Kinky Poly

Worksheet – How to make and share a polyamorous pizza!

Kinky Poly Danny — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 15:20:40 +0000

This is a worksheet I made for talking through the various aspects of a kinky or poly relationship. The idea is to get as clear as possible on what everyone wants and doesn’t want just like when ordering a pizza to share. Every relationship is it’s own combination pizza and you can order as many pizzas you want with as many different people that you want to share them with.

This poly-pizza worksheet is a great way to knock a relationship out of any unspoken gray-areas to get everyone on the same page with the same intentions.

Enjoy! ~Danny

Download worksheet: [ as a pdf ] or [ as a jpg image ]

My Book On Amazon

Kinky Poly Danny — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 20:04:11 +0000

This book is the refined version of my Communication 101 series of articles.

Here’s a link to my book on amazon.

My Safe Play Event Agreements:

My Rope Safety Checklist:

My tiktok channel @dannyburbol

Sex Values Survey

Kinky Poly Danny — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 00:47:34 +0000

Saw this fun kinky survey and thought I’d share:
https://sexvalues.github.io/

My Safe Play Event Agreements:

My Rope Safety Checklist:

My tiktok channel @dannyburbol

Do No Harm. Take No Shit.

Kinky Poly Danny — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 00:12:04 +0000

While writing about boundaries in my communication book, “Do No Harm. Take No Shit,” turned into a very solid way to describe boundaries. So I added this image to my store.

Click here to go to the shop.

My Safe Play Event Agreements:

My Rope Safety Checklist:

My tiktok channel @dannyburbol

Com101 – Ask For What You Want

Kinky Poly Danny — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 23:01:42 +0000

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, I talked about How To Make Things Right which is also a big part of A Genuine Apology. In this article, we’re going to bring everything together to finally ask for what we want.

Article Contents

The whole point of this series is to be able to ask for what we want and get it in ways that benefit everyone. This is very possible to achieve but often difficult and messy in practice since our ego likes to sabotage us and pull the wool over our own eyes every step of the way. On top of that, other people’s egos are doing the same thing to them. This is why so much of this series has been focused on techniques for understanding and overcoming the human ego. When all the humans involved are centered and working together, we can simply make our request known and seek the types of outcomes that will benefit everyone. In this article, we are going to apply all of the tools we have learned so for. Let’s start by taking a moment to bring some of these tools to the front of our minds.

How Far We’ve Come

This series broke down this type of conversation into 4 parts, (1) getting our head right, (2) creating a safe space to talk, (3) holding space for each other, and then (4) taking the steps that will benefit everyone by agreeing to something or nothing. The hurdles we overcame to get here were numerous, but necessary.

In “Part 1: Getting Clear with Ourselves,” we learned to respect our emotions and our ego. Emotions are real, even when triggered by a pile of assumptions and misinterpretation. We learned the benefits of calling a “timeout” the moment anyone’s emotions are above a 2 out of 10. We found safe ways to feel our emotions and let them out by seeking space and doing something like crying in a private place or screaming into a pillow. We learned the power of taking deep breaths to slow our pulse which will then get our emotions under control as well.

We learned how the stories our brain likes to make up become our reality. We explored our emotional dashboard to find it packed with warning lights that are made up of core emotions. These primary emotions are chemical signals that our body uses to alert us of our unmet needs. We learned that our brain makes up stories as it tries to figure out what to do about the warning lights on our dashboard. These stories are usually based on assumptions and misunderstandings that interpret our core chemical emotions into secondary emotions. These interpreted emotions, and the assumed stories behind them, are then treated like facts by the primitive parts of our brain, even though they are not facts. We learned how our ego does whatever it can to “be right.” Once the story which was built on assumptions is created, our brain does what it does best, it finds what it is looking for. Like looking through a tinted lens, we view the world through a type of tunnel vision where we fun more and more false evidence to prove the flawed story our ego already decided is fact. When left unchecked, our ego gets into the driver’s seat and takes the wheel.

We found techniques to uncover the core emotions behind the interpreted ones so we may dismantle the flawed stories that created them. We outlined “timeout” and “self check-in” practices that would allow us to pop our ego out of the driver’s seat. We use these tools as early as possible. We do it before our ego has a chance to push all its assumptions and faux feelings onto others in the form of blame.

We learned that core emotions are chemical signals. These signals are our bodies’ attempt to alert us of an unmet human need. We merged a few resources together to create a list of human needs that are grouped into categories that depend on each other. At the bottom are the needs to survive, as we rise through the categories, we find the needs to thrive. We took a moment to realize that a major part of achieving happiness in our life is having our needs met. Knowing this, we can respect our own needs and the needs of others by simply scanning Burbol’s Hierarchy of Happiness. Armed with this knowledge, we can simply identify our unmet needs and take action to get them met in healthy ways.

The short version is, emotions are real, but our ego will make it very difficult to distinguish between core signals and the interpreted emotions it made up as a knee-jerk reaction to whatever is going on around us and in our head. Before having a conversation, we need to get our head straight and master our emotions by respecting how our ego works.

The tools and phrases we learned to tame our ego start with, “timeout. My emotions are more than a 2 out of 10.” We take time and space. We slow things down. We feel our feelings and express our emotions in safe healthy ways. We breathe through our emotions. We acknowledge and validate both our experience and our emotions. Once calm again, we do a self check-in to ask ourselves the question, “does this emotion describe just me or does it include other people or events?” This is how we catch our ego in the driver’s seat. We describe our core emotions with simple words like “sad”, “angry”, and “scared” because these are the chemical signals that don’t involve blaming others. When we drop the secondary, ego-interpreted, emotions like “abandoned” and “unheard”, we can drop the blame our ego was trying to pin on other people.

With our head on straight, our ego back in the passenger seat, and the steering wheel firmly back in our own hands, we can begin “Part 2: Creating a Safe Space To Talk.” This is where we learned how to setup the space needed to have a safe-ask conversation in. This included learning and embodying safe-ask culture while also learning to enforce boundaries that repel punish-ask culture. The key to happiness is recognizing our unmet needs, not the “needs” our ego created using assumptions. Then we get our true needs met by sharing them in safe spaces with safe-ask people while also enforcing our boundaries with people who might be infringing on our needs and our happiness.

We learned how a boundary is a commitment to ourselves that defines how we will act in various situations and the types of behaviors we will not tolerate, participate in, or interact with. We learned that boundaries are not demands or obligations we place on anyone else but rather a commitment to ourselves about our own actions and who we allow in our space. We do no harm, and we take no shit.

We learned how to say “no” and receive a “no” as part of our conversation around boundaries and being a safe-ask role model. We discovered the power of simply saying “no” and not engage with manipulative people or people who have poor communication skills. We learned how to identify these types of people. We also learned how to identify people worth having safe space conversations with. We learned how a conversation where everyone embodies safe-ask culture and focuses on outcomes where everyone wins is a healthy way to get everyone’s needs met.

We began setting the boundaries needed to create a safe space and keep it safe. These boundaries included, “if it’s not a good time for everyone to talk, I will reschedule,” “I am responsible for me, regardless of you. I will let you be responsible for you, regardless of me,” and “I don’t tolerate or participate in disrespect.”

Once our conversation begins, holding space comes first. In “Part 3: Holding Space For Each Other,” we learned how to take turns holding space with our “pass the mic” technique. We learned the power of everyone taking a “timeout” to get their own ego and emotions in check. Then having everyone come together to express themselves without blame or judgment. We found the power of active listening and walking in another person’s shoes through to completion. We learned how to short circuit the ego and simply listen to each other for the sake of really understanding everyone’s point of view. We do this first, not last. We do this before an argument, not after everyone is finally too worn down to continue arguing.

We learned what to share when we have our moment on the mic while everyone is holding space for us. We share our experiences, our expectations, and our realizations. We recognize everyone’s good intentions and efforts. We share our core needs and not our ego’s version of our needs which are built on assumptions.

We learned how easy it is to find mutual understanding once everything is out in the open and everyone simply hears each other without judgement. We learned how apologies and solutions are often a natural part of holding space as it gets everyone on the same page.

We also talked about the Catch 22 of Communication which is that we must communicate to get our interdependence needs met, but we all have an ego that will directly sabotage us every step of the way. Our ego doesn’t want interdependence, it wants to make demands and receive compliance. It doesn’t want understanding, it just wants to be right, and it doesn’t want to be questioned about it.

In “Part 4: Agree to Something or Nothing”, we saw what happens after we are complete with taking turns holding space. We started with a walk through how to give a genuine apology because that is usually needed once everyone finally sees the entire situation and understands how their own actions hurt others. We talked about “how to make things right” both as the final part of an apology and as a completely separate way to talk through struggles.

We learned how to accept a situation with “it is what it is.” Then we recognize how everyone has needs and we are all responsible for getting our own needs met in healthy ways. We talked about how to regain our individual power and start with an “everyone-wins” solution by asking how everyone can get their needs met on their own. Then we played a game of “everyone wins or no deal.” This game takes our outcomes from “everyone-wins on their own” to “everyone-wins by offering to help each other out in ways that respect everyone’s boundaries.”

We learned an easy and effect way to negotiate using offers only and following any offer that doesn’t work for us with something that will. We also took a moment to discuss how “the fortune is in the follow up.”

Every step of the way, we express our appreciation and gratitude. We are thankful for the other person. We are thankful for being heard. We are thankful for discovering our unmet needs. We are thankful for a chance to strengthen our relationships. We are thankful for a change to heal and grow. We are thankful we have the tools to receive our ego and our emotions with grace and love. We are thankful for our ego’s and its lifelong mission to keep us safe from harm, real or imagined. Ultimately, we are thankful for the situation that triggered this chain reaction and gave us an opportunity to improve ourselves, our relationships, our situation, and our happiness.

Surfacing an Unmet Need

Finally, we find ourselves here, ready to ask for what we want. We have already identified that we have a core need that is not being met. Now we are going to share that unmet need and make a request for help.

Below are all the steps involved to ask for what we want. Notice that we’ve already done everything except step 2.

Here are the steps to ask for what you want:

Get our head right. Call a “timeout” if we have to. We don’t need the other person to do anything. We need to identify the core signals that are lit up on our emotional dashboard and then identify the core needs behind them that are not being met. (All of Part 1.)
Make a request for a safe space to hold space. We say, “I’m struggling with something. Can you help me? Is now a good time to talk? Is this a safe space? Can we take turns holding space with the mic?”
We set up a safe space to talk or schedule a time to talk in a safe space. (All of Part 2.)
In the safe space, we follow the steps for “how to make things right”: (All of Part 4.)
1. We always start with hold space through to completion. “Can we start with taking turns holding space by passing the mic?” (All of Part 3.)
2. We recap, acknowledge, and accept everything so far. “This is what’s happened, it sucks, but we’re all in it together. It is what is it is.”
3. We recognize everyone’s needs. “Don’t tell us what you don’t need, tell us what you do need.” Then, “can we all agree that we all have needs and we all want everyone’s needs to get met?”
4. We regain our individual power. Rule 2 of “everyone wins or no deal”: “What if everyone else was in another country and totally unreachable for a few months. How would you be getting your needs met today?” From here, each person’s solution can be greatly improved if everyone chooses to continue.
5. We shift to curiously abundant ideas. “How can I?” and “How can it be done?” instead of “I can’t,” and “it can’t be done.”
6. Logistics, coordination, and negotiations are handled with rules 3 and 4 of “everyone wins or no deal”: offers only and when declining an offer, respond with something new that will work for us. Include follow up steps.
7. Always end with gratefulness. This is one of the many things that keeps our safe-ask culture alive, our relationships healthy, and our lines of communication open.

To ask for what we want, we take everything we’ve done so far and add the right words to kickoff the conversation. This is accomplished in step 2 from above: “I’m struggling with something. Can you help me? Is this a safe space? Is now a good time to talk? Can we take turns holding space with the mic?” This is not an example of what to say but rather exactly what to say. The pauses for responses between the questions are the only variations.

We don’t start a conversation about what’s wrong or what we want, instead we make a request to hold space. Once we are holding space, everything will be brought out into the open and everything will become clear. Not only will we surface our emotions, our situation, our struggle, our unmet core needs, but we will also surface all those things for the other people involve. That’s the part that changes everything. When we’re holding space, everyone else’s experience is equal in importance to our experience. It is often orders of magnitudes easier to get our needs met after everyone has taken turns holding space to completion and everyone’s needs are summarized clearly. Don’t ask for any specific outcome until after that happens.

The words in step 2 from above were chosen carefully, so let’s look at them for a moment.

Kicking Off the Conversation

Our intentions are to respect and overcome our own ego and to respect how the other person has an ego as well. However, we make no attempt to overcome their ego or get them to do anything. That’s their job, not our job. We take ownership of our needs, emotions, actions, and our ego while they take ownership of those same things on their side. We trust them to do their job and we may remind them of their job, but we don’t do their job for them. We are not responsible for regulating their emotions or getting their needs met. It is not our job to make them see our side if they don’t want to. It is not our job to try to get them to do anything they don’t want to do. It’s our job to embody safe-ask culture.

We are making a genuine request. A request is just like an offer, it can be turned down with no penalty or punishment. A request is an invitation not a demand. We make no attempt to overcome or work around their ego or emotions. If our intention is to try to navigate their ego or try to get them to do anything for us, we are stepping into the land of manipulation. We have higher standards than that. We have a commitment to ourselves to not be that type of person. If they are too emotional to talk to us, we call a timeout. If they don’t want to talk to us or don’t want to help us, they don’t have to. If they don’t want to work with us, they don’t have to. They are free to walk away, and we are also free to walk away and simply find someone else who actually does want to work with us. Someone who is a “hell yes!” to helping us get our needs met.

We start with “I’m struggling with something,” to communicate we are feeling something. We say, “can you help me?” to make it clear to both them and to ourselves that we are not about to make demands. This is a request, not a demand. They can say “no” without penalty because we are a safe-ask person, and we got our head right before we even turned to this person to start communicating our struggle.

With those 2 sentences, we have made our current state known and a request for help known. Notice we have not talked about our actual emotions or the actual situation just yet. These are not fill-in-the-blanks phrases. We are struggling with “something”, and we don’t say what that is yet. We need help and we haven’t said what that is yet.

We are simply communicating that we are struggling without blame and asking for help without placing demands on others. Compare this to walking up to someone and saying, “why can’t you wash the dishes when you’re done with them?” Instead of opening with an attack and blame, we open with vulnerability. We’ve already surrendered to the fact that they don’t have to do anything and we are not going to make any demands. We didn’t come here to start a war. We came here to suggest taking turns holding space.

“Is now a good time to talk?” We make it clear that we want to talk, and we want to do it when they are ready. This is a request for their full attention either now or in the future. We don’t start delivering our emotions or needs to someone who is not committed to giving us their full attention and we don’t demand they drop everything to give us their full attention right now. They might be in the middle of a crisis or struggle of their own. We are making a request to interact with them when they are ready to receive us. That means they are calm, ready to listen, and we have their full attention.

If they don’t have time for us or are unwilling to work with us, we simply go get our needs met somewhere else. When we set the intention that no one owes us anything, we free them of obligation, and we free ourselves of expectations. Without those types of expectations, it’s easy for us to shrug off a “no,” in favor of getting our needs met in other ways by with other people.

“Is this a safe space?” This question makes a request for a safe space and gives us a moment to verify if the other person knows what a safe space is. We can ask a boundary question or two to see where they are at regarding safe-ask culture. Do we need to take a moment to walk through the safe space boundaries from the article, “Creating A Safe Space To Talk”? Do we need to checkin with them about the safe conversation agreements from the article, “Safe Conversation Agreements”?

We are also asking ourselves this question as we say it out loud. Are they a safe person to be having this conversation with? Have we considered if they are an A, B, C, or D style personality type from the article, “Identifying Who We’re Talking To”?

“Can we take turns holding space with the mic?” We make a clear request for the type of communication we want to use, and it gives the person an idea of the kind of time commitment we are asking for. Asking for the type of communication we’re looking for is extremely powerful.

We could have skipped this step of identifying and confirming the type of communication we are looking for. We could have just walked up to them and started delivering a stream of words. What communication type would we be using if we did that? Would we even know? Would our emotions be too high? Would our ego be in the driver’s seat? It’s likely our ego would be using whatever default communication style it uses to express its stories of blame and shame. What’s worse, when we just start a stream of words, we don’t know what kind of communication they are going to assume we are trying to deliver. They may think we came over here for an argument, to make accusations, or to nag at them. We greatly increase our chances of getting the communication we want by directly asking for it.

Notice that each of these questions will land better when they include a pause for the other person to reply. Since these are all requests, if the other person says “no” to any of them, we can respect their “no” and get our needs met elsewhere. If we feel this person owes us, must do something for us, or we find ourselves upset by them saying “no,” that means we did not make a request, we were trying to make a demand. We may have recited the words in step 2, but we didn’t embody the intentions behind them. That’s on us. Our intentions are the problem, not the other person. We need to call a “timeout” on ourselves, go back to step 1, and do a “self check-in” to get our head right. For more details on that, see the tool “Sit with it and Refocus on Me” from the article “Emotionally, Where Am I At?”

It may come as a surprise but we don’t ask for what we think we need right out of the gate. We don’t say, “can you do the dishes more often?” Instead, we start with the intention to communicate our struggle and listen to their point of view before making any attempt to do anything about the situation. Yes, we probably want them to do the dishes, but wanting them to do anything means our ego is already involved. We no longer let our ego drive our conversations with attacks, blaming, or making demands. The antidote for that is to make a commitment to listen to them before asking for anything further. It’s the idea that maybe we don’t know the best answer yet because we don’t know both sides of the situation.

Asking for what we want or need starts with a request to understand both sides. This must be our honest intention. We need to be very sure we are not starting with blame or judgment.

What to Talk About

What topics do we start with when we have the mic and the other person is holding space for us? We talked about this in the article, “What to Share and Why.”

Here is a summary of that again:

Share simple things, gently.
- Share one thing at a time and share nothing else.
- State everything, “from my point of view,” and as a camera would have recorded it.
- Omit blame, shame, criticism, judgment, and obligation or call it out. “My ego is making up a blame story about…”
Share our experience.
- “I feel ____.” Core chemical 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 and declare ownership of them.
- “…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.

Keep it simple, for example: “I’m frustrated and a little sad. I’m not mad at you. I’m frustrated with the situation. I noticed the dishes in the sink. I’m hungry and I want to make dinner. From my point of view, I thought we made an agreement about dishes in the sink being washed by 8pm? So, I’m just checking in to see what’s up? Are we doing the 8pm thing or do we want to revisit that agreement?”

When frustrated, it’s very helpful to specify, “I’m not mad at you. I’m frustrated with the situation.” This helps both parties recognize that we’re not here to blame or judge. We are here to hold space.

Rather than launching into a request that someone must honor a prior agreement, we start with small facts. We tell them a core emotion we’re experiencing that doesn’t involve them. “I’m frustrated,” and “I’m hungry,” are facts, not blame or judgments. We give them a clearly observable facts, “notice all the dishes in the sink.” Then we let them know we’re checking in and we plan to work with them either way. Planning to work with them either way holds true to our commitment to make offers and request but not demands. We get a short message out, we let them demonstrate they understood it through the process of holding space, then we pass the mic. We listen to them rather than try to push our point of view or solutions.

It is worth noting that before we initiated the conversation, we paused and did a self check-in with ourselves to recognize how we were upset and what was behind our ego’s assumptions and stories. Yes, we were upset by the dishes, we were upset that we thought we had an agreement, and we were upset by the other person. However, we took the time to get our head right. To catch our ego in action, we already asked ourselves, “does this emotion describe just me or does it include other people or events?” We realized, what we want is dinner. We realized we are simply hungry. We are frustrate to have unexpected obstacles standing in the way of getting that need met. Being hungry doesn’t involve the other person. We share that intention. Then we share the observable fact that the dishes aren’t clean as we were expecting. We are upset because we had expectations that did not line up with the reality of the situation.

There’s a million reason why the other person might not have done the dishes. When they take their turn on the mic, we can hear their side of the struggle. They may also say, “you’re right. I got distracted. I’ll do them now.” That would be a case of the solution becoming obvious as soon as the judgement-free situation was made known and everyone was on the same page.

Rather than focus on the act of doing the dishes, we focus on the facts, our expectations, and then making an offer to adjust our expectation by adjusting the prior agreement.

If expectations and intentions have changed, we will be acknowledging “it is what it is” in the first couple steps of “how to make things right.” Then we can start talking about how we can find a solution that benefits everyone.

Again, it was never about the dishes. What we wanted was to be heard (holding space) about being hungry (a need) that has an unexpected obstacle in the way which involves some interdependence. We communicate all this within safe-ask culture.

It’s completely counter intuitive but the key to getting what we want is to not ask for a specific outcome. Instead, ask the other person if they can hold space with us. After we share our needs and hear their share in return, we simply ask, “can you help me with this?” It’s not, “can you do the dishes,” that’s a specific outcome. Brainstorming possible solutions comes later. We say, “I’m hungry. There are dishes in the sink. Can you help me?” Again, we are requesting the type of communication we’d like to use. With everyone on the same page, we are now requesting help before we start listing possibilities or specific actions.

If someone doesn’t want to help us, or is combative, then we are simply talking to the wrong person. What’s our solution if no one was around to help us? Consider this interaction a “no deal” and act on the solution that works for us and doesn’t involve them. If the person we live with doesn’t want to work with us to get our needs met, we can find someone who does. We can find a living situation with a higher caliber person for example. Maybe we should be talking to a real estate agent. They would probably be very happy to help us.

Be sure our intentions stay in the realm of “everyone wins.” Ensure our actions after hearing someone doesn’t want to help us continue to embrace safe-ask culture and not punish-ask culture. If they don’t want to help us regarding being hungry and finding dishes in the sink, make sure a plan to move out is an “everyone wins” plan and not a plan to punish them for having different opinions than ours. We may feel hurt, but any attempt to hurt them back is abuse. We may exercise a boundary and choose to move out as a way to protect ourselves and our needs as long as we ensure the intentions behind our actions are pure and not vindictive.

Helping Without Strings

For those of us who are “recovering people pleasers,” like me, we must remember that it’s to everyone’s benefit for someone to say “no,” when we are not at our best or in the best position to help. When someone says, “I’m struggling with something. Can you help me,” we might feel the urge to drop everything for a person in need. That’s a wonderful thought, however, it doesn’t honor ourselves, our priorities, or our situation. It also puts our relationship with this person at risk as it may result in resentment building over time without even realizing we’ve chosen this path.

For many years I was under the false assumption that when someone asks for help, we should do whatever we can to help them. I had a couple of crossed wires in my head. One crossed wire said, “no one ever helped me, so I’m going to be the one who helps others. They will appreciate it so much that they will love me and help me in the future.” Another crossed wire said, “I’m a patient and generous person. When I’m patient and generous with others, I’m showing them how much I care.” I later learned that this is that classic “nice guy”, people pleaser, approach.

People pleasing starts with good intentions but quickly turns into an unspoken agreement that the other person knows nothing about. It silently signed people up for future expectations and obligation to help me and love me. I was creating these unspoken expectations inside my head. The more I “helped people” the more I put them into an unspoken debt. The day they seemed to be “taking too much” and “not returning the favor,” I’d find myself very upset. The thing is, they never agreed to anything. I offered my help as if it was a gift, but it wasn’t. I was to blame for my unspoken expectations and the disappointment that would inevitably follow.

A gift is a gift with no strings or obligations, not today nor in the future. If I was attaching strings and obligations, that means I was actually attempting to manipulate them. I was pretending I was giving them a gift but I was really putting them in a debt they didn’t even know about. That is one of the ways people pleasures, nice guys, rescuers, and toxic empaths manipulate others. It’s all under the banner of being a good person, but it’s still a manipulating attempt to get love and attention. Don’t do this.

We need to get our heads right when we say “yes” to helping someone or when we make an offer to help someone. If our help is a gift, then make sure it stays that way. On the flips side of that coin, if we don’t like to ask for help and don’t like to accept other people’s help, is it possible that it’s because we don’t want someone to pull us into an unspoken agreement for future expectations and obligations? Is it because we expect them to do what we do to others when we people please in the hopes that it will result in love and attention? Do we avoid asking for help because we don’t want to find ourselves in any unspoken debt.

People pleasers, we need to change our ways. I recommend starting a practice of being very clear about what we expect in return for our help before we start helping someone. If it is a gift, say, “this is a gift and I expect nothing in return. Not now. Now in the future.” We say that to release them from any obligations, but we also say it to force ourselves to hear it and commit to it.

Furthermore, I highly advise getting into the practice of not giving our time and energy away for free ever again. Simply be upfront and say something like, “I’ll do it for a ‘thank you’ and a high five,” or “maybe we can help each other out here. What if I help you with your project today and you help me with my project tomorrow? What do you say?”

What if we’re on the other side of the people pleaser situation? How do we insulate ourselves from the people pleasers’ unspoken expectations and future disappointment? What if a people pleaser is offering to help us and we don’t know they are a people pleaser? What if they have the best of intentions, but they are actually going to end up creating an unspoken agreement in their head that we now owe them appreciation or something in the future. To address this, we can quiz them ahead of time on the nature of the help and if it’s really a gift or if their help has strings attached.

We can say things like, “hold on there. I don’t expect you to help me for free. Before we start, how can we ensure this situation benefits both of us?” When someone offers to help and says, “no worries,” or “forget about it,” we can clarify, “Okay, so I’m hearing that you are offering this as a gift. Am I hearing that right? I need to clarify that it is a gift with no strings because I’ve had a relationship go sour because someone in the past offered to help me without any compensation only to find out they felt like I owed them something and they never actually told me they felt that way. So, I’m just checking in, is a ‘thank you’ and a high five really going to be enough for you?”

If a “yes,” is a gift, make it clear to both people. If a “yes,” has some conditions and an agreement attached to it, make it clear to both people. As a general practice, try to always bring the topic up and agree to exchange at least a “thank you,” a high five, or a hug. Don’t wave off situations where it’s no big deal to give our help for free or accept someone’s help for free. This is the perfect moment to practice. Practice our negotiation technique of “everyone wins or no deal.” Practice our boundaries. Practice when the stakes are low and the risk of repercussions from a miscommunication are also low. Then, when the stakes are higher or the situation is more urgent, our skills will already be honed.

A Declined Request for Help

When someone says “no” to our requests, we respect it and thank them for their honesty. We talked about this at great length in “Boundaries Keep Us Safe.” In the negotiation game “everyone wins or no deal,” from the article “How to Make Things Right,” we focused on staying curious and abundant while looking for solutions. All of those topics apply here. With that said, I’d like to take a moment to again address the struggles of people pleasers and interacting with them. This includes how hard it is for a people pleaser to say “no”, why they absolutely should say “no” often, and how unfair it is to be on the receiving end of a people pleaser who says “yes” when they are really a “no”.

As a recovering people pleaser, I’m far too familiar with the reality of people saying “yes,” when they want to say “no.” I did this most of my life. I was literally afraid to tell people, “no.” Childhood trauma had me convinced a “no” from me would risk upsetting or provoking the other person into retaliation or revenge. This fear of punishment is a clear indicator that I grew up in a punish-ask culture. Now that I’ve turned the corner on most of that, I’d like to share as much as I can with the people pleasers who are struggling to say “no” and the people who find themselves trying to work around people pleasers who seem to keep saying “yes” and then getting upset or grumpy about it later.

In the same way a “yes” with a couple of clear conditions can be a benefit for everyone, a “no” can also be a benefit for everyone.

Again, I used to think, “no one ever helped me, so I’m going to be the one who helps others. They will appreciate it so much that they will love me and help me in the future. Also, I’m a patient and generous person. When I’m patient and generous with others, I’m showing them how much I care.” I used to use that to say “yes,” and unconsciously attach strings to the yes, but I also used that to completely trick myself into feeling good about avoid saying “no” out of fear of punishment.

As people pleasers, giving away our time and energy without even considering the idea of possibly saying, “no,” is an approach that leads to being drained of our time, energy, and resources. We find ourselves in situations where our cup is completely drained, and we are still trying to pour from that empty cup. It’s no wonder some friends disappear and hide at home for weeks at a time. Not only do they need to recharge, but if they don’t talk to people, they can’t be pressured by any requests that they won’t be able to say “no” to. The people pleaser projected the pressure to say “yes” into requests. With this projected pressure, requests and the idea of requests can create anxiety for them. Even if the person making the request doesn’t think they are applying any pressure, the people pleaser probably feels pressure.

The majority of a people pleaser’s struggle is imagined. Good friends will happily accept and respect a “no.” The question is, is the people pleaser surrounded by people who respect a “no” or have their coping skills and patterns from childhood made it far too easy for people who use punish-ask culture to hang around? There’s the dilemma. The fear of saying “no” starts in the people pleaser imagination. Then their habits involving that fear attract and allow punish-ask people to hang around. They literally turn the imagined fear into a physical reality. The people pleaser is probably surround by punish-ask people that are consistently validating all their reasons to hide, avoid, and not rock the boat.

If this sounds like you, I strongly recommend rereading the article on “Identifying Who We’re Talking to”. Realize that you’re probably not an A type communicator yet and start identifying the skill you need to practice to move in that direction. At the same time, start identifying the A, B, C, & D personalities around you. Intentionally create space in your life for the A caliber and intentionally distance yourself from all the others. If you can’t say, “no, not today,” without the other person hitting you with a bunch of emotion, guilt, or blame, then get rid of them.

Not only are we allowed to say, “no, not now,” it’s to everyone’s benefit when we do. Safe-ask people will thank us for our honesty and go about their day with any issue. When we choose to help with draining situations while we are already drained, we are much more likely to do a bad job or have a misunderstanding. We are also more likely to feel taken advantage of and feel resentment. If someone tries to give us feedback or says our help wasn’t good enough, we are more likely to get upset about it. We are not really helping others when we are too tired to do a good job or we are being too cranky to work with. We don’t help ourselves when we put our own priorities and needs at risk by putting other people’s situations first. Sacrificing for others doesn’t build love, it builds resentment.

Nobody wins when we say “yes,” when we want to say “no.” Eventually, it will catch up with us. However, when we are at our best and everything in our life is thriving, we are much more likely to be able to help others in fun synergistic ways, especially if we use the techniques from the last section to make sure everyone wins when we say “yes” to a request.

A few easy ways so check-in with ourselves before saying “yes” or “no” is to ask ourselves, “am I at my best right now?” and “am I a ‘hell yes!’ for this?”

I used to do the opposite. I would ask myself, “do I have the spoons for this? Do I have the time, energy, resources, and space for this?” That’s the wrong end of the energy spectrum. Instead of asking, “can I give a little more,” ask, “is my cup overflowing?” Only give from an overflowing cup.

Only give when we have an abundance of spoons. Only give when our life is caught up. We do not have to help everyone who asks. People worth having in our lives are adults who handle their own responsibilities and will not abandon us when we can’t help them all the time. If they do get offended by our “no” and disappear on us, good. They were not a safe-ask person. We do not have to get sucked into other people’s sense of urgency or latest crisis just to keep them around. Let those people show themselves out.

Furthermore, we can have boundaries that protect our inner peace and our calm environment. We can say, “I’d love to, but I don’t have the spoons right now. How about tomorrow evening,” “No, I’m focused on something else right now. How about Tuesday at lunch,” “No thank you, I don’t want to get involved. I wish you the best,” or “No thanks. We spoke about this already and I’m no longer offering to be the person you come to with these things. This is a boundary. I need space and I need distance from you and these types of situations. Please find someone else both now and in the future. I wish you the best.” All of those phrases use our negotiation technique of declining an offer and then responding with what we can do, even when all we can offer is, “I wish you the best.”

Bringing It All Together

A request is an offer people can say, “no,” to without punishment. When our needs are not being met, our request is to take turns holding space in a safe space until everyone’s needs are out in the open. After holding space, the next request is for help without a specific outcome in mind.

Helping people is the land of the people pleasers. Don’t get caught in unspoken obligations or expectations by checking in for genuine gifts and everyone wins outcomes. Speak everyone’s intentions and expectations out loud before accepting help or taking any actions to help. If you are a people pleaser, “nice guy”, or rescuer, check-in with yourself around all interactions involving “help.” Don’t pour from an empty cup or a low cup, pour from an overflowing cup.

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?

Previous article in this series: Com101 – How To Make Things Right

Go back to the Table of Contents for Communication 101 series.

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Com101 – How To Make Things Right

Kinky Poly Danny — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 19:08:28 +0000

Update: I just got my pre-order page on amazon to turn this series into a book!

Here is the Table of Contents for Communication 101 series.

This Article’s Table of Contents:

Acknowledge and Accept the Situation As Is
Recognizing Everyone’s Human Needs
Each Individual Reclaims Their Power
Exploring Curiously Abundant Solutions
Negotiation & Coordination
The Game: Everyone Wins or No Deal
What About Follow Up?

What better way to follow our previous article, “A Genuine Apology,” than with an article on how to make things right. Apologies are not the only time we communicate to make things right, however. Any stressful, urgent, emotional, or difficult situation might call for a need to make things right. This is because someone’s, or everyone’s, needs are being met. For example, we might have a friend or coworker approach us with a situation that has nothing to do with us.

The difference is that with an apology we are learning about our own contribution to the situation, expressing ownership, and expressing our remorse before any attempt to make things right. Ownership and remorse are two things our ego tries to resist doing at all costs. When we are just having a conversation to make things right with someone, it might have nothing to do with us so remorse, ownership, and our ego, may never come into play. The lack of our ego’s involvement is why listening to and talking though a friend’s completely separate struggle is often much easier than listening to a friend’s struggle in relation to us.

This article is going to take a deep dive into the steps involved with making things right for both apologize and when outside the situation. We’re going to gloss over “holding space through to completion” because we’ve already talked about that in great length in previous article such as, “Holding Space with a Mic,” and “What to Share and Why”.

Here is the flow of our how to make things right conversation:

Always start with hold space through to completion. We always hold space first. We take a walk in their shoes using active listening, clarifying questions, and statements that demonstrate what we’ve heard so far. When we’ve walked in their shoes long enough, we will be able to understand and validate their point of view, their experience, and their emotions. We do this until they verify that we got it right, we heard them, and they are complete.
Recap, acknowledge, and accept everything so far. “This is what’s happened, it sucks, but we’re all in it together. It is what is it is.”
Recognize everyone’s needs. We take a moment to find out what everyone’s unmet needs are. “Don’t tell us what you don’t need, tell us what you do need.” Then, “can we all agree that we all have needs and we all want everyone’s needs to get met?”
Regain our individual power. We recognize that no one is obligated to do anything, and we are solely responsible for getting our own needs met in healthy ways.
Curiously abundant ideas? We shift our mind into a perspective of being curious and abundant about possible solutions that benefit everyone.
Next steps? We get into the logistics, coordination, and negotiations involved with making things right. We also consider future follow up.
Always end with gratefulness. This is one of the things that keeps our safe-ask culture alive and our lines of communication open.

The super short version? Hold space, recap the situation, then say, “this is the situation. It sucks, but we’re all in it together. It is what it is. What do you need? Can we all agree that we all have needs and we all want everyone’s needs to get met? How would you get your needs met if no one was around to help? Okay, let’s start there. Now, what can we do together to get everyone’s needs met in better ways? Okay, what are our next steps and how are we going to follow up with each other on those steps? Wow. Thanks everyone, this was amazing. You are amazing.”

In this article, we’re going to focus on steps 2 through 7. I’m also going to sum up most of those steps with a game I like to call, “everyone wins or no deal.”

Acknowledge and Accept the situation as is

Let’s say we just held space and now everything is out in the open. Maybe it’s a disaster, a surprise, or simply no big deal. Either way we recap and acknowledge it. Then we accept it openly with the phrase, “it is what it is.”

I learned this phrase from a friend who was an art director at the time. It was his job to handle random problems on his team as well as between other departments and his team. He would often tell me the latest ridiculous stories from his week over a beer. He had all kinds of struggles walk through his door, panicked people, angry people, crying people, and even people threatening to quit on the spot.

All his stories had the same three beats. 1. He held space for them to understand the situation. He was great at staying judgement free while he did this. That would almost always calm them down. 2. There would be a turning point where he would shrug and say, “yup, this situation sucks. Unfortunately, it is what it is. So, what do you need and what can we do next?” 3. Then they would do something or nothing.

This phrase, “it is what it is,” seems like magic, but it only works when it comes after holding space, giving a solid recap, and acknowledging the situation. “Yup. This is the situation. It sucks and we’re all in it together.” Only after that can we say, “it is what it is,” to openly accept that the situation is not going to change itself and no one is going to come rescue us. We are going to have to bend or do something different. How? By asking what everyone’s needs are, “what do you need and what can we do next?”

Here’s an example. “(Holding space.) What I’m hearing you say is, your house was ripped to pieces by a tornado, and your cat is missing. (Walking in their shoes and validating their experience and emotions.) Wow. No wonder you’re distraught. That sounds devastating and heart breaking. (Checking in, is holding space done?) Is that the whole thing? Are you complete with this share?” When they are complete, “(Recap and Acknowledge.) Okay. Your life’s been destroyed or swept away. This situation is terrible. It’s downright a disaster. Now here we are, in the middle of this disaster. (Accept it.) It is what it is. (Needs.) What do you need? (Personal power.) How would you get these needs met if no one was around to help? (Ideas and Next steps?) What can we do next? Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for trusting me with this.”

It is amazing how often the other person is simply “complete” and doesn’t need anything further. They just needed to be heard without judgement and now that need has been fulfilled. Surprisingly, they might say, “okay, I’m good. Thanks for listening,” and they walk away. Sometimes, all we need is to tell someone about our worries so we can stop worrying about it. Holding space lets us simply get it all out; get all the emotion out. When it’s clear that our words have been received correctly and the other person actually gets that, “the situation sucks”, a big sigh of relief washes over us. Our emotions settle. We find ourselves becoming calm again. The secondary emotion of feeling heard is amazing. It’s a form of connection and intimacy.

After feeling heard, someone might literally say, “okay, I’m good. There’s nothing you or I can do about it today. It sucks, but it is what it is. Thanks for listening.” There is acceptance. We surrender to what is as we realize, “we might not have to fight this. Instead, we can bend.”

Another situation where we might agree to do nothing is when we agree to disagree. Again, it still helps to first recognize, “it is what it is.” For example, “(Recap and acknowledge.) Okay, it sounds like we both disagree on this and we both have no intention of changing our minds. Good to know. I’m glad we got that out in the open. (Accept it.) Well, it is what it is. We disagree and we’re not going to change our minds. (Needs.) Aside from that, what do you need? (Personal Power.) Can you handle this without me? (Ideas?) What can we do next? (Next steps?) Should we agree to disagree and get back to being friends? Should we agree to disagree and just not discuss this topic with each other? (Gratitude.) Well, thank you for having this chat with me. Thank you for your honesty and your patience.”

There’s a freeing moment where we realize we don’t agree and that’s okay. We don’t agree and we don’t have to fight to change each other’s minds anymore. In fact, a great boundary phrase is, “timeout. I’m not interested in changing my mind at this time. If I do want to discuss this in the future, I’ll let you know.” We can also do that in reverse as a check-in, “timeout. I’m not trying to change your mind. I’m just saying we have different opinions and that’s okay.”

After acknowledging and accepting the situations, if we do realize there is more to do with this conversation, we can move on to getting everyone’s individual needs out in the open.

Recognizing Everyone’s Human Needs

Everyone has the same human need to survive and hopefully thrive. We have a list of those needs in Burbol’s Hierarchy of Happiness from the article, “Signals Are Unmet Needs”. Here is that chart again:

Recognizing aloud that everyone has human needs, and everyone deserves to have their needs met, can do wonders for calming a situation down. Many times, this is at the core of our disagreements and misunderstandings, people have needs that are not being met, they are trying to get those needs met, and it’s just not working or no one is listening. Then things escalate due to human emotions and human ego.

Things escalate when it appears no one cares about our needs. Things escalate when it appears our needs are going to continue to not be met. Things escalate when someone else is getting extra focus for getting their needs met while we are denied the same curtesy.

Pause and start from, “okay, we all have some needs that are not being met and we all want to see everyone’s get their needs met. Can we agree on that?”

Go around and get everyone’s unmet needs out in the open using the hierarchy of happiness. (There is a more detailed breakdown of the needs in each category in the article, “Signals Are Unmet Needs.”) We are not talking about solutions right now and we remind people of that intention. Avoid letting people go on and on about what they don’t need. That is negative, sounds like blaming, and goes nowhere productive. If someone does say what they don’t need, gently lead them back to the focus. “Okay, I hear what you don’t need. Can you tell me what you do need? Can we all focus on that?”

With everyone’s needs very simply spoken, it often helps to summarize everyone’s needs and then recognize, “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.”

For example, here is a recap of everyone’s needs and a declaration of individual power. “John’s needs recognition for his work both now and in the future. Jenny needs to be able to eat when she’s hungry. Bill needs to regain his time and autonomy. Let’s also recognize that it’s our own responsibility to get our own needs met without hurting or obligating others. We are all free to go get our needs met elsewhere. No one is obligated to help anyone. Any offers to help each other would be just that, offers.”

Each Individual Reclaims Their Power

After the recap of everyone’s needs and a declaration that we are each individually responsible for getting our own needs met, many times, the solutions will reveal themselves. Just getting everyone’s needs out in the open and everyone recognizing how it’s no one else’s job to fulfill their unmet needs can be a huge mental shift that unlocks all the, now obvious, solutions.

For example, if Jenny has a need for food because she’s hungry, she gets to meet that need in any respectful way she chooses. She gets to choose her actions. She does not get to choose someone else’s actions. She doesn’t get to demand that it’s Bill’s job to cook for her without Bill’s clearly expressed agreement. Even if Jenny and Bill had a preexisting agreement around Bill cooking for her, Bill is free to say, “this agreement is not working for me. If we can’t find a solution that works for both of us, I’m going to have to withdraw the offer.” Notice Bill’s wording here, “a solution that works for both of us,” and “withdraw the offer.” He is making it clear that he’s looking for something that works for everyone, or he will say, “no deal.” In fact, he can just say, “everyone wins or no deal.” He’s made it clear that his participation in the current agreement is an offer and not an obligation while also advocating for the other person’s beneficial outcome. (We will explore this more in the game “everyone wins or no deal” in one of the upcoming sections.)

Sometimes people will insist that there was a prior agreement which creates an obligation. They use words like, “but you promised.” This might have been true in the past. By this point, the other person should have already given a genuine apology on the impact of that broken agreement. However, things are clearly not working for everyone, and it is what it is. Now is the time to recognize, “what we have been doing isn’t working. What we’ve been doing has created a misunderstanding and pain.” Then we can begin to take steps towards finding something that works for everyone, or decide to withdraw our offers and get our needs met elsewhere while wishing everyone here the best.

It’s important that no one is withholding an offer out of spite or revenge. Lets not stay in relationships with people who do that to others and lets not allow our ego to turn us into the type of person who would purposely do harm to others. Instead, have the group callout offers and agreements that are not benefiting everyone, and dissolve them in favor of finding better arrangements. These will be the intentions behind the game, “everyone wins or no deal,” in a future section in this article.

Again, “anyone can walk away at any time. The only thing keeping you here is your choice to be here and seek a solution that benefits everyone.” That’s a lot of carefully chosen words and carefully crafted intentions. Recognizing everyone is free to walk away can be a wonderful moment of no obligations or expectations on anyone. It is made very clear who wants to work together and who wants to get their needs met elsewhere.

It’s also a great thing to remind everyone that the solution might be outside the people currently in this discussion. Are we even the right ones to help each other fulfill these specific needs? For example, Jim may offer to fix Beccy’s car, only to realize, this is beyond his level of experience. Beccy may be upset that Jim said he could fix the car and now he can, but it is what it is. Beccy needs her car fixed and Jim can’t do it. So, they each ask themselves, “what do I need and what can I do next?” Sadly, Jim needs to move on from this project and can’t offer any more time or energy. Beccy needs to be able to get to work every day and her car getting fixed is a roadblock for that need. Beccy can get her own needs met by finding a ride, taking a bus, or calling a cab. She has the power to get to work without the car, at least for a while. Next, with Jim’s offer off the table, Beccy realizes she can look online for a mechanic, ask her circle of friends if anyone knows a good mechanic, or ask if one of them can fix her car. Jim can offer to ask his friend circle these same questions and pass on Beccy’s number, if she wants. Beccy can decline the offer with no penalty or punishment because it’s a genuine offer, not a demand.

If there is not an obvious solution, a powerful step is to take a moment to have everyone ask themselves, “How would I get this need met if no one else was around to help me?” For example, all the other people in the conversation are vacationing on Mars for a few months and can’t be contacted. If we each take everyone else out of our own personal equation, what would we do about this situation? How would we go out and get our needs met? It is often surprising to find out that it’s not really that big of a deal. We were just stuck on the idea of getting our needs met by these specific people.

It can be powerful, and freeing, to speak aloud what we would do if we were to go out and get our needs met on our own. It can also be freeing for the other people involved to have all that obligation lifted off their shoulders. When everyone looks around and acknowledges how we each can, in fact, do this alone, we recognize ourselves and each other as being powerful.

The group frees each other, and everyone has a solution to start with. This “everyone handles their stuff separately” solution is probably not ideal, but it’s a possibility. It’s a start. If everyone walked away from each other right now, everyone would have a way to go get their needs me. From there, people can begin to brainstorm and make offers to help each other with better solutions provided they have the spoons and the bandwidth to do so.

This type of perspective shift will turn someone’s offer to lend us 15 minutes of their time from being seen as stingy to, “I can handle this myself, but if you want to offer fifteen minutes of help, that would be a bonus! Thank you! Thank you for your time!”

“How would I get my needs met if no one else was around to help me?” This question is great for breaking out of solutions that create dependency and obligation on others. It’s great for recovering our individual power and releasing our expectations of others. Even our interdependence needs don’t have to be met by the exact people in the current conversation. Once we recognize this, our mindset moves from thinking “solutions are scarce” to a place where solutions are abundant and everywhere. We stop being attached to that one specific outcome in favor of a vast number of possibilities.

This mind shift all boils down to the powerful question, “How would I get my needs met if no one else was around to help me?”

Exploring Curiously Abundant Solutions

Curious questions are a great way to knock our mind out of thinking small, getting stuck on one specific outcome, and defensive posturing, in favor of seeing a world full of abundant possibilities. Curious abundance is what we are looking for and the right questions help us make that shift. Our brain is always thinking and processing so why not give it something constructive to focus on? Rather than letting our brain spin on how something “can’t be done”, why not ask ourselves, “how can it be done?”

The practice of asking the right questions that consistently nudge everyone’s brains out of unproductive thinking and shifts them in to into place of abundant possibilities is the key to becoming unstoppable. Here are a few of those types of empowering questions.

“How can I?” and “How can it be done?” These questions will shift people’s minds out of “can’t” and into “can.” Those negative statements are self-fulfilling prophecies. Remember, everyone’s ego wants to “be right” at all times. If someone’s brain decides we can’t do it or it can’t be done, our ego is going to treat that like a fact and then do everything it can to “be right” about this “fact”. This was one of the key topics of the article, “Stories Become Our Reality.” Another great mind shift here is to realize aloud, “obviously it can be done because people all over the world are doing it every day. How do they do it? Knowing people have already done this, how can I get this need met too?”

“What if”; “what if it already was?”; and “what would it look like if…?” Every roadblock and dead end can be turned into a “what if” question. “What if we did have the time, money, energy, resources, etc.? What if we already had the missing piece?” When someone says, “I don’t know how,” ask them, “but what would it look like if you did?” Sometimes we’re stuck on one piece of the puzzle, and we just can’t look away, but what if we could? What if this part just worked? What if we can just skip it and go to the next piece instead? What if the thing that is holding us up simply wasn’t? This leads us to the next great question.

“What would it look like if it were easy?” This question pops people out of looking for all the hard ways of doing things or being convinced the only path is a difficult path full of time-consuming work. What would be easy? Who would this be easy for? What tools would make this easy? If we could pull a big lever labeled “easy,” what would it do? Again, if billions of people do this every day, what are they doing? What would it look like if it were easy?

“What if we changed our surroundings?” Would it be easier if we changed our location? Are we simply standing in the wrong room? Baking a cake in the bathroom seems as hard as showing in the kitchen. What would it look like if it were easy to bake or easy to shower?

“Who would this be easy for?” Sometimes we’re unconsciously considering all the hard paths because we simply lack a skill. We are attaching obligations to a specific person because they have the skills and we “need them” to do something for us. No. We don’t need a specific human; we need a specific type of human. There are literally billions of humans out there who have the skills and who want to help us get our needs met. Is that type of human even present right now? Let’s find that type of person or let’s follow their lead and take some of the same steps they would take.

“Great, we have another possibility. What if we set this one down for just a second and ask ourselves, ‘what else? What’s another way?’” Sometimes we’re on the right path of curious abundance but the solution we don’t know we’re looking for is two steps further down the road. Set the current solution down on the path long enough to take another step towards the one that will work for everyone in the end. We can always come back to this one and pick it back up again.

“Can we do it in reverse?” When we’re stuck on one specific step in the solution, this opens doors from the other side. “What if it were easier to do it in reverse?” I’ve seen this question redirection entire teams of people. For example, a department could be banging their heads together saying, “how on earth are we going to build a battery capable of running the engine we’re build from scratch?” and then shift to, “wait, what if the battery was already built? Instead of spending all this money on building our own, what if we just buy a battery or license the technology? How much time and money would that save us?”

Asking all these questions and doing all this curious brainstorming will eventually lead to solutions or at least a good direction. The next step will be logistical questions, details, coordination, and that big scary word, “negotiation.” Let’s do some mind shifting magic on the word “negotiation.”

Negotiation & Coordination

Negotiation is incredibly simple when viewed through the lens of “everyone wins”. Many of us might think about negotiation as something a car salesperson does to “trick us” into buying an overpriced car that we don’t need. Our mind may fall into thinking it’s us verses the salesperson as we take a defensive stance to actively try to “not get screwed.” This is win-lose or lose-win point of view that leads to that same style of thinking, action, and results. Remember, (from the article, “Identifying who we’re talking to”) if anyone loses then we are flirting with outcomes where everyone loses. Lets not play that game and lets not play with those types of people. Lets play a totally different game of “everyone wins or no deal”. This works with A, B, C, and D caliber people (also from the article, “Identifying who we’re talking to”). Of course, communication always works best with A caliber people.

The game is simple and to introduce it we can simply ask, “How about we play a game of everyone wins or no deal?”

The Game: Everyone Wins or No Deal

There are 4 rules.

Rule 1: Everyone wins or no deal.
Rule 2: Everyone answers the question: “What if everyone here was in another country and totally unreachable for a few months, how would you be get your needs met today?”
Rule 3: Offers only. No threats. All offers can be declined freely with no penalty. Threats are “no deal” because they are not an “everyone wins” outcome.
Rule 4: If anyone declines an offer, they must say, “Thanks for the offer. That doesn’t work for me. What would work for me might be something like…’ and then they say something new that would actually work for them.

It would be really wonderful if the other people involved each bought-in on this game. When everyone actually wants to play this way, real synergy emerges quickly. If someone doesn’t want to play the game, then they don’t have to. They can opt-out of the offer to play with no penalty from us. It just means they picked “no deal.”

On our side, we are not upset by people who decline the offer because we already asked ourselves the question in rule 2. We already know we can get our needs met, regardless of other people’s involvement. Earlier in this article, we already found an “everyone wins” outcome when we all asked ourselves what we would do if no one else was around. Rule 2 means we all start this game as winners and now we are trying to solve the puzzle of creating an even better outcome for everyone.

Rule 3 and 4 are etiquette agreements that increase our chances of hearing each other’s words and consistently taking productive steps forward. Rule 3 sets a safe space and declares a safe-ask culture. (See the article on “Safe Space Culture” for a refresher on safe-ask culture.)

Rule 4 is one of the most simple and effective negotiation tips I’ve ever learned. When saying a “no,” immediately follow it with something you are a “yes” to, then negotiating doesn’t feel like negotiating because no one is passively stonewalling and shooting down everything the other person is saying. It goes from a tug of war full of “I want, I want,” to a menu full of offerings that we need only pick a suitable selection from. Rule 4 also has some added language to constantly remind everyone about how we are all only using offers and offers can be declined freely without penalty.

Rule 4 reminds me of a wonderful moment in the movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” where the pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp, says, “the only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do.” Rule 4 is a focus on what we can do rather than getting lost in all the things we can’t do.

“What would work for you?” This is a gentle way to enforce rule 4. As we realize many ideas and solutions don’t work for everyone, the group can get lost in trying to suggest solution after solution with one person who has take on the role of shooting down every idea. Devil’s advocates and negative Nancys are not welcome in a game of “everyone wins or no deal.” Shift out of that by saying, “okay, it sounds like this won’t work for you. I hear you. Can you tell me what would work for you?” That’s a little active listening and a redirecting question. From here, we let them tell the group rather than the group trying to read their mind. This can also be great when combine with questions from the last section. For example, “What if we did have the resources, what would work for you?”

One of the keywords in rule 4 is the word “new.” When declining an offer, we say something new that would actually work for us. Repeating the same request over and over again is not productive and is a “no deal.” If this happens, try saying, “okay, it sounds like none of my offers will work for you. I hear you. The request/offer you keep repeating doesn’t work for me. It sounds like we’ve landed on ‘no deal,’ unless you’d like to suggest something different.” Remember, we don’t have to engage with difficult people. We have boundaries. If they don’t want to work with use for everyone’s benefit, we can simply declare “no deal,” wish them the best and then go find someone who wants to help us get our need met.

What I love about the “everyone wins or no deal” game is, from this moment forward, everyone has been empowered to enforce any of the rules. Anyone can say, “everyone wins or no deal,” at any moment. Now everyone gets to gently, yet firmly, assert the same boundaries and intentions.

Underneath the hood, this game is actually just a series of boundaries being spoken in a fun way. That means we can start playing the game without anyone else knowing we’re playing it. This comes in very handy when we are faced with a manipulative or aggressive person who is trying to push us into negotiating their way. Without even alerting them to the game, we can introduce them to the rules one at a time by stating them as the boundaries they actually are.

For example, lets say someone wants something from us and they are making demands. We respond with any of the game’s 4 rules. We start with the one that makes the most sense in that moment. Then we become like a broken record that has an assortment of phrases which enforce that boundary. We don’t introduce another rule until they are respecting the boundaries we’ve shared so far. We might say, “timeout. I’d like to work with you on this. Just to let you know, I have a personal rule, either everyone wins or no deal. Everyone wins, or I’m not having this conversation.” If they respond with a threat, give them rule 3 as a boundary, “No deal. Threats are not an ‘everyone wins’ solution. I only participate in ‘everyone wins’ outcomes.” We can’t collaborate with them until they choose to collaborate with us. Until then, we make not attempt to collaborate because it would go nowhere.

As long as they continue to not play nicely, we continue to be a broken record of assorted boundary phrases. We don’t rush to introduce more rules, rather we repeat the rules introduced so far with slight variations to the wording, “I don’t work with people who make threats,” “everyone wins or no deal,” “threats are not an ‘everyone wins’ solution,” and “okay, no deal. I’m walking away now.” We do not stand there and let a difficult person continue to be difficult. We inform them of a specific boundary. We repeat the boundary 3 to 5 times using variations on the wording. Then we warn them that we will end this conversation if they can’t respect our boundary. Finally, we say “no deal. I’m walking away now,” and we walk away.

When they agree to start respecting our “everyone wins or no deal” boundary, we can start working with them. The first thing we do is ask them rule 2 with genuine curiosity. “Let me start by asking you this, if everyone here was in another country and totally unreachable for a few months, how would you be getting this need met today?” This is to get them to see their own power over the situation while also recognizing how our involvement in the situation is a luxury for them and not an obligation for us.

Of course, they may not be excited about the question, however, we can become a broken record on that too. We can also walk them through the scenario slowly. “Hold on. I can’t help you until I understand your situation and your options. Imagine for a moment. I’m just in another country, what would you be doing about this without me?” We can stay with them and encourage them if they default to “woe is me” style helpless answers. “Are you saying you’d be helpless without me? I don’t believe that. You seem powerful and capable to me.” Once they’ve answered the question from rule 2, we can call out their power. “Awesome! That solution is not ideal, but it’s a start. You can handle this without me. Now, lets see if we can collaborate on finding a better solution that works for everyone.”

Next, we introduce rule 4. We may have already been saying the phrase from rule 4 this whole time, but now we can make it a collaborative effort. “How about we take turns making suggestions and if a suggestion doesn’t work, we respond with something new or different that might actually work instead of just shooting each other’s ideas down over and over again?”

We can walk difficult people through our boundaries one at a time until we either have an everyone-wins solution, they walk away, or we declare “no deal” and we walk away. The whole time, if we are in the mindset of playing a game to see how everyone can win, we won’t allow ourselves to get sucked into an argument or any salesperson style negotiation. While they are being hostile or emotional, we get to calmly play our game of “everyone wins or no deal.”

In many situations, rule 4 and a little active listening is often all we need. When we are interacting with a person who is making a request from us, rule 4 will often just handle the situation without even telling the other person about the rule. “Okay, I hear your request for (whatever they just requested). That’s not going to work for me, but you know what will work for me? (Offer something new that could work.)” With rule 4 alone, we can easily defend our time and our energy as we work together to find a solution that benefits everyone. If they don’t follow our lead, we can make a clear request for everyone to use rule 4. This might lead to introducing the other rules one by one.

Regardless of introducing the game upfront or one rule at a time, here are some great questions to keep everyone on track while negotiating and coordinating together.

“What if we don’t have to benefit everyone today or at the same time?” Sometimes we simply can’t do both things at once. Sometimes we can’t go on that business trip and make it to little Timmy’s baseball game because both are on the same day. What if we take Timmy to the batting cage a few days before the game so he knows we’re rooting for him? Will something like that meet Timmy’s need for love and support even when we are out of town during the game?

“What if we flipped a coin?” I’m blown away by how many “problems” I’ve seen get solved with this question. In half the cases, peoples’ minds seem to jump right to the final solution the moment the coin flip is suggested. On the other hand, many people realize the detail being discussed is not that big of a deal and it petting to just pick something and be done than be at a standstill. Sometimes people realize we’re talking about picking between two similar paths to the same place when we could stop talking and start walking. Sometimes we’re so caught up in whose way is “more right” that we just need to stop talking about it and do something. It’s a realization of, “we can spend another 2 hours talking about it, or we can just spend 5 minutes and be done already.”

“What if we take turns?” Everything about the coin flip also applies here. Sometimes a solution doesn’t happen all at the same time. “Both of our needs are valid. How about we do your thing today and my thing tomorrow?” We can also agree to flip a coin today and then start taking turns from there.

As a final step for negotiations and coordination, ask, “does this benefit everyone?” This is a check-in with ourselves and the group to make sure we didn’t just get all wrapped up in inventing a win-lose solution on the banner of “everyone wins”. This takes us back to our underlining commitments to be a great communicator who doesn’t settle for solutions that don’t benefit everyone.

What About Follow Up?

When negotiations and coordination are wrapping up, ask everyone, “how do we all intend to follow up on the completion of these action items?” If we walked away without setting intentions around following up with each other, there is a chance many things could fall through the cracks.

There is a saying, “The fortune is in the follow up.” Most people don’t know how to follow up, don’t perform the action of following up, or are actually afraid to follow up. (That’s me. I’m “most people.” It’s because I was raised in a punish-ask culture.) As part of wrapping up and recapping action items, create a clear safe-ask way for everyone to ask about and communicate progress. For example, “Can we all agree to drop a message in our group chat by noon every day with the status of our personal action items until everyone’s items are complete? If we forget to do it, can the first person who remembers send a message that says, ‘hey everyone. How about that noon update?”

When everyone is in agreement about how to follow up, do a round of gratitude. Always end with gratitude. That’s one of the things that keeps our safe-ask culture safe. Thank everyone for playing the game all the way through to “everyone wins” or “no deal”. Now everyone can start taking action to get their needs met regardless.

Every time the follow up steps reveal that someone has finished an action item, be sure to thank them. When we do this, we transform the follow up from a nagging, “are you done yet? Are you done yet? Are you done yet,” to, “I can’t wait to show everyone what I just finished!”

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 – Ask For What You Want

Previous article in this series: Com101 – A Genuine Apology

Go back to the Table of Contents for Communication 101 series.

My Safe Play Event Agreements:

My Rope Safety Checklist:

My tiktok channel @dannyburbol

Sexy Party Rules – Ladies Only

Kinky Poly Danny — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 06:57:10 +0000

Found these party rules randomly online. In case you can’t read the image. Here there are typed up:

RULES OF THE HOUSE

You don’t have to do anything. That includes watching.
You don’t have to deny yourself anything, provided you can find: (a) participants, (b) equipment, (c) space, and (d) consent to do it.
No dogs. They are too big, and take up room that could be allotted to voluptuous women. No lizards or canaries. They are too small, and may get lost in the chip dip or crushed underfoot by dancers who have thrown Caution to the Winds.
You can come with your monogamous lover, make it with her, and leave your contract unblemished. You can also come with your vibrator, buzz off, and leave without having broken your vow of celibacy.
If you want to get so high that you can’t take care of yourself, be prepared to have other people take charge of you. That means we do things like confiscate your car keys.
Bring refreshments.
Come dressed as a character in one of your sexual fantasies.
There is room to crash, but you may not have a pillow all to yourself.
You can bring friends if you think they will enjoy the space.
Women only.
We will provide labels for you toys or equipment. We will not provide labels for your head space or your behavior.
In case you haven’t guessed by now, or heard all the rumors that have been flying around town, this party is intended to be a celebration of undomesticated female sexual energy.

You might also like…

Safe Play Event Agreements

A Little Guidance

Rope Safety Checkin

3 Styles of Polyamory

Kinky Poly Danny — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 04:04:35 +0000

My first instinct is to say, “where is solo poly?” but the more I think about it, the more solo poly can be any of this three.

Com101 – A Genuine Apology

Kinky Poly Danny — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:25:27 +0000

Update: I just got my pre-order page on amazon to turn this series into a book!

Here is the Table of Contents for Communication 101 series.

In my previous article, I talked about the catch 22 of communication which explains why miscommunication is so common. As part of resolving miscommunications, the need for apologies surfaces. Let’s not miscommunicate the apology too.

This is a meaty article. You may want to bookmark it or text it to yourself. Here’s a table of contents for how we’re going to break down this topic.

This Article’s Table of Contents:

The Soul of An Apology
Words That Are Not An Apology
Calling Out Inadequate Apologies
Finding the Words for a Genuine Apology
How to Ask for An Apology
Refusal to Offer or Accept an Apology

Apologies are one of the many things about communication that sound simple and obvious but can fall apart in practice. This is because an apology is not a script that can be followed to somehow “fix” a situation or someone’s feelings. It’s not a transactional conversation where they say, “I’m sorry,” and we suddenly feel better. How many times has someone rolled their eyes at us while apologizing, or said, “I’m sorry,” through grit teeth? How many times has someone given us a long flowery string of sugarcoated words that are no more than a showy attempt to disguise the fact that they are not sorry in the slightest?

The Soul of An Apology

Genuine apologies are intentions, not words. An apology without genuine intentions behind it is like a blues song with no soul, it’s just words.

If we did an internet search on “how to give an apology,” we would find plenty of scripts and four step guides that sound like instructions for two robots. “1. Say, ‘I’m sorry.’ 2. Explain what happened. 3. Receive forgiveness.” No. People are not robots and if we’re explaining what happened then we are definitely not apologizing.

Apologies are when we communicate our understanding of how our actions impacted other people’s experience in a negative way as well as our commitment to ourselves to do things differently in the future. It’s a communication we make after we learn a lesson from an unfortunate situation. This unfortunate situation has changed us on the inside and we intend to show the world that change on the outside with our future actions. From there, we share these intentions and inquire how we can make things right with the people we’ve hurt both now and in the future. The soul behind the words of an apology is that we have wholeheartedly decided to do something differently. We’re apologizing because we’ve decided to be better, not because we’re trying to appease anyone else. We’ve had a shift inside us. We’ve learned a lesson and we are committed to a change in our own lives because of it. Only then is the apology genuine. The apology is not just words, it’s letting the other person know we have experienced an internal shift and a course correction because of an unfortunate interaction that included them.

A genuine apology is very close to saying, “thank you for this lesson that I didn’t know I had to learn. I now see how my actions impacted you and hurt you. I am sorry. Now that I’ve learned this lesson, I won’t let this happen to you or to anyone else in the future. How can I make this right for you?”

An apology has 3 main parts, listen for understanding and our lesson, express our understanding and remorse, make things right for them, and gratitude.

We can break that down into smaller steps.

(Part 1) (Step 1) The first part of an apology is to hold space for the other person until they confirm we have demonstrated a full understanding of what they experienced, how it would have felt if we were in their shoes experiencing it, and what we contributed to that painful experience. That is a combination of every article in this series so far.

If holding space for them is not part of our apology, it is doubtful that they will feel heard or understood. Can we really expect anyone to accept and apology when they don’t feel heard or understood? We might not even be addressing their actual pain. We are probably making assumptions and apologizing for random things other than what actually hurt them. If they don’t feel heard, they will not, and should not accept our apology because our apology is not genuine. An ingenuine apology of this nature was never for them, it was to satisfy our own ego so it can continue to always be “right.”

As part of holding space, the second step occurs, (Step 2) we experience a real and internal shift. This part doesn’t involve the other person because it happens completely inside of us. However, this step is often impossible without hearing the other person’s experience firsthand. The other person is crucial; they are often the catalyst. At some point, we experience an “ah-ha” moment of understanding. We suddenly get where the other person is coming from, and we legitimately feel their pain. I call this the moment when “our lesson is revealed.” We hold space until the other person is complete and until our lesson is revealed.

If our “lesson” is somehow making it okay to blame the other person, then it’s not a lesson. Things like, “the lesson is, you’re too emotional,” “I see now, you can’t handle rejection,” or “the lesson is, you suck at communication, ” this is just our ego trying to fool us into believing we have nothing to learn here by making it the other person’s fault. That needs to be a big red flag to ourselves that our ego is in the driver’s seat lying to us and trying to trick us into learning nothing. Every misunderstanding is an opportunity for us to gain new insight about ourselves and how to interact with the world around us. Don’t let our ego twist and pervert this opportunity as “they are the problem.” Instead, we could be asking ourselves, “What unfortunate actions did I contribute to this, and what could I have done better?”

It’s not the other person’s job to convince us we have a lesson to learn, it’s our job to find it. Odds are, the insight will just click for us and when it does, it can transform the whole situation from a negative to positive. If it doesn’t click for us naturally, then we need to be curious and ask more clarifying questions. We need to actively pursue what we could have done better for our own benefit. The lesson may be that we have to make an eye-opening, life-changing shift in our behavior, or it can be the opposite. It might not be all about our behavior and instead, it might be all about how we see the world around us or the people in it. This shift in perspective might be what creates an obvious need for us to change how we interact with people and with the world. We may learn something new about the person in front of us that warrants us shifting our behavior to respect them properly.

Just because the lesson clicked for us doesn’t change the fact that we hurt the other person. Sharing our lesson may or may not be appropriate or even received well by the other person because it’s our lesson, not theirs. Our lesson is a blessing for us, but our shift in thinking and the change in our behavior that will inevitably come from that shift has nothing to do with what the other person might need right now. On top of that, just because we learned a lesson doesn’t mean the person we hurt will listen to or believe our commitment to behave differently. We must be okay with that. We have to set expectations that release them from any obligation to trust us. We will be different because we learned a lesson that will improve our life and how we interact with others. They are free to not believe us today and instead observe our consistent future actions that will demonstrate the shift in us today. Either way, our shift is not enough, it is for us, not them. We must address their pain, their unmet needs, their broken expectations, and we must do it to their satisfaction, not ours.

Once we’ve held space to completion and our lesson has been revealed, (Part 2) (Step 3) the spoken apology begins with a recap of what holding space taught us: their experience, a walk in their shoes, and validating how they felt.

After we recap our full understanding of their point of view we need to (Step 4) acknowledge our actions and how we created pain for the other person, then (Step 5) say, “I’m sorry” and mean it from the bottom of our heart.

Saying “I’m sorry,” is a bare minimum. However, let’s not stop there. If we’ve held space and genuinely put ourselves in their shoes, we will likely have more words that express our remorse. Let’s not go on a tangent, over embellish, or make it all about us. Instead, just let our remorse out in our own words. A little later in this article, I will go into more detail about which words can turn into pitfalls. For now, take comfort in knowing, if we are speaking from our heart because we understand how we’ve hurt them and we truly regret hurting them, then they will feel that connection at the heart, even if our words stumble.

Next, we need to (Part 3) (Step 6) specifically find out how to make things right from the other person’s point of view. We made a commitment to ourselves to behave differently because we’ve learned a lesson, but that’s not enough. That’s for us. An apology is not about us. What do they need to repair the damage we may have done to this relationship and to them personally?

Often times, holding space, learning a lesson, acknowledging our actions, and letting our heart express our sorrow, is everything the other person needed. However, we still ask, “what do you need to make this right?” If they are already complete, they will tell us. It can actually be quite a relief to hear them say something like, “you already have. I’m good now. Thank you.”

However, there will be many times that they need something specific. They may need us to replace or repair something physical to make things right again. Sometimes they need to hear a very specific phrase or commitment from us. Sometimes making things right involves repairing the damage we’ve done to their emotional safe space. Sometimes we need to make a round in our friend circle or coworkers to clear up the damage we’ve caused to their reputation. What they need to “make things right” may not be obvious to us. This is why it’s so important to ask them what they need.

We will explore asking for what we want or need in an upcoming article. For now, remember to keep the focus on what people do want and do need instead of talking about what they don’t want and don’t need. If we ask, “how can we make this right,” and the person we hurt is responding with a list of things they don’t want, try gently asking them, “instead of telling me what you don’t want, can you share what you do want?”

As they make their need known to us, we will do our best to embrace their requests and make things right. We will do our best to respect them and their boundaries. We will also use our boundaries to make sure their request is a reasonable one. If they’re request sounds more like they are taking revenge, then call a timeout because we clearly missed something before this moment. Maybe we didn’t hold space properly. We didn’t learn the right lesson, we didn’t truly walk in their shoes, we used poor wording when we apologized, or there’s just something else that is not right for the other person. Use our active listening to clarify and ask them what we missed. “Hold on. Timeout. Based on the request you just made, I feel like I must have missed something. Can we backup a little bit? Can you help me understand what might be still missing for you?”

Once we understand what we can do to make things right for them, (Step 7) we recap the action items and then we take action to change our behavior both now and in the future. Our apology is not our words but our actions from this day forward. Imagine if we walked away having a miscommunication right at the very end about the exact items to started taking action on and we did something other than what they were asking for. Recap and verify the action items. Say something like, “based on what we just talked about, I will (recap the actions I will take to make this right). Did I get that right?”

This whole experience becomes a blessing in our lives that allows us to grow and build stronger connections. We become a better person because of this unfortunate event, and through healthy communication, right up to the end, this relationship is strengthened.

Finally, (Part 4) (Step 8) we thank them for the opportunity to improve this relationship. Many other people may not give us opportunities like this. Many other people may have decided we are wrong or bad and not worth having a conversation about what’s troubling them because they don’t see us as worth it. Some people may not have the time or energy for these types of conversations and simply never reach out. They could have ghosted us or started a smear campaign against, but the person in front of us didn’t do that. They talked through it with us. Pause and recognize that. They showed us the actions of a healthy, emotionally mature individual. Thank them for being this type of person. Thank them for taking the time and energy to talk through this with us. Thank them for believing we might come to an understanding together and then actually doing it.

Here’s a recap of the intentions behind a genuine apology or the soul of an apology:

Part 1: Listen for understanding and our lesson

Hold space for them until they confirm we have demonstrated a full understanding of what they experienced, how it would have felt if we were in their shoes, and what unfortunate actions we contributed to their experience of pain.
Continue to hold space until our lesson is revealed, and we experience an internal shift. We stay curious with ourselves and ask, “If this is an opportunity for me to learn a perspective-shifting lesson, what would that lesson be? What unfortunate actions did I contribute to this? What could I have done better?” It may be a lesson about ourselves, life, people, how to treat others, or about this specific person. Regardless it’s our job to find our lesson.

Part 2: Express our understanding and remorse

The spoken apology begins with a recap of what holding space has taught us: their experience, a walk in their shoes, and validating how we would have felt the same pain that they felt.
Acknowledge our unfortunate actions and how they created pain for the other person. Our reasons why have no place here. Our actions hurt them, acknowledge it.
We say, “I’m sorry” and we allow our heart to express that remorse without making it all about us.

Part 3: make things right for them

We ask, “what do you need to make this right?” with the intention to embrace their needs as a priority.
Recap the action items to verify everyone’s on the same page and then take action to address their needs and change our behavior both now and in the future. Our apology is not our words but our actions from this day forward. We get one step closer to becoming our best self because of this unfortunate event.

Part 4: gratitude

Thank them for talking through this with us. Thank them for this opportunity to improve this relationship and improve ourselves with a new life lesson. Again, we get one step closer to becoming our best self because of this unfortunate event.

I believe, when our intentions and our heart are in the right place, most of the words will simply come to us naturally. However, I’d still like to walk through some of the dos and don’ts of the actual words we might choose.

Here is an infographic style recap of the soul of an apology for personal use. Feel free to save, print, and share with friends, coworkers, and loved ones.

Words That Are Not An Apology

I’m going to keep this short and to the point. Here are examples of phrases that are not apologies, how each phrase is likely to be receive by the other person, and why the phrase lands wrong. Final, I’ll give an example of a better phrase to try.

Key: “What’s said.” àO “What’s Received.” The reasons why. à@ “Try this phrase instead.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” àO “I don’t care about you or your feelings,” “I’m not interested and I’m not listening,” or “you shouldn’t feel that way.” Invalidates someone’s feelings and doesn’t show any interest or empathy for the other person or their situation. à@ “It sounds like you are saying you feel _____ and _____. Did I get that right? Can you help me understand better? (Then start active listening.)”

“I’m sorry you misunderstood me.” àO “You’re wrong. I’m right. This is all your fault. I’m not listening anymore.” Blames the other person for the miscommunication and then shrugs responsibility. It takes two. It’s both people’s responsibility to clear up communication, starting with us, not the other person. à@ “It sounds like my communication about this wasn’t the best since we’re having a misunderstanding. I’m wondering how I could improve my message. Can I try a do-over? What if I said it more like…”

“I’m sorry but…” àO “I’m not sorry because…” The word “but” instantly negates the words, “I’m sorry.” Everything else sounds like excuses that shrug responsibility and blame. à@ “Based on everything you just told me about how this went down from your point of view, (recap their point of view), that does sound hard. It makes sense that you would feel (the way they described). I would feel that way too if I was in your shoes. I’m sorry for (my actions that hurt you). I’m starting to see why we had this unfortunate misunderstanding. It looked different from my point of view because I didn’t know everything you just told me. Are you complete? Can we pass the mic so I might share what happened from my point of view, knowing it will be lacking the insight you just shared with me?”

“I already said I was sorry.” àO “I’m still not sorry.” If someone is trying to talk through something after an apology was made, then that means things are not resolved for their point of view. Whatever was missing from the apology last time is still missing. Saying, “I already said I was sorry,” when the last apology was somehow incomplete, will not magically fix the last apology. Something is missing or lacking. à@ “Timeout. I must have missed something important. I thought we already talked through this part and found a resolution. Does it feel incomplete for you? Can you help me understand what I may have missed that left it feeling incomplete for you?”

“What about that time you…” àO“You do it too, so I’m not apologizing.” This is an attack and a deflection of responsibility by blaming the other person for an event that is cherrypicked from the past. à@ “Timeout. I’m feeling myself getting defensive. I need a 10 minute break so I can hold space for you better.”

“Look what you made me do. It was your fault that I…” àO“I’m blaming you for my big emotions and my big reaction and I’m taking no responsibility for this.” This is a deflection of responsibility by blaming the other person. We are all responsible for our own emotions, actions, and emotional reactions. à@ “I didn’t realize it at the time, but the situation triggered some unexpected emotions in me, and I was being reactive. My emotions and emotional reactions are my responsibly. It’s also my responsibility to work on healing my own triggers so my past traumas don’t spill onto the people around me. I’m sorry. My reaction was exaggerated and uncalled for.”

“I apologize for whatever happened.” àO“I don’t care about whatever it was. I don’t care about you or your feelings. Here are some words to shut you up.” This demonstrates that the person has not taken the time to understand the situation and has no intention to listen. A genuine apology will tend to be more specific about exactly what went wrong. à@ “Based on everything you just told me about how this went down from your point of view, (recap their point of view). That sounds difficult and painful. It makes sense that you would feel (the way they described). I would feel that way too if I was in your shoes. I’m sorry for (my actions that hurt you).”

“Mistakes were made.” àO“It’s your fault too and I’m not apologizing.” This is a deflection of responsibility by minimizing one’s hurtful actions. à@ “I see now how (recap of my actions) hurt you. That makes sense. I would be hurt too if someone did that to me. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, I apologize. I didn’t mean to trigger you.” àO“I don’t need to apologize because you’re too sensitive. It’s your fault for overreacting.” This is a deflection of responsibility by attacking and blaming the other person. à@ “I see you are upset. Can you help me understand what you are experiencing?”

Calling out inadequate apologies

When someone gives us an apology that doesn’t feel genuine, we don’t have to accept it and we should not accept it. This is a boundary, “I don’t accept apologies that are ingenuine or don’t make proper amends for the harm done to me. I callout apologies that feel ingenuine and offer a do-over. I express what needs must be addressed to make amends.”

Before we jump straight to boundary enforcement, one thing to consider is that perhaps they are unconsciously resisting because we also need to apologize, and we haven’t done so yet. Sometimes apologies are a two-way street where one person apologies for something small and it unlocks something in the other person to also apologize for something small. With those two small things out of they way, someone feels like they can apologize for something a little bigger until the back and forth walks through all the items both people need understanding and amends for. That’s a valid experience.

When it comes to taking the path of sharing and enforcing a boundary around an inadequate apology, we will find ourselves considering the caliber of person (A, B, C, D) from our article, “Identifying who we’re talking to”. Here’s a quick look at the chart from that article again:

If they’ve already proven to us that they are an A type person, then we can work with them and be fairly direct about identifying what’s missing for us. If they are a B type person, we might tread carefully while assuming they have good intentions. If they are a C or D, we may want to stick with a firm boundary that includes short descriptions of our core feelings and core needs only as to not leave ourselves open to interpretation or having our words twisted against us.

Like all our boundaries, we start with gentle reminders and gentle enforcement. When we gently call out that it felt insincere, we don’t elaborate or educate. We’re not trying to make them wrong, we’re simply trying to bring awareness to a feeling we are experiencing. Simply call out the feeling the insincere apology create in us with as few words as possible. We covered many of these reason with the phrases in the last section. Their insincere apology might feel like blaming, defending, attacking, deflecting, minimizing, disinterest, invalidating, vague, placating, and lack of ownership for one’s contributions.

When we call out what’s missing from the apology with an A or B style person, we can do so knowing their intentions are to actually apologize. It might sound like this: “Hold on, timeout. I appreciate that you just said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Something about it didn’t feel genuine. On my side, I seem to be receiving it more like an attack. Can we try a do-over?” Being able to speak about how we might feel attacked or blamed is amazing when both people have built enough trust and practice to be that direct with each other.

An A or a B style personality might also happily walk through some of the steps for a genuine apology with us. For example, “I’m not sure what’s missing. Would you be willing to walk through the steps of an apology to make sure we didn’t miss anything? Can you recap what message you received from me when you were holding space? Can you tell me what it would have felt like for you if you were walking in my shoes? Would you be willing to tell me a little about which actions you feel you contributed to this unfortunate situation or what you wish you had done differently? Maybe we can retry the step where we talk about what we could do to make this right for me.”

Since their intentions are to figure out how to apologize, it’s okay to stumble a little together until we ultimately find all the pieces of the apology. However, we respond very differently with someone who doesn’t seem to have any intention of a genuine apology. We let our boundaries do most of the work.

If we are interacting with someone who is a C or D, we are probably already feeling defensive and should not try to elaborate or explain. If someone is being manipulative or combative with their insincere apologies, we don’t have to accept the apology and we don’t have to explain why. Manipulators and bullies often try to make it our problem that we are not accepting their ingenuine apology. They will attempt to bait others into longer explanations so they can redirect their efforts to picking apart our words. Don’t play their games. If they don’t want to give a genuine apology, there will be no convincing them or pointing them in the right direction so don’t even try. Simply become a broken record, “something is missing for me. I just have this weird gut feeling. I just don’t feel right yet.”

In the case that this person is okay with hurting us, not making an attempt to understand us, and also giving us insincere apologies, will may have to accept the person and the situation for what it is and enforce our other boundaries accordingly. This often means we will limit their access to us and our space as we are responsible for keeping ourselves safe both now and in the future.

When we take any action to enforce a safe distance from someone, it would be wise of us to take special care to check-in with ourselves first. Our own ego will want to sneak in little forms of retaliation and label that actions as “enforcing boundaries.” If our response is to hurt them in any way, we are not enforcing a boundary, we are attempting to take revenge or bully them into compliance and an apology. That escalates the issue and shows the world we seek lose-lose solutions. If we are seeking lose-lose situations, then we’ve miss one of the main points of this series, which is to only seek outcomes that benefit everyone and reject and walk away from all win-lose or lose-lose outcomes.

In some cases, it’s no longer about calling out an ingenuine apology but rather, “why do we keep ending up here?” Sometime we reach a point where we are no longer interested in apologies from this person. Maybe our trust is broken beyond repair, maybe they have a pattern of hurting us even though their apologies are genuine, maybe they have manipulated us with apologies in the past, maybe they are accident prone, or whatever the reason, we simply reached a point where won’t consider an apology anymore. That would be our choice. If we are in this position, we may want to check-in with ourselves to make sure there is a concreate reason for this decision that is not simply our ego getting the best of us or convincing us that the other person is “bad” so our ego can be “right”.

A concreate reason would be a boundary violation that has reached a level where apologies from them no longer hold any meaning. We would fall back on the articles on boundaries for how to enforce these boundaries. It is possible to gently and firmly let someone know, “I hear your apology. Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point where I’m no longer interested in apologies. I’m no longer okay with being part of this pattern we are in. I have a few boundaries I’m going to be enforcing to prevent this situation from occurring in the future.”

Finding the words for a genuine apology

With the dos and don’ts of the last section fresh in our minds, let’s put together a script for an apology.

Before we get to the actual words, here is a quick recap of “the soul of an apology” from earlier in this article. An apology has 3 parts, listen for understanding and our lesson, express our understanding and remorse, make things right for them, and gratitude. We can break that into smaller steps. (1) Hold space to understand their experience, walk in their shoes, and validate how we would feel the same way if we were in their shoes. Continue to hold space until (2) our lesson is revealed. Then (3) we begin the spoken apology with a recap of what holding space has taught us: their experience, a walk in their shoes, and validating how we would have felt the same pain that they felt. (4) We acknowledge our unfortunate actions and how we negatively impacted them, not our reasons why. (5) Say, “I’m sorry,” and allow our heart to express that remorse without making it all about us. (6) Ask, “what do you need to make this right?” (7) Recap and verify the action items and then take action to address their needs and change our behavior both now and in the future. (8) Thank them for talking through this with us. Thank them for this opportunity to improve this relationship and improve ourselves with a new life lesson.

Now let’s add real words to these steps.

First, (1) we hold space, and we walk in their shoes until we can validate how they feel. This starts with active listening, asking clarifying questions, and repeating back what we received to demonstrate we heard them correctly. Phrases like, “If I’m hearing you correctly, it sounds like you’re saying…”; “correct me if I’m wrong, what I’m hearing you say is…”; and “I’m curious about this one part. Can you help me understand better?”

Holding space will shift to walking in the other person’s shoes and validating their experience. Phrases like, “I can see now why you felt that way. If I was in that situation and someone did that to me, I would feel that way too.”; and “It make sense that you felt (the way they described feeling). I would feel that way too if I was in your shoes.”

Holding space continues as we stay curious and internally ask ourselves, “if this is an opportunity for me to learn a perspective-shifting lesson, what would that lesson be? What unfortunate actions did I contribute to this? What could I have done better?” We do this until (2) our lesson is revealed.

(3) “Based on everything you just told me about how this went down from your point of view, (recap their point of view), that sounds difficult and painful. It makes sense that you would feel (the way they described). I would feel that way too if I was in your shoes.”

(4) “I see now how (describe my actions and my choices) impacted you and hurt you.”

(5) “I’m sorry and (allow our heart to express that remorse.) I hurt you and I feel terrible. That is not how I want to treat people.”

(6) “What do you need to make this right?” Then go back to active listening.

(7) “Based on what we just talked about, I will (recap the actions I will take to make this right). Did I get that right?”

(8) “Thank you for taking the time and energy to talk through this with me. Thank you for this opportunity to improve our connection and our friendship. I really appreciate you and this friendship. Thank you for this chance to learn a new life lesson.”

How to ask for an apology

Our approach to an apology started with holding space to really understand the person before we began our spoken apology. Holding space is the first step. Without holding space, we might apologize for the wrong thing or accidently come off as being insincere. We slowed everything down, gained real understanding for the other person’s experience, and then we apologized for what we contributed to their experience.

What if, instead of saying, “I demand an apology,” we start by asking someone to hold space for us? Jumping straight to our need for an apology is the opposite of everything we’ve learned about overcoming the ego and not blaming others. Let’s start with, “is now a good time to talk?” Then we can ask them to take turns holding space with us. Odds are, if they hold space for us, they will realize an apology is in order. At the same time, when we hold space for them, we will probably realize how things looked from their point of view and realize we might also owe them an apology too.

A lot of times, apologies just happen as part of the deeper connection that comes from holding space. The apology comes out as part of active listening because it demonstrates our understanding of how our actions have hurt them. In theory, when we are holding space for someone, we are focusing on hearing their message and not sending our own message. Still, an apology will often fall out of our mouths as we hold space because suddenly, we get what happened from their point of view and we feel terrible.

If this happens, don’t consider the apology “wrong,” just because we’re in the middle of the holding space process. Apologies are often part of the validation process when holding space. At the same time, don’t let the mic get pulled out of someone’s hands. If we start going on and on about our side, our story, and how sorry we are, we’re not holding space anymore because we’re not making it all about us. Make a small comment, a small apology, and an offer to give a full apology at the end. This might sound something like, “oh wow. I didn’t realize that. Oh, I’m so sorry. When you’re complete with sharing, and I understand more about how things unfolded for you, I’d like an opportunity to apologize if you’d be open to it.”

We talking about the apologies that surface in the middle of holding space because sometimes people won’t feel “complete” with their turn on the mic until they get an apology. This makes sense as the apology demonstrates a next-level understanding for what the person was sharing and validates their experience and their emotions. For these reasons, a small apology and an offer to give a full apology when holding space is complete may be the only specific type of communication that can be slipped into the act of holding space as an acceptable exception to the rule. All other forms of communication would be much more successful if treated as a separate step after everyone is finished holding space.

Returning to the topic at hand, “how to ask for an apology,” we start with a request for the other person to take turns holding space and if the apology does not surface naturally, we can request it as part of what we need to feel “complete.” For example, “Thank you for hearing me. I feel like you’ve heard my whole message, and at the same time, I don’t quite feel complete yet. If you’re open to it, I feel like I need an apology for (the specific unfortunate actions that have already been discussed).”

We can also request an apology as a follow up item after everyone is finished holding space or as group activity after holding space. Sometimes it can be wonderful to get everything completely out in the open and then transition into a separate round of apologies.

Refusal to Offer or Accept an Apology

If we find that we are afraid to apologize or afraid to ask for an apology, we are probably surrounded by the wrong type of people. When we have the right, A caliber, people in our life, apologies are genuine and abundant. People who are A caliber understand how we’re all human and we all make mistakes. When our circle is full of this type of person, everyone will want to improve communication and relationships and become better humans. These are the type of humans who are grateful for the opportunity to take steps to make things right with those they’re accidentally hurt.

At the same time, the ideal case of being surrounded by A caliber people is not always the case or the situation. If someone doesn’t want to apologize, we must remember, that we are better off recognizing and accepting that this is their choice. Their actions and choices show us what type of person they really are. As a final step in having our request for an apology denied, take a moment to verify what they are doing. Make it clear to them how we received them and make sure we are all on the same page. “Okay, I feel I’ve shared why I feel hurt and that part of what I need to make things right for me is an apology. What I’m hearing you say is, you are not going to apology. Is that correct? Do you need time and space to process all this? Are you saying you’re not apologizing today or not ever?”

Perhaps emotions are higher than we thought, and we need a timeout to reschedule this conversation after everyone has had a little more time and distance from whatever created the misunderstanding. Checking in with them to confirm what type of “no” they are expressing can create a moment of understanding or reveal something they need before they can apologize.

If they don’t want to work with us for a way to “make it right,” that is their choice, and we will respect it. Remember, we already held space with them and they understand they’ve hurt us with their unfortunate actions. They understand they’ve hurt us, and for whatever reason, they are not going to apologize. There’s our lesson. It’s a lesson about this specific person, and perhaps humans in general. The lesson is, this person doesn’t apologize for things like this. We may have to ponder more on whether this is a human thing or just this person. Perhaps this person simply doesn’t know how to apologize, doesn’t know how to regulate their emotions, or doesn’t know how to manage their own ego. We may never know what it is but, it is what it is. Maybe we can ask a trusted circle of A caliber people for a reality check on our own ego and if we are the one who is out of line.

Either way, we verify and accept their choice rather than push them for an apology that they are never going to give. We can now adjust our expectations of them and our distance to them. Even if we did somehow successfully push them into giving an apology, a forced apology is not an apology. That would only create more animosity and damage the relationship further. We would be using the behaviors of a bully or a manipulator to get our way. What would that make us? Maybe someday things will change, until then, we will adjust our distance to them based on the choices they just verified they are making.

If they confirm that they are not interested in finding resolution with us or making things right with us, we thank them and respect their decision. “Okay, I hear you when you say you are not going to apologize, that’s your choice. Thank you for letting me know. Thank you for your honesty. If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.” We let go of our expectations and we embody the safe-ask culture we discussed in the article, “Safe Space Culture.”

I understand that we are in the middle of a moment where we feel we need an apology. It sounds outrageous to say, “okay. Thanks for your honesty,” as if it was no big deal. We are hurt. We’ve expressed that hurt. Now they don’t want to apologize for hurting us? That sounds infuriating. Again, we need to check our ego and our expectations. Yes, it’s infuriating to know they are okay with hurting us and not apologizing for whatever reason. At the same time, we just learned a huge lesson about what type of person they. They just did us a big favor by telling us who they are and how they intend on treating us in the future. Remember that reframe, they just did us a big favor by hurting us today, rather than hurting us in a bigger way in the future.

Here’s another way to look at it. Let’s say we lent someone $10 and they didn’t pay us back. Then, when we specifically asked them to make things right by paying us back, they said “no.” We could become infuriated or we could thank our lucky stars we only lend them $10 and not $10,000. Learning what type of person they are at the low cost of $10, is wonderful. We thank them for the lesson and set a boundary that will keep us safe when it comes to interactions with this person. We will simply never lend them money again. When they come back one day and ask to borrow money again, we simply say, “oh, no thank you. I don’t lend to people who don’t pay me back.” Our goal is to listen for and learn our life lessons as soon as possible and at the lower price points. Every time we do, we save ourselves a much bigger and more expensive lesson somewhere down the road. Rather than be enraged over $10 today, we can be thankful we will never be enraged over $10,000 because this person broke our trust today rather than somewhere down the road. If we want to take that a step further, we can watch people who don’t pay our other friends back, and learn the same lesson without ever lending out our own money.

Now do that same thing with identifying people as A, B, C, or D type communicators. Actually learning a life lesson from a small misunderstanding with a C or D caliber person today is priceless compared to finding ourselves in the middle of a big misunderstanding with a C or D communicator. See it as a victory because it is. It’s an even bigger victory if we can learn this lesson by observing our other friends’ interaction and without being in the misunderstanding, without lending the money. Be grateful.

For reasons unknown to us, they don’t want to make things right with us. Now we know. Maybe from their point of view, we are the toxic one. They might think we are the one who is unsafe or manipulative. Let’s not forget to explore and process that. Let’s check-in with ourselves and our A caliber friends. Whether that’s true or not, pushing them for an apology will only prove them right. Sometimes the only way we can show someone we respect them is to accept them as is and accept the situation as is. Sometimes all we can do is to give them the space they are asking for and wish them the best on their journey while we get back to doing our best on our journey.

Regardless of who is right or wrong, who is toxic or not, whose emotions are spilling over, who ego is making up stories, or who will or will not apologize, we have to accept everyone for who they are today and where they are on their life’s journey. We have to accept the situation as is if we’re ever going to learn from it and move forward with a life lesson.

We have to accept that sometimes an apology will never come because sometimes that’s what two people needed to experience to inspire the next step of one or both of their life-journeys. We have to accept that sometime our trust cannot be repaired and sometimes their trust cannot be repaired. For whatever reason, sometimes an apology is not enough or will never happen. As we will see in the next article, the situation is what it is. We must accept everything as is and take our next step on our own journey for our growth and wellbeing while also respecting that they are on their own journey with circumstances and choices we will never understand. We must respect that they are on a different path than us. They will learn different things than us and their lessons will be revealed to them at a time that is perfect for them, not us.

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 – How To Make Things Right

Previous article in this series: Com101 – The Catch 22 of Communication

Go back to the Table of Contents for Communication 101 series.

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A Little Guidance

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Article Contents

How Far We’ve Come

Surfacing an Unmet Need

Kicking Off the Conversation

What to Talk About

Helping Without Strings

A Declined Request for Help

Bringing It All Together

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

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This Article’s Table of Contents:

Acknowledge and Accept the situation as is

Recognizing Everyone’s Human Needs

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Exploring Curiously Abundant Solutions

Negotiation & Coordination

The Game: Everyone Wins or No Deal

What About Follow Up?

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

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Finding the words for a genuine apology

How to ask for an apology

Refusal to Offer or Accept an Apology

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!

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