Is that an agreement you like?  Is that a commitment you can make with yourself right now.  “I don’t participate in yelling.  If I catch myself in a yelling situation, I will call a timeout instantly.”

Next, we repeated that we want to understand them, and we are not going to fight them.  The “want to” is important there.  They want to be heard.  We tell them we want to listen and we let them know, all they have to do is stop yelling first.  We let them know, we have boundaries too and we both need to respect each other.  We’re basically saying, “I am respecting you.  I want to respect you.  You need to respect me too.”

If they can’t do this calmly, like adults, then we exercise our boundaries around safe space conversations and we let them know we are going to walk away if they don’t lower their voice.  “Timeout.  I appreciate you.  You matter to me, and your feelings matter to me.  I want to understand you.  I want to work with you.  This conversation is too loud, and I don’t feel comfortable.  This is a boundary for me.  I don’t participate in yelling.  If you can’t lower your voice, I am going to have to reschedule this chat with you for tomorrow and I’m going to have to walk away.  Would you like to stop now and reschedule this when we can both hear each other, or do you want to lower your voice?”  I know that’s a lot.  I’m trying to give you, the reader, a lot of detail to see the intentions behind our communication.  It can also be a tool for use.  If we say a bunch of “I want to understand you” type words in a soothing tone we can slow everything down.  It can also sound like this: “woah-woah.  Timeout.  I love you.  We’re yelling.  We’ve already committed to ourselves and each other that we don’t participate in arguments or yelling.  Would you like to take a 20-minute break, reschedule this talk for tomorrow, or would you like to hit ‘reset’ and start over at a reasonable volume?”

We only have safe space conversations.  We set the safe-ask example.  We are a safe space.  We hold the frame, and we keep it safe for ourselves and for the other person.

This person with good intentions and unhealthy communication skills will now be treated differently by us.  We know it and now they know it.  For them, they realize their default communication style doesn’t work here and it never will.  I have been blown away many times but the moment that clicks for they other person and they switch styles.  They may try two more types of unhealthy communication that they picked up in their past punish-ask situations.  That’s fine.  We only have safe space conversations.  Then, again and again, something clicks and I find the person in front of me suddenly “get it”.  They don’t have to act like a child to be heard.  We’re hearing them and we’re offering to listen to them, the just have to act like an adult.  Not always, but many times, they suddenly do.

If you ever want to see this in action without being in the middle of it, go to a store that has a customer service line and just sit on the side an listen.  Watch a fuming customer walk up to the agent and use all their unhealthy communication tools to get their way.  Watch a customer switch to yelling the moment they realize they are not going to get their way.  Most customer service agents have a very strict policy, “woah-woah.  Sir.  Mama.  Don’t yell at me.  I’m here to help you and explain your options.  If you yell, I’m going to ask you to leave.”  Most of the customers instantly relax and turn into adults.  A few will not get the message and storm out.  Either way, the customer service agent only has safe space conversations.

Again, the person who was yelling at us, the person with good intentions and unhealthy communication skills, will now be treated differently by us.  We know it and now they know it.  For us, they have proven where they are at on their journey to healthy communication skills.  It is our job to have healthy boundaries, communicate them in healthy ways, and enforce them in healthy ways.  It is not our job to educate them.  It is not our job to help them with their boundaries or their communication.  It is not our job to guess or enforce their boundaries.  It’s on them to learn and grow in healthy ways.  Until they do, they’ve proven to us exactly what we can expect from them in the future, and we can adjust our distance to them and our expectations of them accordingly. 

This person is no longer a good candidate for an inner-circle type friend.  They have proven themselves to be an acquaintance, at best, and we may decide to not be around them at all in the future.  We don’t have to interact with unhealthy communicators, temper tantrums, bullies, or adults who act like children.  If we feel a need to bridge the communication gap with these types of people just so we can keep them around, that’s trauma.  We don’t give good people with unhealthy communication skills a free pass because we think they are good people.  We set them at the distance from us that they just earned.  We don’t focus on them or their healing, we focus on holding our safe space and we focus on healing ourselves.  No unhealthy communicator gets a free pass from us ever again.  That’s what it means to have standards.  That’s what it means to raise your standards.  We have higher standards now.

I want to make it clear that we are not punishing them.  They are not “bad people.”  They are good people who are still learning.  We can love them and root for them from a distance while not volunteering to be in situations where we need to constantly engage with their unhealthy communication skills.  I have a great example to illustrate this.  Imagine the person has an invisible sword.