When "I Statements"...aren't exactly

Because of who I am emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and in many other life domains; because of the subjects I have studied both in college and in graduate school; because of the types of people I tend to attract into my life; and for a whole host of other reasons, I am aware there are a lot of people in the world who are quite psychologically, spiritually, and emotionally sophisticated. I am surrounded by such people in my life and have been for quite some time now. If my life had unfolded in a very different way I potentially would have a very different understanding of the world around me. So, for example, because of my academic and professional training as a psychotherapist, my many years working as a clinician in clinical settings, my many years facilitating psychotherapy groups and such, because of my deep interest and involvement in personal development, and for various other reasons, I have a deep understanding of the importance of making what are called I statements.

I statements are a way of presenting our understanding of the world and especially our emotional understandings and truths in ways where we take ownership and responsibility for how we are feeling. For some, the consistent and strategic making of I statements is an important skill to acquire. It is viewed as an important skill to acquire because one of the biggest perceived flaws in both our own emotional lives as well as in much human interaction as a whole is the wholesale and erroneous assigning of our feelings over to others--making others the ones solely responsible for how we feel. So for example, those of us who have been trained in the importance of making I statements, typically understand how very flawed it would be to say something like, “you make me feel so angry with your ignoring of me.” Instead, we understand that the proper way to say that would be to say something along the lines of, “I feel angry when you seem to be ignoring me.” With this presentation we are presumably taking much more responsibility for and ownership over our emotional truths/emotional lives. We are seemingly neither blaming, accusing, nor making another bad or wrong for what we are feeling even if we also understand that no person in this world is an emotional island and that how we are feeling at any given moment may in fact be slightly or significantly impacted by the actions of another or a large cast of others and their actions.

We however, may sometimes find ourselves in the presence of people who have not been trained to use I statements so artfully, skillfully, nor religiously. We may even consciously or unconsciously believe we are somehow superior to those barbarians (not my actual thinking here) who do not know of nor understand the requisite sophistication, intelligence, and wisdom of the very well placed I statement.

Over the years however, I have discovered there is often very little if any difference between those who consistently use I statements with well-practiced and highly accurate precision and those who rarely if ever use them. I have often found that those of us who routinely use I statements are in actuality using you statements, just in a clandestine manner. In other words, I have discovered that many people, even people who seem to thoroughly understand and have flawlessly embraced the wisdom and psychological acumen of using I statements are still in a blaming, shaming, and guilting mode of operation. We still want to make others completely or nearly completely responsible for how we feel. We don’t in fact, wish to truly take ownership of our own feelings and emotional life even though we are consciously choosing to use words that seem to indicate the opposite.

Some of this is due to various grammatical and linguistic structures of and limitations in the English language. For example, when we make an I statement that includes many of the English words that end in “ed,” the structure of the English language is such that we still seem to be implying that the other person is somehow still responsible for how we are feeling. So statements such as, I feel ashamed, I feel embarrassed, and I feel abused can and often do send this message very strongly. However, even statements like, I feel hurt can also send this same message because the question may still remain—where is this hurt feeling coming from? If it is clear that the hurt feeling is coming from an interaction with another, the implication may still be that the other person is, in essence, making us feel hurt. These are just some of the limitations and quirks of, in this case, the English language. I have learned to more or less accept these limitations and have learned not to place undo importance onto them.

The much more problematic issue, I believe, is when I statements are used either intentionally to mask what in reality are you statements (i.e. statements designed to blame, shame, or guilt others, often in a passive aggressive way), when such statements are consciously being used as a weapon against others, when such statements are consciously being used to manipulate one or more people, or when such statements are used to manipulate an entire situation. I have observed each of those occur when people use certain I statements. I have witnessed each of those occur in various situations, environments, and settings. The setting where I personally have witnessed this the most is in long term educational and therapy groups where participants have either been court ordered or are attending of their own volition and where I have been in the role of group facilitator or much more often in the role of co-facilitator for the group.

What I have often observed in a support group, educational group, or therapeutic group setting largely surrounds the use of the I statement, “I feel unsafe/I don’t feel safe.”

Many people and in my experience many women specifically (Hey, I merely call ‘em as I see ‘em. When there are things I observe men primarily doing, I will also freely point that out as well) have learned to say that they feel unsafe or don’t feel safe, in a therapeutic group setting, when they are honestly and appropriately being challenged by a facilitator or another group member to grow or be vulnerable in ways that may feel scary, frightening, destabilizing, or very uncomfortable to them. Real emotional/psychological/spiritual growth, BTW, rarely feels like a walk in the park. It rarely feels comfortable and inviting. It is often extremely threatening to the way many of our egos are constructed or how we believe they have been constructed.

Many men, on the other hand, when we find ourselves in similar growth oriented situations that we have not exactly freely chosen, have often been taught/have been socialized/have been conditioned to ignore any feelings or cues that come up in such situations. Or we have been socialized to simply stuff those feelings. Or we have been taught to simply “buck up and be a man” or some such similar nonsense. Or we have been conditioned to lash out in anger and overt aggressiveness instead. These are some of the reasons why, in my experience, it has overwhelmingly been women in long standing therapy and other types of groups I have facilitated over the years, who have used the statement, I feel unsafe/I don’t feel safe as either an intentionally masked you statement (i.e. attempting to blame, shame, or guilt others sometimes in a passive aggressive way), consciously using language as a weapon against others, consciously using language and specific words as a tool to manipulate one or more people or to manipulate the entire situation or the group facilitators or to consciously attempt to undermine the entire therapeutic process of the group. I believe the exact same dynamics are likely very potentially present or can easily pop up in other long standing situations such as open ended, regularly meeting Buddhist sanghas, regularly meeting satsangs, regularly meeting church classes or even long term work related strategy groups and such, etc.

What I have experienced in therapy and educational groups is primarily a fear of being made vulnerable or of being made accountable to oneself or to the group, and the response to this is to invoke the protection of the "safety clause." For many people who find themselves in such groups, the safety clause is never to be denied. Ever. And also remember, people who are in such groups have either chosen on their own to attend these groups, often with some kind of legitimate outside pressure from another mental health or helping professional, or have often been court ordered to attend because either they themselves or the courts or both have decided it is in their very best interest to attend such a group. Often this is because something of great stated importance to the person rides on their completion of the group—things such as getting their children back, or completing probation, or as part of their psychiatrists treatment plan, etc. So all the various ways people can consciously or unconsciously sabotage themselves, including all attempts at avoiding uncomfortable truths and feelings in the group, by claiming not feeling safe in the group, must be taken very seriously. And they must also be seriously and compassionately addressed when the facilitator(s) and to a lesser degree, when the other group members do not believe this claim should be taken completely on face value alone or much more often when facilitators and group members understand that something else is going on with the person in question and that this “something else” is being masked by the invoking of the "safety clause" and that it is something that must be brought to the fore and be compassionately, gently, and empathetically addressed.

The fact also is, many women and definitely some men as well, especially people who are “group savvy” or “therapy savvy” or who have “been in the system” for a long time and/or have been horribly abused and/or neglected by that very same system, often have very deep trust issues. There is also very often various forms of trauma and/or abuse that accompanies these trust issues. For such people, avoidance of feelings has often become a smart and savvy survival strategy that makes complete sense to everyone in the room, especially to the group facilitators. I understand all of this on extremely complex and very nuanced levels. At the same time, the ultimately deeper, stronger, and to some degree overriding truth is that these groups, if they are doing what they are supposed to be doing (and some, perhaps many, aren’t) cannot allow something even as typically unquestionable and infallible as stated personal lack of safety, to be used as a way to hide, to avoid difficult and scary emotions, used as a weapon or form of manipulation against other group members, or as a way to blame/shame/guilt the entire group or specific group members and/or the facilitators into co-conspiring with a specific group members counterproductive although very understandable actions.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Are you feeling strongly reactive, resistant, anxious, angry, or rageful after reading especially those last four paragraphs there? Do you need to collect yourself and regain some equanimity? If your honest answer to either of those questions is yes, I invite you to do whatever you might need to do in order to regain your sense of presence and your sense of balance. Take care of yourself in whatever way feels best and most useful to you. Trust yourself. Use your intuitive powers. Realize that some of the contents of this blog piece may sound like they might describe you. Allow yourself to explore more deeply if necessary. These are complex and sometimes very complicated matters that have been addressed in this piece. Sometimes it is easy for us to pathologize or over pathologize ourselves and that is not helpful to us in the final analysis. Be kind to yourself. Be gentle with yourself. And always remember to BREATHE!