How to Create Emotional Safety
Or: Setting the Stage for Fully Sharing Our True Selves
Image Description: A square yellow sign posted reads “Safe Place” in black lettering.
With my disability experience influencing my personality development, I have pondered the situations when I have felt true emotional safety or the conditions for feeling comfortable being my full self. I admit that these conditions have been rare for me, that more of my life I have found myself hiding or staying in the margins rather than feeling confident and secure. In many situations I felt it was better to keep my head ducked than risk it getting chopped.
But if I am dreaming up the ideal surroundings for feeling comfortable, here’s a few ideas that we can all take to heart in building the emotionally safe community we all desire.
Practice open friendliness and small talk.
I admit that I find small talk difficult because I either don’t know what to say (or fear saying the wrong thing), am afraid of using up my limited energy for socializing on strangers or people I don’t see frequently, or am afraid of opening a Pandora’s box with someone new. These are all honest fears, but not always helpful to myself when trying to socialize.
In the past, I have experienced emotional dumping or having a stranger’s personal struggles voluminously described when I have merely said “hello, how are you?” In other cases, I have been friendly a few times and then been sucked into a person’s psychological dramas that caused me more harm than good (where I felt more responsibility for their well-being than they did themselves). These experiences have made me a bit skittish about being too friendly! Apparently, I am too sympathetic looking and too good of a listener to troubled people.
What I would like is to be able to say hello and make casual small talk without future expectations of a lifelong, committed friendship. I don’t want to put pressure or expectations on others, nor do I want any prematurely placed on me. A simple “hello, how’s it going” with a brief response is all I need to start building rapport. And with some practice and healthy boundary-setting, I know I can get there.
Listen more than you speak.
In a novel I read recently, one of the characters was describing how he was taught to listen more than speak as this was the best way to learn about other people. Sometimes I get excited and forget to listen as much as I should, but it’s so important. And asking perceptive questions (followed by more listening) comes in a close second.
It’s amazing how distinct the experience of feeling heard is compared to when another person is just waiting for their turn to talk (and not truly listening). It just feels vastly different when the other person is reacting to what you are communicating, as opposed to waiting for a pause so they can interject. My intention is to be a good listener because I learn so much more that way, and I hope that other people feel this from me.
Pause on passing judgment.
I think with age I have improved at not passing judgments about other people as quickly as I did in my younger days. It’s hard to avoid because that is how the human mind is wired: to assess and judge everything we encounter. We’re trying to keep ourselves away from danger, or find the people we get along with best, or any number of microscopic judgments about other people and the situations we may find ourselves in.
But what if we take a pause on that? I have realized that too many times I have made a judgment in error, either from not having complete information or listening too much to my internal biases over the relevant data. If I take more time to sort through my feelings or learn more, I do better because quick judgments often lead down the wrong path. So, if I feel myself jumping to premature conclusions: I take a breath, touch base with my thoughts and feelings, and slow the roll until I can view things with a calmer mind.
Be open to discomfort.
So many times I have felt uncomfortable in social situations. It’s sort of my starting point in most cases. I’ll be heading to a gathering and be dreading it. I have to remind myself that whatever discomfort will pass. I just need to give it a little time. And if I don’t feel better given a fair amount of time, then I give myself permission to leave.
As a society, I think we have gotten a little too unused to discomfort. If things don’t instantly go well, smoothly, or with pure enjoyment we believe something is terribly wrong. But this is a false narrative. Humans are weird and awkward. We don’t always know how to interact or accept one another. We need to embrace some level of discomfort in order to share time with people from other backgrounds and experiences than our own. That’s the only way we can learn, grow, and find each other as our whole selves.
Make space for other people to be where they are.
Along with discomfort comes giving people space to be who they truly are. This may make us uncomfortable or provoke different emotional responses in us. They may say difficult things or act in ways we don’t immediately understand. But opening that space matters because it is the way we invite people into the circle with their true selves.
I recently attended a group event and was enjoying myself while chatting with someone I had just met. She asked why I had stopped participating in the group years before and I felt safe to say that many of the previous events were either inaccessible or not listed proactively as accessible, such that I did not feel welcome. I explained that it became a lot of work for me to figure out what events were accessible or not, and it eventually became too much effort for me to bother. She listened and I felt safe to express a difference in experience, which boosted my feeling of inclusion. Although it may not have been purely comfortable for her to hear my views, I greatly appreciated being provided the space to express them without being judged or argued with.
Emotional safety cannot be taken for granted. I believe we all have a role in extending this for other people by listening with non-judgment to others’ experiences and views. It’s in these interactive moments that we can learn from other people, truly engage with them, and see our true selves become valued and respected.
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to have hears goes a long way.
You made so many good points in this (as you always do). I experience that same discomfort when I'm going somewhere or trying something new, especially if I don't know what kind of accessibility or inaccessibility might be at my destination. Even outside of the realm of my disability, I've been one of those people who is not comfortable being uncomfortable. It's something I've actively worked on in the last 6 years and it can make such a difference tackling it head on and realizing it's just temporary. It would definitely be nice if we had more places where we felt emotional safety so we wouldn't have to be anxious or uncomfortable beforehand because we would know where we were going was a safe place for us.