Difficult conversations, uh, I am seriously terrified of them. They make my whole body tense, stressed, and cause me severe nausea. I would rather speak in front of thousands of people. I believe many of us dread these conversations and find ourselves very clumsy and all over the place when we engage in them, even if we have prepared and practiced beforehand. Well, at least I do. I always practice these conversations to help myself organize my thoughts, determine what I want to say, how I want to say it, and what my intention behind it is. When it is time to start, nervousness kicks in, but due to the practice, I manage to somewhat convey what I wanted to say. However, very often afterward, I realize what else I forgot or wanted to say. It is a blessing when you can continue or have a follow-up conversation after both sides have had a chance to process the initial emotions that arise.

There are many types of difficult conversations we can have, some private, some at work. As I am mainly focused and interested in the private relationships with friends, family, and partners, I will refer to these in the post. However, they do replicate across all aspects of our lives to some degree, according to the context and level of closeness with the people involved.

The way I separate various difficult conversations is by first acknowledging the arguments that often occur when both parties are defensive, guarded, heated, and not listening to each other. This tends to happen because they are too focused on preparing their own comebacks. Another type is exposing oneself and vulnerabilities to the other person. I find that this is detrimental to the deepening of the relationship, and the listener’s response is crucial in creating a safe space for the sharer. However, sometimes these conversations can invoke and trigger the listener, so it is important for both sides to be able to hold presence and validate the sharing person and their own reality. The third type that I find very difficult is expressing dislike or dissatisfaction. This can be triggering for the other person as we often personalize what we hear, interpreting it as an attack or disapproval of who we are. A crucial lesson for me has been the distinction and awareness of separating a person’s actions from the person themselves. Often, we may be unhappy with certain behaviors, words, or actions of a loved one, but that does not mean we are dissatisfied with the person as a whole. It is important to distinguish between the need for adjusting or changing certain behaviors and demanding a change in the essence of who we are as individuals. Communicating this distinction to the listener can help break down defensiveness and potential feelings of hurt.

There are a few things I always try to keep in mind when I am thinking, preparing, practicing (or freaking out) about expressing something difficult for myself.

• Understand who the other side is, think what is constructive to express and meet them where they are. For me, I don’t think we should say all the time everything on our minds no matter what, it is not productive if we say things just to release our pressure internally while at the same time we cause pain to the other side. Some pain and hard things need to be expressed when they can lead to a change and progress in relationship but think first if your partner is willing and ready to hear and work on that – maybe they are not on the same level of awareness and we should respect that and honour where they are. This is hard, it means we need to process and hold space for ourselves with other people in our lives and not necessarily with the person in question. 
• This one was a big learning for me – response we are expecting will shape how we will approach the conversation. Wow, that makes so much sense to me, if we are expecting an attack back or big emotional outburst from the other side we will start the conversation very differently. Think about what are you expecting, you will often find your answer in your nervousness or fear ahead of starting the conversation. I am always afraid of conflict, so I tend to tone down the expression of dissatisfaction out of fear, it is my work in progress, but maybe you can relate as that fear blocks me to be clear enough which sometimes confuses the other side. 
• If you are opening the hard conversation you can shape the course of it but you can’t control how the other side will react. Be present, try to listen without getting defensive and be ready to pivot during the conversation. Allow yourself to accept that you can not control the other person, you can’t change the way they will accept and hear what you are saying – it is their own process and decision, it is on you to accept that without personalising it (Please note I am here talking about cases of conversations not covering any type of abuse or violence, that requires a whole different set of tools). 
• Embrace and call out the discomfort and pain the conversation can cause. We need to acknowledge when conversation is hard for both people. Often, if we are the ones initiating the difficult conversations we believe we are not entitled to pain. If we are ending the relationship we have no right to grieve or be upset which is not the case. Both parties experience pain, from different perspectives. When I am in the midst of these conversations, I can relate to what type of pain the other person might be experiencing cause I have been there in their shoes as many of us were. I feel my own pain of letting go and at the same time relating to their pain and what I am causing to them (very confusing!). There is guilt and responsibility of being the one that is inflicting the pain which is okay and normal to feel when we are doing hard things. As long as you are being authentic to yourself and your needs you are respecting and honouring the other person by addressing the hard things. Be gentle with yourself and the other side. The ultimate goal is to be able to hold your pain and your partner’s pain with compassion and understanding from both sides, validating the different emotions that are being present for both – it is very hard and requires huge amount of self-awareness. 
• The last one is knowing that we all bring our own stories about conflicts and difficult conversations into a relationship of any kind. While growing up, we observed our parents/carers/adults in our lives having fights and addressing difficult topics, we took these patterns in and learned how to navigate those through our own experiences. However, as many of us know rarely we got the proper and healthy ways of navigating it. We are coming from families full of repression and not addressing hard stuff, families that are not filtering what is coming out verbally, maybe yelling and in the worst cases verbal and physical abuse. It is really helpful to understand what your partner or friend learned in their families, what they have seen or witnessed and what they feel about those conversations. Maybe you can be curious and have this conversation during one of the date nights when you are both in balance and open to listen the other person’s experience – it can be so helpful for future challenges. 

Some of us have received a healthy example at home of how to have those conversations, how to set healthy boundaries, and honor ourselves even if it is hard and causes pain in the process. I have witnessed and learned a lot from my girlfriends and how they have expressed their needs, requested changes, or ended relationships bravely after many years. I truly admire them and their inner power. The above comes naturally and intuitively to some. I am still learning how to embrace those hard conversations as part of our lives and will keep on trying. Growth comes from stepping out of the comfort zone, and that is what keeps me motivated to do hard and scary things.

I hope you remember to be gentle with yourself and others during these difficult conversations. Every little step forward is a small win, bringing us closer to the lives and relationships we want to have.

With all my love, 

Eni 

Inspiration for this post below!

Esther Perel – Relational Intelligence (*Masterclass platform – requires subscription)