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.
Just to get you on the right page, I’m in the middle of talking about holding space. This article is about “what to share and why” when someone is holding space for us. You can hear more about holding space in my previous article, Com 101 – Holding Space With A Mic.
Sharing sounds nice. Being heard sounds nice. However, expecting someone to listen to us involves a commitment to share healthy things in healthy ways and avoid sharing things that will not be productive or just plain ruin our chances of being heard. We start with not sharing things in a manner that would make us want to stop listening if someone else used that same approach or tone on us. That might sound a lot like The Golden Rule because it is.
When involved in holding space, regardless of which side of the mic we’re on, we greatly increase our changes of being heard if we don’t blame or criticize the other person. These things don’t improve the situation and tend to directly compete with the other person’s ability to listen and understand us. Blame, shame, criticism, and judgment will push people out of listening mode. These things provoke people into arguing louder or to stop listening altogether.
For techniques on working through blame and criticism before sharing our experience with others, revisit the article “Emotionally, Where Am I At?” which introduces the tool, “Sit with it: refocus on me.” Before attempting to share our point of view with others, specifically ask ourselves the question, ““does this emotion describe just me or does it include other people or events?” This question is from the “Just me?” step of that “Sit with it” tool.
I’m not saying, hold back information. I’m saying, share the same information without blame, shame, criticism, or judgement. Blame, shame, criticism, and judgement are the equivalent of trying to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. We think we’re trying to put it out, but we’re using the wrong tools. We’re escalating and attacking when we need to be deescalating and listening. We need the equivalent of a steady stream of water on a fire for as long as it takes to change the situation. We need to say, “hey, there’s a fire here. Let’s put it out together. Great job, high five! Okay, now let’s figure out what happened and how we can do better in the future,” and not, “what did you do!? This is all your fault!”
We’ve talked about not sharing blame and criticism many times in the previous articles. Rather than repeat all that here, let’s move on from what not to share and ask the question: what do we intentionally share, and why?
High-level of things to intentionally share
As part of the previous article on taking turns holding space, there were a few suggestions on what topics to talk about when it’s someone’s turn on the mic. I’m going to share some insight on why those specific topics were suggested. Here are those suggestions again. I’ve added bold text to show the focus of each item.
Notice that they all start with the phrase “from my point of view,” on purpose. They all end with and share nothing else, on purpose.
Great things to share are:
- “From my point of view, I feel ____ (1 or 2 core, chemical emotions only) about (the main topic),” and share nothing else.
- “From my point of view, this is the timeline of events as a camera would have recorded it,” and share nothing else.
- “From my point of view, the things that went right were ______, ______, and ______. I want to recognize your efforts in those things going right and say, ‘thank you’ for that,” and share nothing else.
- “From my point of view, my expectation/assumption was that _____ would happen and it turned out _____ happened instead,” and share nothing else.
- “From my point of view, my need for ______ was not met. It’s my responsibility to get my needs met without hurting or obligating others. I would appreciate any help you might be willing to offer though,” and share nothing else.
- “From my point of view, I now realize _______ and I didn’t know that at the time,” and share nothing else.
- “From my point of view, I have a boundary that wasn’t known or wasn’t respected which is ________. It’s my responsibility to get my needs met without hurting or obligating others. It’s my job to share and enforce my own boundaries. I would appreciate any help you might be willing to offer though,” and share nothing else.
- After talking thought all of the items above, continue to say, “from my point of view,” and share whatever is still standing in the way of us feeling complete on this topic. Keep it short. Share one thing at a time and share nothing else.
If we simplified all that, it would be:
- Share simple things, gently.
- Share one thing at a time and share nothing else.
- State everything, “from my point of view,” only.
- Omit blame, shame, criticism, judgment, and obligation.
- Share our experience.
- “…I feel ____.” Core emotions only.
- A timeline of facts (not interpretations of them).
- What went right.
- Share our expectations & realizations.
- Acknowledge our own expectations and assumptions compared to what really happened.
- “…I now realize _______ and I didn’t know that at the time.”
- Recognize everyone’s efforts and good intentions.
- Thank everyone for their efforts often.
- Share our needs.
- “…my need for ______ was not met and my needs are my responsibility, not anyone else’s.”
- “…I have a boundary to share, and my boundaries are my responsibility, not anyone else’s.”
- After all the items above, share whatever is still standing in the way of us feeling complete on this topic.
If you want a cheat sheet for tricky conversations, print out the list above and write people’s initials next to each item until it’s clear everyone has addressed and shared each of these topics. If you want to collect your thoughts and practice sharing without blame before having a conversation, write out your answers to all the items above and then double check them for blame, shame, criticism, judgment, and obligation. Then adjust your answers until you are ready to share your perspective with others. Better yet, here’s a 1 page pdf that’s easy to print.
Again and again, these emotionally charged conversations come down to a person attempting to share what the world is like from their point of view. They are attempting to be understood and get their needs met. They are attempting to share what they are experiencing now, what they were experiencing as things were unfolding, and how their needs were not met. Quite often, communicating is an attempt to get our needs met by telling others about them.
When we have a need that is not being met, as part of the urge to be understood, we often unconscious include blame, shame, criticism, judgement, and obligation. It’s not the whole message, but it’s part of the message. Humans unconsciously do it because, unfortunately, it works. Blame, shame, criticism, judgement, and obligation are fairly effective at pushing others into compliance; not understanding, compliance. Another way to say that is, humans often use bully tactics on each other to get their way. However, it’s a very shortsighted way to operate since it often damages the relationship and will make future moments of trying to get our needs met with this person less likely to happen. Pushing for compliance rather than sharing to understand each other’s point of view is unhealthy communication. It falls directly into our definition of unhealthy communication since it damages the relationship. This is why we keep coming back to a focus on communicating our experience and our needs without blame, shame, criticism, judgement, or obligation.
What do we share? We share our experience, our expectations, our appreciation for the other person and their efforts, and our needs. We declare our needs and boundaries are our responsibility, not anyone else’s.
How do we share it? We share it without blame, shame, criticism, judgement, or obligation.
Successfully Sharing Our Experience
To successfully share our experience without blame, obligation, or attacking others, (1) we consider our internal, emotional dashboard and we let the other person know which signals are lit up for us, and nothing else. Next (2) we share the timeline of events that unfolded from our point of view. We share this without allowing any of our brain’s made-up stories, interpretations, or assumptions to sneak into our message. We went into great detail about these things in the articles: “Emotions Are Real,” “Emotionally, Where Am I At?” and “Stories Become Our Reality.”
The summary here is, we only share the emotions that are functioning as core chemical signals to create warning lights on our emotional dashboard. We don’t share our brain’s interpretations of those chemical signals, which are also known as secondary emotions. We also don’t share the stories our brain or our ego made up about those chemical signals on our dashboard and our secondary emotions.
The first step, sharing only the signals on our emotional dashboard, sounds like this: “I feel ____.” When done correctly, that blank will either be a primary emotion behind one of our needs in Burbol’s Hierarchy of Happiness, or it will be one of our six core chemical emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise. I recommend digging down to the six core emotions and expressing them first. Then slowly building up to how those emotions got interpreted and why they became certain secondary emotions.
When done successfully, we will share an emotion that doesn’t have blame hidden in it. Whether we share blame-free emotions or we accidently use a blame-filled emotion, our emotions are never up for debate. For more details on how to share without blame, see the article “Holding Space with a Mic,” and the heading, “Sending a blame-free message.”
It would be very wise of us to pause and recognize when we’ve used a word that is basically blame masquerading as an emotion. Those types of words will only attack the other person and make holding space difficult for them. For example, “I felt unheard and abandoned,” are not core emotions. They are interpretations of fear, surprise, and sadness, that project blame. It would be wise to call out these interpreted emotions as soon as the words fall out of our mouths. “Wait. Hold on. My brain and my ego are making up stories and trying to blame others. Let me start over and dig deeper for the core chemical emotions I’m feeling. I feel sad, scared, and surprised. Everything else was my brain’s interpretation and knee-jerk reaction of those feelings.”
Do we still feel unheard and abandoned? Yes. Are those interpreted emotions valid? Yes. These interpreted emotions are part of our experience. However, they are going to land better with ourselves and with others when we dig deeper and speak the core chemical signals behind them instead. The next article, “The Catch 22 of Communication,” will dig into interpreted secondary emotions and how the “interdependence” category of human needs in Burbol’s Hierarchy of Happiness is full of secondary emotions that tend to set our communication up for failure.
So, for step one, just share the core feeling and nothing else. Everything else will only muddy the water and possibly alter the message. “I felt sad and scared.” “I felt joyful at the beginning and then I felt surprised, scared, and angry about halfway through the night.” Those are both great examples.
As the next part of sharing our experience, (2) we share a timeline of only the facts from our point of view. We go out of our way to only share facts as they would be shared by a diligent reporter or a video camera’s recording. We don’t share our brain’s interpretations, assumptions, judgements, opinions, or stories unless we call them out as such and the call out is before the share.
Here’s the difference. This would be a story full of assumptions, judgements, opinions, and blame: “you always make a huge mess in the kitchen, and I end up cleaning it up. Then I feel taken advantage of.” Compare that to, “hold on, that’s the BS story my brain is trying to convince me of. Let me start over and pretend I’m a video camera reciting just the facts. I was hungry last night. I went to the kitchen to make myself some dinner. I couldn’t start my dinner because the counter was covered with dishes that were not mine and all the pans were dirty already. I had to clear the counter and wash two pans before I could even start making my own dinner. By that time, I was hungrier and also frustrated. This is not the first time this has happened to me in our kitchen.”
Again, the goal for holding space is to take turns understanding each other’s point of view. We share the core emotion and the timeline of facts. It’s not about trying to make a request or convincing the other person to change any of their behaviors.
Successfully Sharing Our Expectation & Realizations
Calling out and sharing our expectation and assumption will often show how and why we were letdown as well as what we contributed to our own emotional reactions.
“I’m not trying to blame you or tell you what to do. I’m just saying, I walked into the kitchen and my expectation was to make a quick meal. I wasn’t expecting a spotless kitchen, I was just expecting at least one clean pan, one clean cutting board, and enough counterspace to make something. I was not expecting to have to do someone else’s dishes and cleanup before I could even start making my own food.”
What is great about calling out our assumptions and expectation is that it leads to realizations about the situation. “I now realize that this has happened more than once. I now realize it only bothers me when there are no clean pans, no clean cutting boards, or no counterspace. I’m also realizing that I haven’t said anything to you about it before and there’s no way you could have known. I guess I was expecting you to already know what my level of “clean” looks like or to read my mind or something and that’s not realistic. I realize, I should have said something sooner, but I wasn’t sure how to. I realize I’m trying to tell you right now, but I don’t know if I’m doing a good job or not.”
Recognize Everyone’s Good Intentions and Efforts
When we need to talk to someone, it’s often about something we don’t like or something we would like to change. To the other person, this can come across as focusing on the negative, attacking, and demonizing. With a message like that, it can be very challenging to not defend oneself instead of just listening. Taking a moment to also recognize the other person’s good intentions and efforts can really help them receive our message as purely sharing information and that we’re not trying to attack them, make them wrong, or get them to agree with us.
It’s very important to continue to recap only the facts of their good intentions and their efforts and not allow ourselves to pretend we know what they are thinking or put words in their mouth by speaking for them. Don’t say things like, “I know you’re tired after work, and you intend to clean up in the morning before you leave.” No. Those are assumptions. Never attempt to tell someone what they are thinking or feeling. Just ask them and they will tell you. Don’t use, “I know you _____.” That is our brain making up stories. Now the other person may feel a need to defend themselves and they may find it harder to just listen and hold space. We put all this effort into creating a safe space and getting everyone to hold space for each other, let’s not throw it all away by projecting our assumptions onto others and acting like we know what they are thinking and feeling.
Instead, callout assumptions as part of the previous step of sharing our experience, “I know you’re tired after work. –wait. Sorry. I didn’t mean to speak for you. I’ll let you speak for yourself when your turn comes around. I often assumed you are tired after work, and I assume that you intend to clean up in the morning because you often do clean up in the mornings.” An even better approach, we can site a fact, as a camera would see it, that tells why we are operating from an assumption. For example, “from my point of view, you tell me you are tired after work two or three times a week. I was operating under the assumption that you were tired.”
However, there is more impact by skipping the assumptions all together in favor of recognizing their efforts and thanking them. “I just want to pause and recognize that you often clean up all the dishes and start the dishwasher before you leave for work in the mornings. I really appreciate that, and I appreciate your efforts on those mornings. Thank you for doing that.”
I’m not saying, you should simply omit the negative topics. The phrase, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” is terrible and will lead to a life of no boundaries or unenforced boundaries. Instead, “If you can’t say anything nice, share only specific facts and uninterpreted observations.” This means the less than desirable topics are shared in the previous step where we walked through the timeline of facts from our point of view.
Successfully Sharing Our Needs
Next we share our natural human needs, specifically, the needs that are not being met. As part of that, we always state how we are solely responsible for getting our own need met. That sounds simple, but it has a few pitfalls to watch out for.
First of all, we need to be careful not to make a request or tell anyone to do anything. “I need you to ____,” is never okay. That is not sharing a natural human need, that is making a demand and disguising it as a request for a need. This is manipulation and obligation. Unconsciously or not, we are trying to manipulate them into meeting our needs. They are not responsible for our needs or getting our needs met. Only we are responsible for our needs and getting our own needs met.
Instead, we list the most basic human needs from Burbol’s Hierarchy of Happiness and we don’t direct it at the other person or obligate them to meet any of the needs. In fact, we announce how it’s our responsibility to get our own needs met. We say something like, “I have been neglecting my need for rest. I need to get enough sleep each night so I can function at work the next day. It’s my responsibility to get my needs met without hurting or obligating others. I would appreciate any help you might be willing to offer though.”
Making this little announcement is a declaration of our intentions and a reminder to both them and ourselves that we are not making demands on anyone and it’s not their job to meet our needs. If they were having any anxiety about how our situation might get pushed onto them or turn into an attempt to manipulate them into doing anything at all, this statement will help release them from that. This is very useful when the other person was raised in a punish-ask culture, and they are unconsciously worried about this whole safe-space thing falling apart any second now.
This declaration of “it’s my responsibility to get my needs met without hurting or obligating others,” is great to help us catch ourselves when our monkey mind or our ego have slowly creeped into our think. It keeps us honest and on the path. In the middle of saying these words, I’ve found myself thinking, “oh wait. Crap. That’s totally true. I was just starting to have expectations for them to change. I’m going to drop these obligations and hit the ‘reset’ button on my expectation, right now.”
Expecting them to change in any way puts unneeded stress on both parties. It stresses them because we are unconsciously telling them what do to or telling them they are wrong and need to change. On their end, they feel like they are be being attack with blame, shame, criticism, judgment and obligations. They will naturally defend themselves. Expecting them to change puts unneeded stress on us because now our mind is in a state where it has completely forgot we are an adult who can go do whatever makes us happy at just about any point in time. Instead, we’re stuck in a victim attitude honestly believing we can’t be happy until the other person does something specific. We are stuck believing we can’t have what we want and it’s all their fault. We have given all our power away. Take it back by releasing the expectation that anyone is obligated to do anything for us, our needs, or our happiness.
When this really clicks, we will be able to look at someone and say simple things that express exactly how we feel, exactly what we are going to do about it, and everyone else is invited to join us but they can always say “no” to without any negative repercussions. We naturally find ourselves saying things like, “Hey, I love you all. I’m not having fun here today. You’ve done nothing wrong. I guess I’m just in a weird mood. I going to change my surrounding and flip the script for myself. I’m going to go for a walk around the block. You’re welcome to join me if you want, but no pressure.” With this attitude, we simply accept people for who they are and we let them be. We also accept ourselves and our current state and we know we have the power to do whatever we want to change our state.
While we are on the mic and people are holding space for us, we don’t ask for or talk about any kind of solution. We say, “I would appreciate any help you might be willing to offer though.” We are making it clear that we are open to an invitation if they choose to offer one, but we are not demanding they help us. This reminds both parties that no one is obligated to anyone here. Invitations only. We also don’t talk about solutions at this time because that step comes later. Solutions come after everyone is on the same page. We make sure everyone involved gets a chance to share and be heard on the mic, and then solutions often present themselves without much effort.
For example, “I need you to make sure at least one pan, and one cutting board are clean before you leave the kitchen,” is skipping ahead to solutions and making obligations and demands. Instead, only state the need with no involvement from anyone else. “I need to be able to make myself dinner when I’m hungry.” That is a simple human need that would apply to just about any human, even the person we’re talking to.
This may also be the time to state a boundary as part of making our needs known. Boundaries also don’t obligate anyone to do anything. They are a clear statement of the actions we will take in various situations, regardless of the other person. To recap the article, “Boundaries Keep Us Safe,” the steps for creating a boundary are (1) defining a boundary, (2) make an agreement with ourselves, (3) make the boundary and our intended actions known, and (4) taking action on boundary violations. Sharing a boundary while on the mic would be step 3.
Summing it up and passing the mic
Our message might have been a little messy or out of order, but we take one step at a time and we allow our listeners to confirm they heard us correctly every step of the way. Once we’ve shared and confirmed our emotions, our experience, our expectations, our assumptions, our realizations, our appreciation, and our needs, we probably made some discoveries along the way. Our message may have shifted slight since we first started talking. We might want to share one final short message to sum it all up and make it clear to both us and our listeners what our final landing spot was with all of this talking.
“I was hungry and frustrated. I couldn’t make myself dinner because I didn’t have clean dishes or a clean surface to work on. I recognize you often clean up in the mornings and I thank you for that. I need to be able to make myself dinner when I’m hungry.”
Notice how we used “I” statements that didn’t blame the other person. The only time we used the word “you” was to recognize their efforts and thank them. We didn’t use words like “always” or “never.” We didn’t obligate them to do anything or ask them to change or fix anything. We simply shared our point of view and our needs, then stopped. When this summary message is complete, we can pass the mic and hold space for the next person.
As a Listener
As part of holding space, we can also listen for and encourage the speaker to share their experiences, assumptions, and needs. We can walk the same list of items and check-in with the speaker to ensure nothing gets skipped.
For example, the speaker may say they are complete, even though they never specified their unmet needs. We might ask a clarifying question, “okay, I’m hearing you say you are complete, but I just want to check-in first, did you have any unmet needs that you wanted to share, are you good on that topic, or did I miss something on that item?”
Demonstrating how we want to make sure they get a chance to share fully and that we are paying attention to them will further confirm to them that we want to hear and understand them fully.
In the next article I’ll be talking about what I believe to be “The Catch 22 of Communication.”
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 – The Catch 22 of Communication
Previous article in this series: Com101 – Safe Chat vs Safe Travel
Go back to the Table of Contents for Communication 101 series.
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