Empowering Communication: How to Advocate
How often are you conceding on things that are important to you? It is time to reclaim your space within conversations and start standing your ground. In this article, I will share my strategy for respectfully, confidently, and empathetically advocating for your needs. You can also use this strategy to disagree with someone healthily.
Step One: The Ask or Observation
You first have to broach the conversation to come to a disagreement or advocate for your needs. Once you have selected what you want to speak about, follow this structure (borrowed from DBT):
D: describe the situation
E: express your feelings and opinions about the situation
A: assert what you want.
R: Reinforce that assertion by thanking them for hearing you.
Step Two: Empathy
Step two is the hardest, but I will walk you through it with an example of my own. For the sake of this example, let's say that I wanted my partner to take out the trash because I was becoming burnt out on household chores and I needed additional help; here is how I would ask:
"I notice the trash needs to be taken out, and I am extremely burnt out on household chores, which are becoming overwhelming for me. I would love it if you would help me and take it out; thank you so much for hearing me out."
That request followed every letter of DEAR above. Now comes the most challenging part, their response to you. What would you do if they said, "no, that's your job." I know some of you might get activated by that statement, just like I would. We HAVE to inject empathy first to disagree respectfully and get our needs met simultaneously. Here's what that would look like, "I can see and understand how you might think that, and also, I am extremely burnt out on this and need a little extra help today." We disarmed their statement by empathizing with it and circled back to our original ask. This circling strategy is by design and leads us to step number three.
Step Three: The Revolving Door
Your needs are important, valuable, and necessary for you to be a functioning, healthy person. To remain balanced, we may have to stand our ground for a short time to meet those needs. The revolving door is how we can do that. If a request is paramount to your mental health, stand your ground on it. The individual you speak with may try to move you off your ground 100 times before the end, but here you remain, steady as a rock. The revolving door can be summed up in this phrase, "I see you; I hear you, and also..." Empathy and assertion are your two best friends, and I would invite you always to combine the two into a tool to meet your needs regularly. I will leave you with a final example of what I am describing.
What if I wanted to take time to myself, and my partner usually loves being in my company? It can become difficult to ask for time alone when I know they want the opposite. However, I need this time to recharge, so here I go. "I notice I feel overwhelmed, and I need some time to myself tonight; thank you for hearing me out on this." They get upset and come back with, "do you not want to spend time with me?" Here comes our revolving door, "I can see how it might look like I don't want to spend time with you, that makes sense to me, and also, that is not the case; I just need time to myself to recharge." They try again, "but don't you want to be connected to me?" Revolving door to the rescue, "of course I do, but right now, I need time to myself, so I can be open to connecting with you how you deserve." They try a third time, "well, that seems selfish to me." That sentence triggers A LOT of people. What now? That's right, revolving door. "I can see how you might think that, and I think we should discuss that to move forward, but right now, I need time to myself to recharge."
Not once did we concede. Not once did we sacrifice our own needs for the wants of others. Is this applicable all the time? No. There are times when we can push back our desires and meet them later, but I would invite you to be highly mindful of often you are doing that and make sure you are keeping yourself balanced.
If you would be interested in continuing to work on your communications skills, feel free to reach out to me and I will get back to you as soon as I am able. I appreciate you stopping by, and I hope you can start communicating more effectively today!
