Each person has his or her own character and personal space.
This space (environmental or character), in its coexistence with other people, on a personal or professional level, should be declared to the people with whom it is associated. Otherwise, it will be violated knowingly or unknowingly by others.
The org chart in an organization defines the space of each individual, otherwise overlaps, ignorance, violations and unnecessary upheavals are created.
Most fights, both personal and professional, stem from ignorance and violations of the personal space of each person involved. In this case too, the “obvious”, which is often heard, does not apply.
“But it goes without saying and he should have understood…”!
The obvious has destroyed relationships, partnerships, companies and states.
And the space consists of two parts. One is the person’s place in the environment, his personal objects and the second is his personality, his wants, what he likes and what he doesn’t like, what annoys him, etc.”
If these factors are not known, they are violated and often unintentionally. Not being known is a “trap” for those involved.
Let’s take for example Eleni, who has just been hired by a company and who has a colleague George. In order to coexist peacefully and without disruption, they should both be aware of each other’s responsibilities and the space in which they will operate. However, there is also the “personal space” of each person, which is not known.
Suppose George takes Eleni’s pen and fails to give it back to her. In fact, he has, at least a little bit, violated Helen’s space.
Eleni needs the pen to make a note and fails to ask George for it, thinking that she is new to the post and would not want to make a bad impression on her colleague George. So he backs off a little bit and that’s the first mistake he makes and from there it starts a downward spiral. The reason is as follows:
By retreating even a little, Helen (and every person in her position), loses a little of her space and at the same time, reduces her mood and her attitude towards George, her intention to assert herself. She becomes less of a cause in her space, in her things and in her personality and grants George the authority to violate her space again. Because he will violate it since he found no resistance on her part and because the universe does not tolerate any void, so George will cover it up.
Eleni “gives in to anger” and takes another pen out of her bag, which after a while also ends up in George’s hands. Helen is now less willing to handle George, having reduced her ability to cope before, and she backs down this time as well, making it harder for her to do so.
So, she brings several pens and puts them in her drawer, only to be seen by George, who continues to invade her space, with ease now, seeing Helen’s tolerance.
Eleni starts to feel uncomfortable and unpleasant in her new job. She goes home tired and with frequent headaches and at some point she gives up.
But this can happen to any person who fails to reclaim their space and not only on a professional level.
We see it in that person who fails to complain to his girlfriend about her lateness, since it is the “first date”, which ends up becoming a system.
We see it every day in people’s tolerance of rude or unethical people who violate their space and who do not react, fearing their reaction, thus allowing them to become their oppressors.
We very often hear people say about someone who has passed away, “He was such a good man! We never heard him scream.” No one thought perhaps that this man “exploded” precisely because he never cried out! He never claimed!
We also often observe someone who criticizes others for the slightest thing, for trivial reasons, thus causing great upheaval to those around him.
So neither one way nor the other is the right way to defend our space.
And yet! There is a way to get our space back and it’s done with tiers.
Let’s take Eleni as an example again!
The first thing she would have to do would be to use the first tier of morality, which is the softest and based on that she should perhaps look at George and the pen, without any negative emotion and signal him to give her the pen.
Now, if George has a good level of morality he will react positively and not take her pen or anything else from her space again.
But if he continues, then Helen will have to increase the pressure a bit and ask him politely not to take her things. If it has a positive effect on George the situation is settled.
If not, now Helen will have to be explicit about her stuff. The next time George repeats it, then Eleni will have the right to be very stern and let him know that she has no room for manoeuvre in her space and so on.
This will continue until George reacts positively and does not bother her again.
But how much does a person push to get their space back?
RULE!
“To get our space back, when someone else violates it, we push the other person AS hard as they pushed us and ANOTHER LIGO”!
And we do it until we get the desired result!!!!
If we don’t get the desired result, it means we didn’t push it hard enough.
However, if we have people who do not comply and continue to oppress us with their behavior, then the ONLY solution is to remove them from our space!
And this is the only way to maintain our peace of mind and our efficiency!
Katerina Karadima
