New Vocabulary– Soft Spaces
I’d like to ponder a new concept (for me, at least) in the idea of Soft Spaces. There’s a lot of talk of Safe Spaces, but Soft implies something different. Let’s dive in.
Imagine yourself getting ready to push publish on something important that you’d like to discuss, something you feel passionate about, something that could very likely be met with a slew of other opinions taking you to task or pointing out why you are wrong, or maybe even cause unintended emotional harm by bringing it up.
You decide to not bring this up for discussion.
You do the same when you see a friend or colleague post something. You’d love to enter into the discussion but you’re just too scared of offending anyone or receiving harsh call-outs.
When we do this,
We’re self-censoring.
We’re not getting better at sharpening our minds.
We’re not adding to the collective understanding of a certain topic.
We’re not encouraging kind (yet still passionate, perhaps) debates that could help us all improve our knowledge, language, understanding.
We’re encouraging others to remain silent, too.
A lot of Safe Spaces have this built in, and for good reason. There’s been entirely too much input from the majority (read: straight, white, heteronormative mainly men, but also women) and not enough listening to the opinions, wisdom, lived experiences of everyone who is not that group.
But I think, in addition to this, I would love to see more Soft Spaces emerge, too.
I listened to a podcast the other day and it struck me. Particularly one of the points made by Maurice Mitchell, the head of the Working Families Party. He made a point that softened my viewpoint a little bit about debating those who hold different opinions than us. Debating and discussing sharpens our thoughts. When we don’t have opposition, we don’t get better at understanding and improving our own ideas, especially in how we talk about them to others but also for sure how we see them in our own minds. (You can listen to the entire thing here. )
I see this.
I absolutely LOVE talking about the things I’m passionate about. But I often reserve that speaking or writing for when I’m in a space of like-minded folks who I know love me. I see others doing that, as well. And if they’re bringing ideas to a larger audience like social media, I often see a defensive strategy in place. Often for good reason.
Bringing our not-100%-formed-ideas to the internet? That’s SCARY.
And so this is where I’d like to define Soft Spaces and why I’d like to see more of these. I’d define them as spaces of connection where we acknowledge the uniqueness of each human, the equality of each human, the dignity of each human and also understand that the tool of discussion is not just about voicing opinion but it’s also about gaining more clarity on our own ideas. My experience of Architecture School Critiques comes to mind. We brought projects to our peers and instructors and we had to defend them. And through the process we often expanded our ideas, deepened our insight, and cut the fluff. Our projects got better, not worse. Some critiques went better than others. The ones that went better were the ones where our professors WANTED our ideas to succeed, they WANTED to understand us and so they helped us get better at explaining rather than just disagreeing with us. They prodded us to use better language tools (whether that was words or graphics or our built models). They wanted us to know where we losing them, so that our ideas could get better or maybe so that our ideas may be discarded and a new idea picked up.
We were brave to stand up there with our thoughts and ideas bare to the world of sharp-minded and more experienced designers.
We were also met with respect and our individual selves were separated from our ideas, in good critiques.
In the most productive ones, we were not made to feel foolish or bad or wrong, in the worst we were. And those are the ones that created within our own selves a belief that WE were flawed, WE were wrong, WE as humans were less valuable than others. In the worst cases, we were humiliated in front of our peers. This had a profound effect on many of us, myself included.
I weathered those storms but I didn’t come out unscathed.
It could have been better.
So, to me, Soft Spaces build in–
Humanity
Openness for discussion
No desire for mic-drop moments
Not using other humans to process your feelings on (come to the spaces feeling grounded, loving)
A value that we are all connected and want to remain in good connection
The understanding that we are all unique individuals and are going to have different opinions
The removal of our thoughts from our human selves (in the sense that you might have an opinion that others disagree with but you are never characterized as a less worthy human because of it)
The willingness to hear other opinions or ideas with openness
Contemplation, stilness, moments reflection and thinking
Moments of silence where we can all comprehend what others are saying
The opportunity to pause discussion and come back to it if we’re getting triggered or others are beginning to pile on or mic-drop or humiliate us
Redemption– just because at one point we held some belief doesn’t mean that we should be cast out forever
Resisting the urge to be seen as the most correct or pure
Patience
Focus
It’s a lot, I know.
But I can also see the immense value in this. Bringing your ideas to people who are beyond your immediate fan base can sharpen those ideas and create massive insight that you’d be missing without those discussions.
I don’t think that social is the place for them, truly.
So– for the coaches and budding women founders, here are some discussion questions for you–
What am I scared to talk about online?
Why am I most scared?
What lights me up about discussing my business, vision, mission or products?
What are some ways that people have shut me down?
What are some ways I’ve shot people’s ideas down?