Neurobiology and recent research into brain science are powerful tools to enhance self-awareness. An understanding of neurobiology helps shape and cultivate new behaviours aligned with our values. Can science help us develop and embody the skill to be in and have hard conversations? How do we skill up for hard conversations?
Since the rise of the pandemic, I have taken experiential courses around developing presence, building capacity to surrender, making greater connections with self, and taking an embodied approach in coaching. One of our mentor coaches began a session by saying, “Awareness creates choice and Practice builds capacity.” it’s critical that we be aware and selective of our thoughts and conversations with ourselves.
In group coaching and facilitation meetings, I speak to hundreds of leaders and individuals in organizations and here’s what I am noticing: during times of uncertainty such as the pandemic, busy leaders are walking on a tight rope. They are expected to deliver information/resources that they do not yet have, deliver bad news such as job losses, or provide feedback to employees while being inclusive and compassionate at diverse workplaces! Skilling up for hard conversations raises a profound question: what are we thinking? Quite often, while being engaged in our thoughts, we have conversations with self that sabotage our wholeness and relationships. I invite you to consider this reflection, “what conversations are you having with yourself?” Think about what conversations are you having with your children, spouses, partners, and colleagues? And most importantly, “Are you present in the face of challenges? are you becoming better at communicating in your personal relationships, leading teams, and resolving conflict?”
The more I coach and facilitate on developing skills for hard conversations, the more I realize that people have inherited hesitation and fear largely impressed upon them through childhood experiences of difficult connections transmitted by their providers and care givers, and this impacts how we “BE” in difficult conversations.
As a leadership coach and a facilitator, I have learned that embodiment is an essential practice of “Who I be?” and this impacts “how I communicate?” And all of this is interconnected. So, what does this look like in action or rather inaction?
Practicing a sacred pause: My hardest conversations have been with my siblings after the passing away of my dad a few years ago. These were times fraught with grief and melancholy. I experienced anger and low self-worth in conversations with my family. Allowing for all these feelings, helped me pivot towards noticing & practicing a pause, “A Sacred Pause or a Mudra!” In Sanskrit, mudra means a symbolic gesture like many yoga postures; Mudra connects many gaps, connects our “not knowing all the answers” to all pervasive wisdom and intelligence of the universe.
Practicing a sacred pause allowed me with a “window into a flow of creative conversations.” It started with acceptance of all feelings: anger, sadness, grief etc. Acceptance doesn’t mean acceptance of everything. On the contrary it allows a clear seeing and drawing of healthy boundaries. Do not mistake it for passiveness. The question is: how do we actively engage with reality when we are in a state of acceptance? Some people have very agitated responses to the word, “acceptance.” However, in my personal experience, acceptance allowed me to think clearly and act constructively.
I have been sensing into my senses and breathing into my heart, sometimes with a hand on my heart, and I feel a special outpour of empathy, presence, and surrender. As mentioned earlier, our brains are malleable, meaning they can build new neural networks to form new habits such as listening from the whole body, empathizing, and calling out the “BS” with facts, and separating them from emotions or from labelling anyone.
Creative conversations call for sensing the self, sensing the aliveness around us. A practice that I am building is around a daily ritual of surrender. I have come to understand that the more I sense my own aliveness, the more easily do I experience the aliveness in others.
Connection, Presence & Intention: The more you connect to your own felt sense of love, care, and desire to make a positive difference, the more powerfully and effectively you can act. The more you centre yourself and seek presence in the face of challenges, the better you become at communicating, leading teams, and resolving conflicts. These qualities and capabilities are the hallmarks of powerful, trusted, and effective leadership. They embody a quality of surrender.
Embodying surrender is about staying in alignment, staying grounded. You are fully in the conversation without being attached to outcomes. In my training with coaches at Coaches Rising, our mentor coach Ishita Sharma, worded it beautifully, “You are just an empty vessel waiting to be filled by natural intelligence, but your vessel is strong.” I am cultivating this quality of not being attached to outcomes in my professional and personal.
To learn how to embody these qualities and skill up for hard conversations get in touch.
Here is a poem below, that came to me in the wee hours of morning. Mornings have a sacredness, when the darkness is giving way to light, when the bird perched on this big, strong tree outside my bedroom window begins its first song, although a deterrent to my husband’s sleep. For me it’s a nudge to wake up and feel the grass under my feet and enjoy my daily ritual when colourful birds eat from the bird feeder in my backyard while I inhale the aroma of nature and my first cup of coffee….
“Step into the Unknown!”
Stop, notice all things alive
Pause and listen to the breath in these connected spaces
Let it move you and speak through you
That breath in connected spaces guides your presence
Stop, notice all things alive!
Accept the invitation from seeds sprouting
Emerging from the depths of hardened winter ground
Stop! Pause! Listen to the breath in connected spaces
It prepares the ground of that hard conversation
Hold that itchiness, restlessness!
Stop! Pause! Listen to the breath in connected spaces!
Come, be whole first! connect to the breath
Pause! Let in wholeheartedness of the rising sun
Embrace the awkwardness of the nervous swan that Rilke speaks of
Invite nourishment of a strong tree
Just outside your window
Connect to the waves of a nearby stream
That you pass by on a morning spring hike
Stop, pause Stop! Pause! Listen to the breath in connected spaces!
Then let your guard down into that space
Let that nervous first step lead you in not knowing
Embrace all! Awkwardness, fear, insecurity, empathy
Exposure, a breath of generosity
Let that nervous first step lead you in not knowing!