Social Intelligence, Authentic Relationship and Conscious Communication

At the heart of the transition from the ego-centric to the world-centric lies one of the great secrets and mysteries of life --- "it's not all about you" (see The Myth of Managing Emotions). When we began to recognize that our social relationships do not revolve strictly around us, but are interpersonal, interactive and transactional, we begin to develop a deeper social intelligence and, from there, have the opportunity to develop the skill of holding space. Holding space means taking into account another person's vulnerabilities, tendencies, and positionality, and learning to respond to that, rather than react.

This notion is best explained with an example. Let's say you have a friend with whom you really want to spend time. Whenever you say that to friend, "Let's have lunch.", the friend says, "Sure, that sounds great!" -- then nothing comes of it.

You can take this in two directions. First, you can take it personally; you can see it as a rejection, you can start to question your own value, you can start to question your relationship with this person, you can start to feel sorry for yourself, your sense of inferiority or unworthiness begins to generalize to all of your relationships, your work, your cat... -- pity party!

Holding space for the individual in this example means recognizing and acknowledging his/her unreliability and lack of follow through as an element of personal and social style, then shaping our expectations about what this person is willing or able to do within the context of his/her relationship to us. In doing so, we are not disappointed, because we have allowed ourselves the space to recognize that this individual's behavior - lack of follow through, unreliability -- is simply consistent, and it has nothing to do with us.

Holding space in this manner allows us to take the emotional charge out of a situation. We are the ones who introduce the charge in the first place, anyway, and we do this through our own ego-centricity.

If we release the sensibility that we are the center of every one of our social relationships and recognize that relationships are transactional, then we are, again, able to hold space for another person's behavior. In doing this, we can then decide whether or not that behavior is acceptable or unacceptable to us. And, in making that determination, we establish a staging point for a dialogue that can only lead to more authentic relationship.

So, "I'm really pissed at you for blowing me off again." becomes, "You know, whenever we make plans to go out, you seem to forget about it, and that bothers me." or (internal dialogue) "I'm just going to quit suggesting we go out, and minimize my own aggravation!"

In either case, holding space is a social strategy that is useful in all of our relationships because it does two things; first, it encourages us to make realistic assessments of our relationships and the expectations that we can attach to those relationships, and secondly, it gives us the opportunity to respond, rather than react, all in all creating a much more pleasant and authentic stage for social interaction.

© 2008 Michael J. Formica, All Rights Reserved