The Number One Priority Of Any Conversation

The best way to connect with another person so that they feel seen, heard and honored is to create safety. If emotional safety isn't a priority, the conversation will stay in the shallow end, and neither person will experience the bonds of connection a relationship can provide.  So the number one priority of any conversation is to create emotional safety.

How does safety get lost? 

I'll offer a personal story here:  In a counseling session, the therapist noticed I was "going to my head," lost in the analytical and cognitive part of my brain. I was using psychological lingo and talking shop with the therapist by mentioning a famous psychiatrist's view on trauma.  My comment was relevant to my history, but was couched in analytical language that avoided the actual painful feelings underneath.  I was retreating to my left-brain, while avoiding the emotional anguish trapped in my right brain. 

Rather abruptly, the therapist stopped me, saying, "I don't want you to do that.  I want the 'real you' to show up."

I shut down.

What was happening there?

I understood the therapist's intent to help me access the emotional pain I was carrying; but by rushing too quickly to disengage that analytical protective mechanism I'd developed over decades, the therapist lost access to those very painful places he was trying to rescue.  I no longer felt safe.  Anxiety hijacked my entire body; the threat response for fight or flight took over and any therapeutic benefit evaporated.

The therapist didn't understand that by stripping me of my coping mechanism too early in the game, he kicked out the crutches from under my arms.  And nothing better was offered to replace those crutches.  Until a person's emotional legs begin finding strength, kicking the crutches out from underneath them is a bit like asking a toddler who's learning to swim to remove their "floaties," then throwing them into the deep end.  They're not ready yet.  

To his credit, this talented therapist realized what had happened when I pushed back a bit, and worked sincerely to rebuild that safety.  Yet, some ground was lost nevertheless.

So how can we build safety in a conversation?

Honor the person's coping mechanisms.  Remember that defense mechanisms developed for a reason:  they once helped that person survive, or at least enabled them to handle terrifying or shaming events in their story.  Though it's true that those defense mechanisms are now an out-sized, misguided response to pain, they once served a legitimate function.

If you try to challenge or remove misguided coping strategies too soon, you create a sense of threat, causing the person to retreat rather than remaining open to you. Yes, we hope that those misguided defense mechanisms will one day no longer be necessary--like my tendency to shift to analysis and reasoning when I can't "feel" my feelings--but those defenses don't get healed by direct challenge:  they get healed through safety.*

What not to do:

Refrain from trying to change their mind too quickly.  Don't quote Scripture in hopes they'll give up their false notions and maladaptive coping.  At best, it will feel annoying to them; and at worst, it will feel threatening to those places that already feel threatened.  You don't have to agree with a person to be present to them. It's the kindness of God that leads to change.

Stay away from hasty advice or attempts to help them "see the truth."  They're not ready if you haven't earned their trust and safety; or if their pain is particularly acute.  Safety takes time.

What to do:

Rather than responding with judgemental or corrective language, say something like,

"I get why you'd feel so guarded and afraid.  I get that nothing feels safe to you right now."

"I understand why you've kept those feelings pushed back;  it never felt safe for you to express them." 

Creating safety is the number-one priority in any conversation.  Even confrontational ones.  When you have safety, you have connection.  When you lose safety, connection evaporates.

 .......................

*Heart Sync Ministries, founded by Andrew Miller, trains its practitioners to go slowly, building safety every step of the way.  They honor those protective mechanisms, which they call "Guardian" aspects of a person's identity. When functioning normally, those protective functions help us "guard our heart, the wellspring of life."   When not overwhelmed, those internal protective features are a legitimate threat-detection system for us.  Those fight/flight/freeze responses are very often necessary.  They help give us a sense of whether that guy at the bar has good intensions, or that opening up to a particular co-worker might not be a good idea. 

In a sense, the Guardian aspect of our identity acts like a gatekeeper to the rest of the person.  If that protective watchman isn't feeling safe, you're not going to gain access to the whole person; at least not without difficulty.  People can only discard their faulty protection mechanisms when they feel safe enough to do so.  Safety creates connection, and connection heals wounded souls.

Note:  Any misrepresentation of Heart Sync Ministry is purely the fault of yours-truly.  I'm referencing personal experience with Heart Sync, and knowledge of their approach, to the best of my recollection.

What does powerful connecting look like?

Powerful connecting rarely happens in the Church, or anywhere, for that matter.  Why do we often feel impotent when faced with the deep pain of another?  Should we advise, refer them to counseling, try to listen more attentively? 

What would you say to the following man who is courageous enough to share his anguish with you?

"This was a time of extreme anguish, during which I wondered whether I would be able to hold on to my own life.  Everything came crashing down -- my self-esteem, my energy to love and work, my sense of being loved, my hope for healing, my trust in God...All had become darkness.  Within me there was one long scream coming from a place I didn't know existed, a place full of demons." [1]

Would you simply try to listen to the man?  Assure him of God's loving presence?  Refer him to counseling? Suggest that God is trying to teach him perseverence?  Expose his insecurities and hang-ups, his false beliefs?

The suffering man in our story, by the way, was Henri Nouwen; a spiritual giant to many who had authored 39 books by the time of his death in 1996.

Failure to connect
Larry Crabb, author of the groundbreaking book, Connecting, says that one reason we fail to connect powerfully with others in a way that could actually heal them is because we often operate with a "Therapeutic Model."  Crabb calls this the "Treatment/Repair" Model, where we attempt to fix what's wrong in the other. In this model,

"The first step, of course, is to figure out what is wrong [diagnosis] and face it, then courageously work through the often long and painful process of coming to grips with the internal damage and learning to approach life in healthier ways [therapy]."

In order to fix what's wrong, we uncover the underlying psychological forces influencing their behavior.  We analyze the hurting person's past, look into underlying patterns and suggest coping mechanisms and re-framing approaches to insure a healthier outcome for them.  The people that offer the most insight become the person's heroes.   Counseling often buys into this model; and though it can often provide insight and suggest more healthy, adaptive behaviors, it may not actually heal the person. Insight may not translate into healing.

Under this find what's damaged--fix what's wrong model, we might recommend that Henri Nouwen see a counselor in order to get at underlying damage, expose faulty belief systems, and recommend treatment for depression. We might even send him Scripture verses to encourage him so that he can believe there's a light at the end of his dark tunnel.  But this model may yield little healing fruit. Crabb points out that, "Our power to influence lives does not come...from revealing to people the details of their internal mess."

What does powerful connecting look like?
Crabb rightly suggests that God does not often use a Therapeutic Model [Find and Fix What's Wrong] in order to heal us.  Rather, God does three things:

1.  "First, he provides a taste of Christ delighting in us -- the essence of connection; accepting who we are and envisioning who we could be."

2.  "Second, he diligently searches within us for the good he has put there -- an affirming exposure; remaining calm when badness is visible, keeping confidence that goodness lies beneath."

3.  "Third, he engagingly exposes what is bad and painful -- a disruptive exposure;" in order to uncover the goodness beneath the mess - "a goodness that is more defining of who we are than our badness...When we look at the bad, we must always be looking harder for the hidden good."    [#3 should happen less as we use the approaches of #1 and #2.]  Crabb adds, "A careful exploration of the redeemed heart does not sink us in a cesspool; it's more like mining for gold in a dirty cave." 

We are not primarily damaged people:  We are foremost saints, gifted with new-hearted vitality and power; a vitality that may be buried beneath a mess, but not subverted by it.

Did help come for Henri Nouwen?
So did Henri Nouwen find any who could help him?  Yes, from an elderly priest who understood how to powerfully connect with him:

"During the most difficult period of my life, when I experienced great anguish and despair, he was there.  Many times, he pulled my head to his chest and prayed for me without words but with a Spirit-filled silence that dispelled my demons of despair and made me rise up from his embrace with new vitality." [2]

Something powerful was poured out from the elderly priest into the broken-hearted younger man; arousing something buried, but alive and strong in Henri.  That power was the quickening life of Christ Himself.

We connect well with others when we...

• give them a taste of God's delighting in them,


• relentlessly search for the God-given good urges beneath their pain and mess,


• refuse our impulses to fix what's wrong; and instead, take our cues from Jesus, asking, "How can I join You as You release what is most alive in me, pouring that Life into them, in order to release what is most alive in them?"

 [1]  The Inner Voice of Love:  A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom, Henri Nouwen

[2]  Our Greatest Gift, Henri Nouwen

All other quotations from Connecting, by Larry Crabb.

How spiritual transformation happens

What are the mechanics behind how we change; particularly how the new heart within us is strengthened, nourished and released?  How do we end up doing the things our restored hearts really want to do, while not yielding to false substitutes?

Invitation to the Jesus Life - Experiments in Christ-likeness, by Jan Johnson, is refreshing, gracious and full of well-textured thinking on the spiritual life.  The author suggests that God "loves [us] into goodness, drawing [us] with irresistable grace."   Loves us into goodness.

Isn't it true that when we feel most loved, pursued or valued, we are least likely to fall for lesser things?  So how do we access this loving-into-goodness life?

The means is through new habits of the heart, mind and body (spiritual disciplines), but the goal is not to become better Christians, the author surprisingly points out.  The goal is connecting with God.  When we connect, we receive love, and the Spirit does the transforming.  We, as Dallas Willard suggests, are then becoming the kinds of persons who naturally do and say the things Jesus did and said.  It is an outflow of experiencing love, not conjuring up good religious behavior.

Though the author of Invitation to the Jesus Life doesn't necessarily frame the process in the following way, I would suggest that as we connect with God (through redemptive habits) we experience his affection, and the Spirit nourishes and releases the goodness he seeded within our new hearts at conversion.  The point is connecting with God, not trying to become a better Christian.