Learning to set good, appropriate, strong, clear context for conversations and shared experiences is one of the most powerful and foundational components of authentic relating.

You can think of context like the rules of a game. Setting good, clear context ensures that all participants of a given context are playing by the same rules of the game, and that each player knows the rules clearly and comprehensively. Loose or vague context leads to confusion, assumptions, and potential for chaos, just as sloppy or erratic rules of game can lead to confused or chaotic play.

I’d been dreading this conversation for days. I stood on the front porch for a moment, feeling the knot in my stomach and racing pulse in my temples. My mind was gripped with pinballing thoughts, voices yelling at me to do this or say that – “Just stay calm,” said one. “Don’t let her push you around!” said another. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door and went inside, and felt my body actively preparing for battle.

Trauma: an embodied flashback. How many years of my life have I been ready to fight at a moments notice, or to collapse, disengage, and disconnect? I’ve always had a hard time speaking my truth and owning my viewpoints around men who don’t yield space for me to speak. Fight or flight.

I looked into my father’s eyes, with nothing to do, nothing to say, just the spaciousness to be there. As we continued to mill (eye gaze), tears began to well up in his eyes, a sight I had witnessed only a handful of times in my life. My heart began to melt and tense up, simultaneously. I felt alive, with my family, like I had not felt since I was very young.