Is it safe?

Have you found yourself getting frustrated because people aren’t telling you stuff? You’d like to know what’s going on for a person but they just won’t open up to you?

Why do you think that might be?

I remember talking to someone years ago and they were lamenting just that. They wanted to know what was going on for the other person but they couldn’t get the person to open up.

Now in this particular case, it was obvious to me why this person was not hearing the full story. I made the comment “perhaps you’re not a particularly safe person for xxx to speak to.”

“Safe? What do you mean by safe?” was the reply.

I then spent the next while trying to explain what I meant by safe.

When someone is contemplating whether or not you are a safe person to talk to, there are a few factors that they will consider. Three of them are certainly: How you will react, whether you will keep something in confidence and whether you will use it as ammunition against them at a later date.

How will you react?

How explosive are you? How sensitive are you?

A person who is contemplating sharing something personal doesn’t want to be judged for it. They will be weighing your previous interactions to see how you respond to something that is different to your usual. If they’re feeling down, they don’t need to be beaten down further.

Equally, they won’t want to over burden you. If you are sensitive, they will seriously consider whether or not you will be able to handle the information or if it might be too much for you to bear. If you gasp or have some other strong reaction to news, they might keep quiet rather than upset you.

Another consideration: will you listen to them and support the way that they want to deal with it or will you railroad over the top of them and deal with it in the way you deem fit? This is actually a huge one and something that I’ve learnt the hard way.

I had someone confide in me something that was way out of my depth. I tried so hard to help, but in doing so I traumatised them more because they weren’t ready for where I was taking them. I assumed that if I took them to someone who could help them, they would heal, but it was too much, too soon and I was doing more harm than good – even with the best of intentions.

One thing that I have learnt about walking alongside someone who is dealing with hard stuff is that they need to set the pace. I am there to support them, not to take over their process.

Can you keep the exchange in confidence?

I grew up in a household where my brother and sister were both studying to become chartered accountants. Part of their curriculum was ethics, how to practice with integrity. We used to have conversations around the table about not sharing a client’s name if they were telling work stories. Or the opposite, if someone knew who the client was, you would keep quiet about their details. I took this information and would police my friends to make sure that they were keeping things ‘confidential’. You can imagine how much my friends enjoyed that. (Sorry friends!!)

A simpler version of this was when we were younger and as friends we used to tell each other secrets. The test would be whether that one person kept your secret. If you had only told one person and the information got back to you through someone else, then you would know that person had shared your secret and they were not trustworthy.

This goes on into adulthood. There are certain professional standards that require a practitioner to keep things confidential, but for the average person, are you trustworthy?

Are you saving up ammunition?

Is your character such that you might manipulate or blackmail the person later, holding their revelation over them? Some people expect that. They are used to manipulation.

Background has a large part to play in our expectations here. Recently I observed a girl from a different culture where daily life is dangerous and many are corrupt. She expects to be lied to and let down. Unfortunately, because that’s what she has grown up with and thinks is normal, she assumes it is true of everyone that she meets, even here in a new country. She finds it difficult to see the good in those around her. She is in a different setting now, but those cultural expectations still shape the way that she perceives others. I hope that her new friends can show her what it is to be trustworthy and show her that you can discern character.

There are some circles even in our own nation where being let down and lied to is the norm. So if we want to be a safe person, we need to consistently hold things in confidence and allow trust to build over time. For some people, trust feels dangerous and is a huge hurdle to overcome. Our character must be one of integrity to become a safe person to talk to.

I actually had a couple of great conversations, or so I thought, a while ago and spoke honestly of how I viewed things. Sadly, I found the conversations twisted and thrown back at me a couple of months later. To be honest, I’m not in any hurry to have a deep conversation with that person again. They love to have the conversations. But, knowing that the manipulation is there has made me back off. I have learnt through experience that person is not safe for me.

When someone is contemplating whether you are a safe person to talk to, there are a few factors that they will consider: How you will react, whether you will keep something in confidence and whether or not you will use it as ammunition against them at a later date.

You can weigh yourself up against those standards and assess whether or not someone else might consider you safe.

We are all at different places on our journey, but when we’re in need, we look for someone with integrity to support us through. There is probably more to be said here about a person’s character, but maybe I’ll broach that another time.