Recently, I wrote about how no real good comes from conversations where everyone’s emotions are elevated. I likened it to two people doing a dance with their amygdala, the almond-shaped part of our brains that says things like: “Your hair is on fire! The roof is falling in! This is horrible!” And, usually, it’s not.
Instead of dancing the dance of pain that comes all too quickly when we’re in a lower brain state, I suggested breaking that pattern by calling for a break at any time to allow for depth and understanding. If you’re curious about that tool, check out the Take a Break card.
Imagine my joy when, soon after, I came across another metaphor for difficult conversations related to music and from a poet and author!
A friend of mine told me about a CBC radio Massey lecture series on Remaking Conversations with poet and author Ian Williams. Williams brings the sensitivity and awareness of an artist to the task of having difficult conversations. Rather than an exchange or transaction, Williams sees:
“a conversation as akin to a piano composition written for two hands: they support one another, urge each other along and interact, even if their positions are quite different.”
Difficult conversations can be like playing music together! Doesn’t that sound so much more delightful than having a difficult conversation?
What would your dreaded difficult conversations be like if you could think of them as an opportunity to play music together – perhaps a bit of improv, or maybe a blues number, or a remake of an old classic?
How might that change your willingness to enter into the conversation in the first place?
Getting People To the Piano Getting people to the table to talk is at least half of the conflict resolution work in the wider world as well as in the boardroom, and in the bedroom. The propensity to avoid the possibility of a difficult conversation is normal and high for most of us. Who wants to do difficult?
So, we rationalize the avoidance by telling ourselves stories like:
- I can’t bring this up. It’ll hurt their feelings (a polite accommodating).
- It’s not that important. I’ll just go with the flow (a supposedly self-less avoiding).
- They never get it so why would I talk with them now (the defeat of past fights).
What if the very conversations you keep avoiding actually holds an opportunity and gift for you and the other person? What if it was as important as music is to our quality, texture, and richness of life? What if a difficult conversation held the possibility of growing you and the other person and opening up new futures you can’t see from your own perspective?
That’s how I’ve come to see difficult conversations after being witness to so many. Having the conversation has allowed many of us, myself included, to grow as humans. To share of yourself is to walk the true path of love, integrity, and service.
Many people I’ve coached over the years have told me, after considering both the benefits and the risks of having a tough conversation, that they want to have the conversation to be true to themselves and to show up in an authentic way.
Shifting the emotions related to having a difficult conversation is key to unlocking the gift of conflict. The metaphor of difficult conversation as music can help.
Music does incredible things to our bodies, the seat of our emotions. Sometimes, in a difficult musical passage (yep, difficult), we feel our bodies tensing up. In the melodic parts, we release again. In fact, the whole diatonic harmony structure of Western music is built on a tension and release pattern – moving from the root note to the fourth, the fifth chord and back again– as Canadian poet/songwriter Leonard Cohen tells us.
What if difficult conversations could be like an invitation into making beautiful music together? Would that change your mind about facing the topics you’ve been avoiding with that key person? Deciding to Play
Deciding to enter into the conversation is the first step. Simply decide. It’s a powerful step. We need to talk with each other. We need more dialogue. We need to stand up for ourselves. We need to hear the other and we need to tell our truth.
When we can think of difficult conversations as a creative endeavour, whether that’s as a dance, playing the piano, or writing a new story together, we unleash the desire to talk.
We need to have those difficult conversations, as best we can, so we can allow the complexity and nuance we each hold within, to emerge. That way, we can all make better, more informed decisions about how to move forward with more authenticity, integrity, and joy!
It starts with how we think of the conversation. Can we find the music in the idea of a difficult conversation? Let’s start there!