How can you really know that you are psychologically safe?
Most people detect and experience the absence of safety, not the presence of it.
If your normal is “abnormal” then the ability to notice something other, is severely subconsciously restricted. And your mind, your rational thinking and knowing tool, cannot tell the difference. If you're accustomed to a perpetual state of preparation for the unknown - maybe even living with a continuous "stress" response due to multiple little stressors continuously going off all around you, then it's unlikely that you're going to be feeling the variations due to the cortisol, adrenaline and testosterone flowing all through you without your conscious awareness of them.
If, by now, you don’t know when you are psychologically safe or not, then read on. :) This is the gist of what I have learned firsthand in the workplace, on experiential courses, from life, from resources and from other people’s descriptions. For the past 13 years specifically, but reflectively since pre-teen years.
So, let’s start with an easy step of this short journey together.
Here is a phrase with deep significance - please don’t read over it - instead actually pause and reflect on it. Read it once with the mind, and again with the heart:
“If you are in the picture, you cannot see the frame”
Notice, perhaps, if you’re comfortable with this, or not.
Then, a short description of a little goldfish, in a little bowl:
- It does not know it is in a little bowl - that is it’s entire universe
- Every now and again, it bumps up against a barrier - which may be visible or invisible, but for sure, it’s not going past that barrier
- It does not know about wider waters, wild waters, predators, or even what it might eat in the wild
- It possibly does not even know that it is breathing water (in the similar way that we humans forget or disregard that we are also breathing a substance, called air. It’s not nothing, it is definitely something)
Again, notice, perhaps, if you’re comfortable with this, or not.
If you want more, I highly recommend reading up on a much older story, Plato’s Cave, or more correctly, The Allegory of the Cave. Here’s a good explanation: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/allegory-of-the-cave-explainede
So, back to my post's title then: You could be in:
- In a group, old or new; or
- With your manager, colleague, customer, stakeholder; or
- With a person you just met, a friend, a family member
Ask yourself a little question and see what happens to your thoughts, your feelings, your body.
Ask yourself “How free am I?”
Here are some variations:
- How free am I to <ask this person, this group, for help>?
- How free am I to <tell the other person they make me angry>?
- How free am I to <leave this room, without saying another word>?
- How free am I to <put my idea out openly>?
- How free am I to <have my idea crushed if I put it out openly>?
- How free am I to <have my idea crushed, if I put it out openly, to tell the others what it is like to have my idea crushed by them, and to leave this room without saying another word>?
- How free am I to <say No, without a reason>?
- How free am I to <say No, with a reason>?
- How free am I to <say Yes, with a reason>?
Notice, when you pause on your question in the moment, what comes back via your mind, via your feelings and emotions, and what response your body has. These are just additional sources of information, which you can use to make your conscious decision and then act thoughtfully.
Sometimes, we can notice that we are not 100% free, and that’s okay, just the fact that we know that, and can then still more consciously work within our non-free, non-safe context, helps us to be free. And being free is a major contributor to holistic health.
In the case of psychological safety, noticing that perhaps we are not entirely free, helps us to then frame a question, or a statement, that we can share with other people, balancing risk vs reward, and that could cause the group or the relationship we have with the other, to strengthen.
“How free am I?” is a great litmus test for psychological safety. What you do with the result of it, can actually create amazing experiences for yourself and others. Please try it, and let me know how what shifted for you when you did!
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