All about Grey Rocking, the best technique to avoid toxic people and dramatic conversations

Tired of toxic fights and endless drama? Experts explain grey rocking — a boundary-setting technique that helps you stay calm, neutral, and drama-free (Image: Pexels)

Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you felt that your words are falling on deaf ears and your retorts to someone are aggravating matters? The helpless situation where one feels like they're trying their best to salvage the situation from deteriorating further, but everything goes against them. What do you do in such situations? Well, grey rocking may be the answer that you're looking for.

Yes! Grey rocking is a term coined to describe a communication technique where all you have to do is control the urge to say more and practice saying bare minimum. The idea is to keep the tone neutral, weigh in your words carefully before uttering them and give the impression that you're simply not in the mood to engage in any controversial conversation.

Delhi-based Relationship expert Ruchi Ruuh shares how one of her clients was at the receiving end of her mother-in-law's repetitive tirades. Her client's refrain was that her MIL would never be happy with her irrespective of how good she tried to be. She suspected her MIL said nasty things to her to provoke her to engage in one of those dramatic fights. To help her out of this recurring pattern with her MIL, Ruchi advised her client to practice grey rocking.

"Grey rock is a boundary setting tool to protect yourself. You make yourself as emotionally unresponsive and uninteresting as possible, like a dull grey rock. By giving non-reactive responses, you take away the emotional “fuel” that the other person is looking for," explains Ruuh.

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To her client’s amazement, the trick worked wonders. When she stopped launching into detailed explanations, when she gave answers in monosyllables, when she avoided drama and stopped paying attention to her MIL words, the latter also eventually stopped creating ruckus.

“My client was amazed to see how by engaging less with her MIL helped her wriggle out of a toxic situation. What one must understand is that a lot of people thrive on drama and politics. So, when a person stops giving them the fodder and starts acting aloof and distant, toxic people also start moving away from their life,” shares Ruuh.

Wondering where all you can deploy this technique? Ruuh says, "Grey rocking is mostly used when you’re dealing with someone who thrives on drama or is looking to coax you into an emotional response. It could be a toxic partner, dramatic colleague or an overbearing family member. It's greatly helpful when you can't cut them out but still want to protect your peace. It reduces the other person’s ability to manipulate or drain you emotionally. It's a temporary solution but it can help you buy some time to find a better solution for dealing with them."

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The whole rationale behind the grey rock method is that you avoid adding fuel to the fire. During arguments and bitter fights where tempers run high and volatile, individuals often tend to say things that they don't either mean at all, or they otherwise would not have said had they been more conscious. The more one engages in fights, the more are the chances of one opening a pandora box. So, the best way to avoid encountering such a situation is to embrace silence.