Psychological Safety - An Aura of Freedom

12/29/24

Psychological safety…

the wings of freedom, and

what to fighting fighting for.

Understanding psychological safety will help you reduce fighting simply by adjusting your cost benefit analysis.

If you get angry or frustrated, your body’s directive is to assign all bodily functions for the one goal of yours to resolve this rejection of circumstance. So when you’re angry or fighting, you only have the capacity to think for yourself.

So, when you fight, there’s only two things at stake, what you stand to gain, or what you stand to lose. This is by design. 

If I fight, the potential benefit of the fight is the desired change or effect in the other.

Or, there’s no change and I suffer this horrendous indignity. So…

If I don’t fight, I suffer now and always.

If I fight, I suffer now, but maybe not in the future. 

In this case, you should always fight, no? Even if you implement real game theory strategy.

But now, let’s add psychological safety to the mix, and see if it affects our decision-making.

If I were to fight, there’s the potential benefit of behavior change in the other,

but my partner will definitely lose their psychological safety. At least for moment in time. This is scientific fact.

Or, there’s no change, and still my partner will lose their psychological safety.

Now, if you put these options in a game-theory model, it becomes obvious,

If I fight, we both suffer, way more than if I did not fight right now.

When you learn how important psychologically safety is, you will realize you and your ability to provide, give and offer suffer way more fighting than not when not.

Understanding psychological safety (ancestors called this a freedom of a sort) makes fighting so unfavorable, you’re forced to find any other solution rather than taking this freedom away from someone you love.

If you are angry,

but committed to your partner, and

committed by your conscience to not fight,

you will always find the answer you need. 

The reason you don’t find a real solution is because fighting and leaving,

or at least threatening to, works out better for you,

rather than problem-solving correctly, in your own decision making matrix.

If you don’t see it, run the numbers again and you’ll see it.

Violence and conflict, for us, is always the path of least resistance.

But…

Psychological Safety, the sweet breeze of freedom that only a lover can provide…

Psychological safety is crucial to our well-being and any goal you might have.

Psych Safety is the lack of threat to your person.

Psych Safety is the lack of threat to your emotional well-being or pysche.

A small deficiency in psychological safety results in insecurities.

A large deficit results in trauma.

A complete lack results in manic behavior,

frequent panic attacks, and personality disorder.

Because these three types of deficits, or lack in psych safety, are so mentally restrictive, it curtails one’s confidence, creativity, expression, laughter, emotions, opportunities, potential, relationships, capacity to love, and much more.

So much so, I’m confident that upon raising someone, you will realize if you give them this, they won’t need anything else.

So psychological safety is freedom and the removal of it is bondage.

If you study your fighting closely, you’ll find any “fighting” is just two partners weaponizing and manipulating the psychological safety in the other. The only way to fight is to put another’s psychological safety at stake. This has been true and verified for thousands and millions of years. But to do that, you must pay the price of diminishing this safety for the future as well.

In other words, when you fight and say

“if you want to stay with me and not change, you’ll regret it…”

but just in different words,

you’re threatening their psychological safety in the future,

holding it hostage per se. If the acquiesce, they will always know

you will hold their safety hostage again.

This leaves an almost-permanent chasom of psychological safety or trust.

Now imagine if you threaten to leave

or cast more shame on your partner repeatedly,

there will be even less psychological safety,

which means more bondage, which means

less light in their eyes,

taller and thicker walls,

and potentially much worse if

it does not end in break up

or a complete breakdown.

Not only do they need it for their masculinity or femininity,

laughter, play and valor, they will need this safety

to tell you when they’re facing challenges.

They will definitely will not have such safety if

you see their psychological safety as pimps see women,

to be used and manipulated. 

And losing confidence will never make anyone more effective,

more capable of overcoming challenges, and

especially not stronger, more intelligent and present. 

Is the fighting worth it?

What did you get out of your last fight?

What did you lose?

Did you even see it go…?

12/29/24

Communication Fundamentals.

This might be a hodgepodge of the essentials we picked up.

I hope we see communication like a martial arts fight, or a synchronized dance, in that there is a lot going on, a lot of necessary technique, and if you don’t know the basics, you’ll flounder. The opposite would be true too.

It’s also important to frame this as general communication guidance. It must be standardized across your life.

So, let’s discuss some need-to-know communication essentials regarding everything outside of the verbal words you use.

It must be known that inflection is just as important as the words. Sometimes, they tell much more than the words themselves. 

Many times we want to be suggestive, or influence an action, but we use a tone that says “be still, I’m attacking you” such as when we are passive aggressive, accusatory, or threatening.

Many times we’re too suggestive, to manipulative, and it infringes on our partner’s boundaries, which not the best technique for diplomacy.

Our tone will cause defenses to go up faster than words can.

As kids we learned communication through tone and body language to survive. Also, it’s much more indicative of future outcomes. We just forget as adults. Your tone will make or break a conversation, just a few seconds of an inappropriate tone will do it.

It must be in control, and must be experimented with, to be trained with as if it’s actually powerful. The same way an athlete’s stance, movement and balance must always be in control, no matter how hard they push. 

And really, all the above holds true with body language and eye contact. 

How you are positioned communicates a lot without the words.

So always ensure to sit, face them, hands together, arms and legs uncrossed while having an important conversation.

(Well they’re all equally important, but the ones with stakes, yes?)

We can understand if someone is getting angry, comfortable, or uncomfortable by someone’s body language, we can spot it clearly even in the middle of a loud distracting party. But we forget that we’re IMAX projectors ourselves, especially when we’re fighting. 

Our words can say “I want intimacy”, but your body is could be saying “this person should remain in arms length” or that “this person is not acceptable and I’m not safe right now.”

The takeaway with tone and body language is that they’re both equally as important, impactful, or influential as your words. We always miss this, as if not important.

You need to see that these factors easily out-number the effectiveness of your words. When you see this, you’ll become way more effective with your newfound influence.

These techniques are important in part because due to the inevitability of our brain to mirror that of the other.

Whatever emotional state you send out with tone and body language, will be mirrored in your partner. And the more intimate you are, the clearly and louder the mirror. If your body language is communicating anger and rejection, your partner does not have a choice but to feel some of that back towards you. Blame psychological evolution. And for this reason, it’s never worth it to not have complete control over these factors as you converse.

In other words…

We show rejection (and not safety) with your tone and body language, no matter the words, to try to cause a behavior change.

Then, your partner begins to mirror feelings of rejection and threat.

And this is the polar opposite of being suggestive, no?

Now, because they’re in this state, they’ll accuse you naturally, as a defense. Like a porcupine with their adorable quills. 

And you’ll naturally call it gaslighting. All because you crossed your arms and raised the pitch of your voice at the end of the sentence and ended with an exasperated sigh of disappointment. 

And I find this is never the intention, or desired outcome, of the one that feels hurt. 

Communication Fundies Pt2

Message sent is never message delivered.

One must be in constant vigilance as if our verbal, verbal communication works like DHL, embarrassingly unreliable.

Track every word and how it’s delivered.

Not only does body language and tone fuzzy this up,

but so does your partner’s psyche at the time of conversation.

As humans, we selectively hear no matter what, because if we did not, our brains would simply break.

But it definitely get’s in the way, like DHL sending over your wife’s henna outfit from India. Useless DHL…

The best thing you can do is to better understand your partner’s cause and effect thinking patterns, or mental landscape at any given time.

If you read Robert Cianaldi’s Pre-suasion, just to transmit information, you need to frame or prepare one’s mind. Marketers, advertisers, sales people, and teachers have this down to a science. Or they would not survive their roles. We already get this when we try to find the right “timing” for a hard conversation.

But we need to do more to combat this tragic consequence of being human. Here’s how:

Put disclaimers on undesired implication before communication. Not only does it remove potential triggers, it will teach loved ones not to be triggered (when you slip) through your constant effort and vigilance. So say things like,

“I dont want you think A,B, or C, but…”

“You know that normally I think this, but I’m thinking that right now”

“Just out of curiosity…”

“Just so I know..”

These last two are the most used in our households when we feel the stress of being human coming into our Kamapuram. 

It pays off heavily to act like you’re walking on egg shells, because you always are anyways.

Also expect someone to no longer internalize what comes after your first sentence, possibly second sentence, when looking for a behavior change, or their defensiveness will come in the way (even if it’s not required).

It forces you to be short, simple, and to the point, as if you’re a writer, but with your words.

Expand only on their terms, it won’t matter if it’s not.

“Honey, would you mind cleaning up the dishes, otherwise it may make me feel this way. Does that work?” Then zip it! And wait for their reply. Any additional words would be manipulation…

If instead you say

“Honey, i did x, y, z. And you did a,b, and c.

And if we do the long division and factorials,

then I measure higher. And I’m tired. And you didn’t

do the dishes yesterday when you said you were, and

right now you can’t even get it up, why do you expect me to stay up,

so I don’t know why I have to ask, but can you like, maybe, like…”

At this point, expect a no, gaslighting, or something worse because they are human beings as well.

You summoned their defenses to basically veto anything you have to say. It happens more than you think.

If you have the ability to be more clear, more truthful, and more helpful in your communication,

then you also have the responsibility.

Why? Because Spiderman. 

But if you want to do less work over time and have less errors in transmission that frequently come from preoccupancy or insecurity, such strategies need to be applied or executed outside of the tough conversations, requests, arguments, sudden deaths, etc.

If you see yourself doing less work over time,

talking less over time, and feeling in agreement,

you’ll understand trust in ways many do not.

And it’ll feel like just the beginning

to a whole new world. Everytime.

Communication Fundies #3

Communication is interaction.

All human interaction is a give/take.

All communication is give/take, give/give, or take/take.

Guess where society errs on today?

Laughter, play and loving moments are give/give

Fighting and arguing is take/take

All communication in-between, except for a few exceptions,

are between these two ends as a this give/take

When you see this, you’ll see how much is possible to give with just mere words (remember words are everyone’s love language). And when your partner instigates a give/take interaction, you’ll know how to give to your partner without the acquiescence or surrender of your own integrity or resources.

Here’s an example: You get so good at giving by being a pro listener, that you’ll naturally be a good listener in a fight, motivating you not to go mean-girl-gone-Hulk mode, get angry, and turn this into a take/take battle.

Many times, people just want to be heard, taken seriously, and actually be listened to without thoughts or a defense bubbling and brewing in someone’s mind as they do.

When someone is generous with their attention, respect, gratitude, initiative, and affirmations with just communication, the world conspires to give it back. Read Adam Grant. I like that little nerdgeek’s stuff.

You’ll also be very good at taking when needed with grace, gratitude and affection.

Because you’ve given so much, everyone is in debt to you, almost insolvently so. 

It may sound cynical to say language and

communication is only used to barter

information, ideas and emotions.

But to me it’s empowering to understand

how words, through this eternal transaction,

can power the economy of feelings in a house,

organization or country,

the feelings that drive love,

growth and wonder every single day.