129: Having Hard Conversations
One thing I’ve learned from grief is having hard conversations. I would say my whole life I ran from having tough conversations. I would rather sweep something under the rug, or pretend everything is okay when really it’s not. If I ignore it long enough it might become okay right?
Well- when Aria died, tough conversations were everywhere. Especially with my husband Justin. There was no way we could strive to have an amazing relationship and marriage and go through this incredibly difficult experience and not have hard conversations.
So here are a few things I’ve learned about having hard conversations and how to have hard conversations and as I wrote this down I was laughing, because all of these are incredibly difficult for me to do, especially with Justin, and it’s so interesting how hard they are to do, and yet we would not be in our relationship where we are without it. These tips can be for any hard conversation, not just with your spouse.
1. Say I’m sorry: Oh boy, starting off with the hard one. Especially in grief with emotions fragile and on high alert. Tensions and frustrations are likely to get high. So just apologizing. Saying I’m sorry, forgiving, and opening the door to the conversation is a helpful way to do it. This helps you lead with taking responsibility for what is yours to take and acknowledging how you were wrong, it takes away the blame and fight. Not completely, but maybe enough to open the doors to dive deeper into the hard conversation.
2. Know that you are on the same team: When you are in relationship with someone, whether it’s your spouse or a friend or family member. You both want what’s best for your relationship. You both want to feel connected, and you want that relationship otherwise it wouldn’t be worth having these conversations. The best relationships are the ones that you can go deep with.
3. Feel your emotions and process them first, so you don’t spew them all over the conversation. Ok- what do I mean by this? I still do this sometimes when I don’t give myself a chance to process what’s going on, or I just get on the out of control train of my emotions and start saying whatever is coming to my mind. This never leads to connection and a safe space to have hard conversations. When I need to have a hard conversation, I have to sit with my feelings and process them. I have to work through them, know what I’m feeling, take ownership for what I’m feeling, let go of the need to blame or put it on someone else, and once I get through that, then I have a level-headed, open conversation about the hard things. Maybe y’all are different than me, but I need to try to process my emotions in advance a bit, otherwise I will say horrific things I don’t mean, just because it feels so true in my body at the moment. And having hard conversations doesn’t mean saying whatever emotion you are feeling at the moment as fact, but as a way of processing.
4. Lead with compassion and how you feel, rather than attacking and blaming: So saying something like When this happened, I felt really lonely, and like you don’t love me anymore. Rather than, It’s all your fault and I don’t know if we can do this anymore. At the end of the day, in a relationship you both have needs that you are trying to fulfill through connection. And if you can find that way to connect and see that you both want to connect and have the hard conversations, then you can let go of the blame.
5. Take responsibility for your part of the story: I am the master blamer. Any time I am frustarted or have a problem, my mind immediately starts going through who’s fault it is, who else is the problem. Not something I’m proud of but it’s what I do. What I am proud of, that I don’t always just let my mind get away with that anymore. I can more often take responsibility for what is my role in the conversation. I am own up where I could do better, I can say for.
6. Seek to connect, understand, and be vulnerable. If you’ve been struggling in your relationship- being vulnerable isn’t always going to come easy. But the only way to go deeper and have hard conversations is to be vulnerable. When you are vulnerable with someone, or see someone for who they are, you can’t help but connect with them. So lead with connect and trying to understand where the other person is coming from. So often we want to say you’re wrong and I’m right, or to make one person right and the other wrong, but what if you both could be a little of both? What if both your perspectives are right? What if both of you are wrong? We see things so much in black and white, when really they are so often a mix of gray and white and black and blue and red and yellow. We are human, and so connect first and seek to understand. Being open and vulnerable and sharing your pain or what’s going on with you certainly helps.
7. Address the elephant in the room openly and honestly
Okay, Justin and I have some really good friends who we talk a lot about many different topics, and one thing they’ve used in their relationship that I love is this phrase. Mature people ask for what they want. How often do we walk around, wishing someone else would bring up the subject, or the problem, or get mad at the other person because they are not acting in a way that we want them to.
Maybe it’s up to you? Maybe you get to open up the door to the conversation and create a safe environment to talk. Maybe you get to be the one to start and to change and to reach for the connection. I don’t think anyone wants to have hard conversations, because they are well- hard. So- do the hard thing, open up, be vulnerable.
Ok- so these are the thoughts I had right now, there could be more and definitely other ways to connect and work through hard conversations together, do you have any you would share?
Do these help you? This is all a practice, learning every day to connect and how to work through hard conversations. I have had many hard conversations and I can tell you I still don’t like them in the moment. I just really don't want to have them, but it’s oh so beautiful when we work through them and come to a place of connection and love after those hard conversations.
Make sure you check out my free weekly workshops I’m hosting over on www.meganhillukka.com. Check out this weeks topic, which can include anything from anxiety and grief, how to get through grief, navigating difficult emotions of grief and so on. See you there!
If you like this podcast, and found it helpful, I want to invite you come check out Grieving Moms Haven, my monthly community for Grieving moms, where you can learn positive coping mechanisms, find a safe space with others who understand, and learn life long skills that support you as you learn how to carry this weight of grief in your life.
There are group coaching calls where we do guided meditations, tapping meditations, breathwork, and just talk, knowing that everyone in the group is also walking the path of child loss
You can come check out Grieving Moms Haven at www.grievingmomshaven.com
