Com101 – Safe Conversation Agreements

The details behind actually having a “safe space conversation” is going to be in the remainder of this series.  For the moment, I’m going to give a brief explanation and share some safe conversation agreements.  I’ll give more details on how to achieve each item in the articles to come.

My vision of a safe space conversation: we respectfully take turns holding space for each other until everyone feels heard, understood, and complete.  We don’t debate, argue, or try to convince anyone to think or do anything.  We don’t skip ahead to some next step or next part of the conversation.  After everyone feels understood and complete, the conversation might also be be complete, or we might have a second conversation to discuss ideas and solutions with the intention that everyone wins and no one loses or sacrifices.  Again, we don’t debate, argue, or try to convince anyone to think or do anything.

My safe conversation boundary is, I only participate in safe space conversations.  If it’s not a safe person, I don’t have the conversation by saying, “I’m not comfortable having this conversation with you.”  If I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone who I feel is worth my time and energy only to discover the conversation is turning out to feel unsafe in any way, I will call a time out and site some of my safe conversation boundaries and offer the safe conversation agreements (listed below). 

If someone doesn’t want to work with me to create a safe space to have a conversation, I don’t try to convince them to do it.  I respect their choice and I stop the conversation by saying, “okay, you’re allowed to communicate in your style.  I’m going to respect that your choice of communication style is different than mine.  That also means I’m not comfortable continuing this conversation.  You may want to talk to someone else about this topic and find a way to get your need met elsewhere.”

That sounds abrupt, but the point I’m making here is, we are not forcing anyone to do anything.  It’s not a moment to start an argument where we try to force someone to do it our way.  If they don’t want to cooperate for the sake of talking through something in a healthy style, that’s totally okay.  Mentally and emotionally, we need to get our head straight so we can be okay with letting people opt out using their words or actions.  We can’t just pretend it’s okay and we’re not going to try to convince them.  We have to do the timeout & check-in style work to make sure we gave them a true offer and not a demand.  We need to be so mentally and emotionally okay with it that we shrug our shoulders and say, “okay cool.  Maybe next time.  Well, good luck.”

We are respecting the fact that they are choosing to not have a safe space conversation and we are not punishing them for it because that would be manipulation.  At the same time, we are protecting ourselves.  We are protecting our time, energy, emotional wellbeing, and more.

If we are the ones who wanted to have the conversation with them because we have a need that’s not being met, we will simply go get our needs met elsewhere.  Again, we don’t punish them, pout, or brood because that would be manipulation.  Instead, we are grateful because the just saved us a bunch of time and we can go somewhere else.  They are not the only human on this planet that can help us.  In fact, there are an abundance of people who want to politely listen to us and help us.

If they are the ones who wanted to have the conversation with us but they don’t want to respect us with a safe space conversation, they are free to get their needs met elsewhere.  We can remind them of that if needed.  “I’m not participating in this conversation style (yelling, etc).  You’re going to have to find someone else to talk to about this.”  Then, become a broken record on that.  Literally, do not participate and only speak words that make it clear you are not participating, especially if they try to provoke you.  “I don’t participate in name calling, you’ll have to go somewhere else.”  “I don’t participate in blame and accusations.  You’ll have to find someone else.”  “That sounds like a threat, I report threats to authorities.  You’ll have to find someone else.”  “I said no thank you.  This conversation is over.  I’m walking away now.”

I’ve often seen this approach to standing firm in our boundaries and opting out of all unhealth communication or interacts with unhealthy people as, “Do no harm.  Take no shit.” 

We are not forcing them, punishing them, or retaliating in any way.  Again, they may try to provoke us with big emotions and threats, but we don’t do it back.  We do no harm.  We call out their unacceptable behavior, we don’t do it back, and we take no shit.  “Do no harm” includes both them and ourselves.  We do no harm to them by not participating in their behavior they are trying to initiate.  We do no harm to ourselves by not sacrificing or compromising our boundaries or our standards.

Remember these from “Identifying Who We’re Talking To“?

“Take no shit,” means we don’t allow others to suck us into B, C, or D style conversations (see “Identifying who we’re talking to”).  If someone is not going to interact in healthy safe-ask culture, we don’t have to engage and we don’t have to lower our standards to allow the interaction to happen.  The phrase is “take no shit,” not “take a little shit to maybe get through to this person who’s disrespecting us.”  We stand firm with every simple boundary we have and the consequences of not participating in the conversation.  For example, yelling, “I don’t tolerate or participate in yelling.  I’m going to have to ask you to lower your voice or this conversation is over.”  We calmly and politely take no shit.  Then we become a broken record and announce we are walking away.

Now we’re going to shift from “boundaries” to “agreements”.  The idea here is, boundaries keep the unsavory people out and agreements are reserved for people we trust with more difficult things.  Agreements are an invitation for a next level conversation with the people who have proven to use they are “A style” communicators; healthy conversations and everyone wins results.  (Again, see “Identifying who we’re talking to” for more details on the 4 styles of communicators.)

I had a friend once say, “my boyfriend is the only person I choose to argue with.”  She then went on to explain that the word argue, to her, meant she would set aside time and energy to talk through difficult things with him.  She wanted to keep the relationship in good standing, and she wanted to keep this person in her life, so she was willing to have the difficult conversations with this person.  Meanwhile, she doesn’t extend that kind of time and energy to others.  I think a better way to say that would be, “I don’t participate in arguments.  My boyfriend is the only person I choose to talk through difficult conversations with because I choose to have this person in my life.  I choose to work together to keep this relationship healthy.”

What if we made the choice to never argue again?  We can choose that.  We can choose to have boundaries with people who want to argue and simply not engage with them.  We can choose to not argue with people we love or are attached to.  We can choose to have safe conversation agreements with the people closest to us.  Honestly, good people will love the idea of safe conversation agreements because they would love to have a healthy relationship with us.

Toxic people will resistant the safe conversation agreements because they don’t want a healthy relationship with us.  Those people just want us to obey them and do what they want.  The idea of safe conversation agreements means they won’t be able to manipulate and use us anymore and they will absolutely hate that idea.  Let’s get rid of those people.  Let’s walk away from them.  Let’s unfriend them.  Let’s break up with them.  Let’s divorce them.  Let’s move out.  Let’s find a new job and a new boss.  Let’s find a new club or community to have fun with.  Let’s take no shit from unhealthy communicators and people who don’t strive for “everyone wins” results.

Also, I just have to say it aloud, if someone doesn’t want to participate in our safe conversation agreements, we might want to check-in with ourselves and ask, “am I truly a safe space?  How much of this person opting out is them and how much of it is me?”  It takes two.  Did we break their trust in the past?  Have we apologized and shown them real growth in our behavior?  If we’re blaming them, then the toxic one might be us.

Now, let’s move on to the actual safe conversations agreements that I use with only the best people in my life.  Again, talking though things with us is a privilege that we don’t offer to just anyone.  The offer is, “would you like to step into a safe space and then set up a few agreements so we can intentionally talk through things in health ways more often?”  The first couple times I share these agreements, I call them experiments and treat them like experiments.  We can’t fail if we’re just experimenting together and exploring new ideas.  “Hey, I have an idea.  Would you like to try an experiment with me?  I heard of these safe conversation agreements that are supposed to help difficult conversations work themselves out in a healthy way.  Want to try a couple out with me?  We experiment and practice on something small or silly.”

Like we’ve discussed in previous articles, it takes practice.  Don’t print this out, high five, and say, “we’re never going to argue again.”  That will not magically work.  Instead, print them out and commit to picking a reoccurring time to practice trivial topics while experimenting with one or two of the safe conversation boundaries (previous article, “Creating A Safe Space To Talk”) or safe conversation agreements below.  For a list of silly and trivial practice topics, see the articles “Experimenting with ‘no’” and “Experimenting With Boundaries.”