Safe Touch Protocol

Before engaging in any partner work, absolutely essential is establishing the rules of engagement and one of the key rules of engagement is how to get out of the situation. So Alana and I would like to demonstrate what sometimes we call the safe touch talk, sometimes we call the exit route talk. This is really important for both partners to do with each other before beginning, so to show. Face each other, look each other in the eye, and then the first partner will say something to the effect of Alana. If at any point you'd like this experiment to stop, just say stop. Kira, at any point in this experiment if you would like it to stop, just say stop. And it's that simple. Now if you've never said stop, then you have to practice that too, so just to show how to do that. Alana, is there a place on your body that you feel comfortable with my touching? So she's indicated her knee, so before touching her knee, right, I don't just go for her knee, I take a moment to tune my own hand so that I'm really here. I want to touch Alana with as much presence and consciousness as is possible. Then once I have a sense of that, and I check to make sure I still have permission, I'll bring my hand to her knee. She'll let it rest there for a handful of moments, and then when she's ready, she'll indicate to stop. Stop. Now notice she just said stop, and I took my hand away from her knee immediately. This is really important because sometimes when we don't feel quite comfortable with our own boundaries, the temptation is to make it okay for the other person. The temptation is, oh that feels really great and all, but maybe you could remove your hand from my knee and all. It's just stop, okay. What this does is it establishes the rules of exit, which then relaxes the nervous system enough so that we can be better witnesses of what's really happening. When we understand that we have control of that situation, it's easier to relax. We feel deeply sincerely about this practice, so if you're new to it, it can feel a little awkward, it can feel a little dorky, it can feel like a Saturday Night Live episode even, but really truly do this. Give yourself this gift. Thank you, Alana. Thank you.