How to gracefully maintain boundaries and stop giving away too much information without damaging your friendships.
Do you sometimes (or often!) regret giving away too much information about yourself or others, even when talking to friends?
Episode 24 (with my husband, Bryan!) is a direct follow-up to the discussion I had in episode 23 when my guest, Rebecca, and I spoke about kids’ issues becoming too private to share with friends. I asked Bryan to share his advice for managing these conversations because he’s really good at connecting with people without feeling he has to overshare– something I’m constantly working on improving.
Many people agreed with me after listening to episode 23 that it’s important to keep some information private, especially information about others. But how can we get out of these types of probing chats without hurting anyone’s feelings, making it seem like we don’t trust our friends, or making things awkward?
There are lots of ideas in this quick episode!
FIND EPISODE #24 ON APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY, OR ANYWHERE YOU LIKE TO LISTEN TO PODCASTS!
Things You Can Say Instead of Revealing Too Much. (All with a kind tone). Any reasonable person will (hopefully) take the hint.
— I know you’re here to support me, and I so appreciate that. I hope you can do that without knowing all the details. It means a lot that you’re here.
— I’m not sure I should say.
— I don’t feel comfortable sharing all of the details.
— It’s not my place to get into the details.
— Maybe I can talk about it one day, but for now, it’s not my story to share.
— I think it’s best we don’t go there.
— I need to respect (so-and-so’s) privacy and not talk about it.
— Not my monkey, not my circus.
— I’m not sure. (A forgivable white lie to get the other person not to probe further.)
BETTER FRIENDSHIP GOAL OF THE WEEK
The better friendship goal of the week is to practice using the statements above when needed.
Bryan added: “It’s not necessarily the words; it’s feeling comfortable with just a little extra fluff to fill the conversation so it feels like there’s a flow when you actually didn’t say much. This allows the other person to feel like, oh, they’re not pushing me away.”
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