On the last day of summer, we held a psychological self-defense workshop with the elements of WenDo “Your Inner Strength”. 12 participants with unique backgrounds and experiences practiced defending their personal boundaries.
What did the workshop feature? Breathing and voice exercises, making a proper fist and practicing steady stance, training self-defense kicks, discussing assertiveness and the ways to express it, and doing the exercises allowing to try out the new knowledge in practice.
As always, it was loud and intense! A 3.5-hour meeting passed in the blink of an eye, and we are looking forward to the next workshop!
We collected some advice that will help you to feel confident and be more convincing in communicating your needs. Save it!
*The event was organized thanks to the support of the RFSL Ukraine Program
How can we use body language to efficiently convey our needs and protect our boundaries during verbal communication?
This useful advice will help you to feel more comfortable and be more convincing in communicating your needs.
GAZE:
Maintaining direct eye contact is the most efficient.
If for some reason you can’t do it, you can also look between the eyebrows of the other person.
BODY:
Take up space, square your shoulders, level your positions (stand up if you are sitting, or ask the other person to sit).
GESTURES:
Can help to establish personal boundaries or emphasize that you don’t want to interact.
VOICE:
Loud and steady. You can slowly inhale and exhale: it will help you focus, get in touch with your body, and prepare the voice for speaking.
FACIAL EXPRESSIONS:
The smile often serves as a protective mechanism when you don’t like the situation at all, and you are not in a friendly environment.
That’s normal and is particularly popular among people with the experience of women’s gender socialization. But that makes you less convincing and does a bad job of conveying your message.
That’s why we advise you to breathe out and remind yourself about the goal – communicating your needs.
