Update: I just got my pre-order page on amazon to turn this series into a book!
Transform your life with healthy communication tools by simply sharing this with someone you love or posting a link on social media. Get your friends talking about this and watch your life transform! You got this! ~Danny
Here is the Table of Contents for Communication 101 series.
In my previous article, we identified what kind of person we are talking to and if we will allow them to converse with us.
Now, we’re going to sum up everything so far by creating a list of boundaries that describe how we create a space that is safe enough to have difficult conversations in. We do this with clear boundaries. Remember, boundaries are agreements we make with ourselves, not with others. They are a commitment to our own actions and behavior. We share them with others so they are aware of how we will behave in various situations. Then we must actually carryout the consequences like changing subjects, rescheduling a talk, or walking away. Boundaries not spoken are useless. Boundaries spoken without consequences are just as useless.
The people who already know us will be familiar with our boundaries because we have been sharing them often and enforcing them when needed. If we’re about to have a difficult conversation with someone who is not already familiar with our boundaries, we give them a quick overview of how we strive to embody safe-ask culture.
By declaring our boundaries before we have a safe conversation, we are presenting an offer to the other person that is essentially, “would you like to step into a safe space and have a conversation with me? By the way, here’s what I mean by ‘safe space.’”
Most of these safe space boundaries are simple an obvious however many people don’t use them because they don’t know how the other person is going to act. Instead of two people operating on a bunch of assumptions about what the other person may or may not do, why not just get on the same page?
Boundary by boundary, we are checking in and saying, “this is how I operate; this is what I consider ‘safe’. I invite you to join me.” It is important that they are free to say “no.” If we didn’t make it safe enough for them to say “no,” then we are making a demand, not an offer. Making demands is a great way to show someone we are not a safe space person to begin with and they probably shouldn’t believe us.
Our boundaries are worded carefully to be fair to everyone. We are not making demands or placing ultimatums on people. We are not asking people to sacrifice anything. What we’re trying to say is, “my standards on this are high. I’m committed to healthy communication, and everyone-wins results. If you’d like, I can outline what that means by running through a few boundaries that I use to keep a safe space actually safe. I’m not going to force you, but if you want to have a conversation with me, here are my standards.”
At the same time, if we don’t trust someone to respect and embrace our standards, we adjust ourselves accordingly. Maybe we don’t trust our coworker to keep sensitive topics private. In that case, regardless of whether or not they agree to our privacy boundaries, we will not tell them private things. We’ve already learned to identify if someone tends to have healthy or unhealthy conversations and if they tend to create outcomes where everyone wins or everyone loses. Now we get to hold our standards and interact with people, or not, based on what people have already proven to us. Do we already trust this person with a safe space conversation? Would we trust them if we were to take a moment to spell out what we considered “safe”? Do we trust them to keep the space safe? It all boils down to, is this person a trustworthy person?
If someone can’t be trusted to have a safe space conversation with us, then don’t attempt it. If they want to know why we won’t attempt it, we may share one of the following safe conversation boundaries with them if we felt it would actually be communicated and received in a healthy way. At the same time, we can simply remind them that “no,” and “no, thank you,” are complete sentences and we don’t have to explain ourselves.
In the following text, each heading is a safe space boundary followed by a few smaller boundaries that make the heading possible. These boundaries are written with “I” as the point of view. These boundaries describe how we aim to treat everyone with respect, and we expect the same respect in return. We are not demanding anyone do anything, we are sharing how we will operate and how we will behave. If the other person has proven to us that they don’t hold similar boundaries or can’t be trusted, we don’t have to have a difficult conversation with them.
Remember, we can always get our needs met elsewhere and they can always get their needs met elsewhere. Everything is an invitation to participate in safe-ask culture and talk through whatever the topic happens to be. We can always have our safe-ask conversation elsewhere.
If it’s not a good time for everyone to talk, I will reschedule.
Safe Conversation Boundary: “Is now a good time to talk?” I will only have a difficult conversation if everyone is ready and willing to step into a safe space with me. Does everyone have “the spoons” to talk? Does everyone have the time, energy, and focus. If anyone is tired, hungry, emotional, overwhelmed, triggered, in a hurry, or has their focus split, I will reschedule. If anyone’s emotions are above a 2 out of 10, I will call a timeout and reschedule.
How much time does everyone have?
Is anyone’s focus split or dealing with a mental or emotional distraction?
Is everyone open to hearing and understanding everyone else’s point of view?
Safe Conversation Boundary: I don’t tolerate or participate in yelling, harsh tones, or emotional manipulation. Are we all calm enough to talk? If anyone is yelling or using a harsh tone, I will call a timeout and I will reschedule. I don’t let people vent at me. I call a timeout and I invite them to go scream into a pillow or find someone else to vent to.
I am responsible for me, regardless of you. I will let you be responsible for you,
regardless
of me.
Safe Conversation Boundary: I am responsible for myself and my own happiness. No one else is obligated to or responsible for me and my happiness. I am not responsible for, or obligated to, anyone else’s happiness. I trust others to be responsible for themselves and their own happiness without obligating me. Everyone is responsible for their own emotions, emotional reactions, situation, intentions, choice of words, boundaries, healing, growth, fulfillment of wants and needs, and the results they create. If anyone attempts to put obligations or expectations on me, I will call a timeout and site this boundary. If I accidently put obligations or expectations on someone else, I want to be reminded of this boundary. I will relieve the obligations and adjust my expectations.
Safe Conversation Boundary: I will keep myself safe at all times and I will call a timeout to do so. I will respect other people’s use of a timeout and I expect my use of a timeout to be respected. If I feel unsafe, I will call a time out, even if I don’t fully understand the reason why I’m feeling unsafe. I will speak the word “timeout” aloud and I will made a timeout signal with my hands. If anyone’s emotions are above a 2, I will call a timeout. If anyone is breaking or bending any safe conversation boundaries, I will call a timeout. If any of my personal boundaries are being bent or broken, I will call a timeout. I may suggest we take a breather or reschedule this conversation.
Safe Conversation Boundary: I don’t compromise or sacrifice. “Everyone wins” or no deal; I don’t allow anyone to lose. No one should be asked to sacrifice their freedom, their needs, or their safety in favor of other people’s freedom, needs, or safety. I will not agree to any actions or requests that don’t respect and benefit everyone.
Safe Conversation Boundary: I use and enforce The Golden Rule. I will treat others how I wish to be treated. If needed, I will remind others how I wish to be treated with respect, empathy, and grace. I will walk away from people who don’t understand The Golden Rule or the respect, empathy, and grace that comes with it.
Safe Conversation Boundary: The boundaries I declare will be about my own behavior and don’t obligate other people to do anything. I expect to be called out on unreasonable boundaries. I will use The Golden Rule to call myself out on unreasonable boundaries. I will put myself in other people’s shoes to see if my boundaries are unreasonable or creating obligation for others.
Safe Conversation Boundary: It’s not my job to guess other people boundaries or enforce other people’s boundaries on their behalf and vice versa. It is my job to communicate and enforce my own boundaries. No one has permission to speak for me. I will call a timeout if someone attempts to speak for me or my boundaries. I will call a timeout and “go to the source” if someone attempts to speak for someone else or someone else’s boundaries. It is my job to respect other people’s boundaries when they are in line with The Golden Rule; if they are not, I will call a timeout and site The Golden Rule. I encourage everyone to keep themselves safe at all times by communicating and enforcing their own boundaries. If I find myself guessing at someone’s boundaries, I will ask for clarification.
I Don’t Tolerate or Participate In Disrespect
Safe Conversation Boundary: I respect privacy and I will only have private conversations with people who have proven to me they know how to respect privacy. I will clarify what is and is not considered “private” and share this boundary. I will respect other people’s privacy by default, no exceptions. I will not even share with my significate other or best friends if someone shares something in confidence. If we don’t specifically discuss privacy, I will keep it all private by default until we have a check-in conversation about it. I will ensure I let the other person know that this is how I would like them to treat my privacy as well and if they can’t or won’t, I will not share private matters with them.
Safe Conversation Boundary: I only participate in calm, blame-free emotions. If anyone’s emotions are above a 2, I will call a timeout. I will clarify my emotions and the emotions of others to detect and dissolve assumptions and blame. I will distinguish between the chemical signals that are human emotions versus blame that is masquerading as an emotion by using the question, “does this emotion describe only the person feeling it, or does it include other people or events?”
Safe Conversation Boundary: My feelings are never up for debate, nor are anyone else’s. I thank people for sharing their feelings and I will remind others that I expect to be thanked, not attacked, when I’m sharing. I will use phrases like, “thank you for your honesty,” and “thank you for taking care of yourself.” If someone attempts to debate or criticize anyone’s feelings, I will call a timeout and site this boundary.
Safe Space Boundary: I will not tolerate or participate in criticism, judgement, blaming, shaming, guilting, attacking, name calling, unsolicited opinions, opinions masquerading as facts, gossip, punishment, retaliation, hurting others on purpose, or revenge. If any of this happens, I will call a timeout and site this boundary. If I, or anyone else, is feeling defensive, I will call a timeout and site this boundary.
From here, we are about to move into the next major part of this series, actually having a safe space conversation with someone. We spend a lot of time getting our head and our straight. We created a space to have the conversation and we’ve created the boundaries to keep that space safe. We’ve also shared some of our most valuable tools, timeout & checking, blame-free emotions, boundaries, safe-ask culture and intentions, invitations not obligations, and identifying people with unhealthy communication skills or manipulative intentions. We’ve got out head straight, we’ve got a safe space defined, and now we’re stepping into it to have a difficult or serious conversation with someone worth having that conversation with. Great. Now what?
In the next article, we will start laying out agreements for how we will communicate through a difficult conversation. Everything so far has been, before we say a word about the actual topic at hand. Next, we will communicate the topic itself, not solve it, just communicate and understand it.
Transform your life with healthy communication tools by simply sharing this with someone you love or posting a link on social media. Get your friends talking about this and watch your life transform! You got this! ~Danny
Update: I just got my pre-order page on amazon to turn this series into a book!
What next?
Next article in this series: Com101 – Safe Conversation Agreements
Previous article in this series: Com101 – Identifying Who We’re Talking To
Go back to the Table of Contents for Communication 101 series.
Pingback: Communication 101 – Kinky Poly
Pingback: Com 101 – Holding Space With A Mic – Kinky Poly
Pingback: Com101 – Safe Conversation Agreements – Kinky Poly