Everyday Canvas

Starting an Uncomfortable Dialogue

Prompt: What do you think is the best way to have a necessary but extremely uncomfortable conversation with someone? How could a character in a story handle this?

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It may be taxing on a person to start a difficult but necessary conversation. Yet it needs to be done, and the process deserves courage and strength, and the belief in oneself --or God if you so wish--that not too much blood will spill when it is over.

On the positive side, when the process is finished, the person who started the dialogue will feel lighter, as he or she will have shed the burden off his/her chest and will have more room in life for what is necessary.

Starting such a conversation in general on any subject needs us to be decisive on some points. These are:

• Being clear on the situation and what we want in our hearts.

• Being clear on what needs to change, and even making a list beforehand.

• Also making a list of people that will be involved with these changes.

• Thinking beforehand from the point of view of the people involved. This will make the communication flow with better ease.

• Having the courage to talk to people face to face, and not hiding behind email, post-its, phone calls or social media. Don’t we all read about how much people get angry or hurt when being dumped out of a relationship through e-mail and such?

• If the people or the person know beforehand that the conversation will be a difficult one and they still show up, we may start by expressing our thanks for their presence and indicate that we think we have an idea on how they are feeling. Then we can start talking from the heart and telling them the truth.

• If they start to argue or try to change our opinion, we need to stay strong and let them know we are not changing our minds, although we understand how they feel.

• Then we may ask them if there is a situation that they need to receive extra closure, like a paycheck or a compensation for something or an apology if the difficult conversation deserves one on our part, but through this we need to stay strong.

• At the end, it is a good idea to say that we heard them and then thank them for listening and for their time.

As to the characters having to face such a situation in fiction, it depends on the situation and the person, but more so on the person. While a self-confident character will probably stick to the above points, a less self-confident person will hee and haw in the beginning and will take his time to approach the subject. Still other characters will choose the flight pattern instead of facing the situation. Surely the setting and other elements surrounding the situation will have a say in it.

This type of a conversation, be it in real life or in fiction, can be quite intimidating, but well worth the time spent in thinking about it beforehand and acting with conviction on our decisions.

--By the way, I got the points in bullets above from my son when he was complaining about having to fire people, then I added a couple of ideas from my own experiences.