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Safeguarding the space between

Stepping up to difficult conversations: What my grad students would tell you

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Part 1 of 4

I wanted to know what my students would tell others about the act of stepping up to a difficult conversation, now that they had, albeit by force of assignment, completed their own. Here’s what they told me:

  • It wasn’t remotely as difficult as my worst fears anticipated it to be.
  • It’s freeing. It releases you from something holding you down or holding you back.
  • Stepping up with intention makes you a better person, helps you find a center in a chaotic world.
  • You shouldn’t be afraid to step up and look into the big black hole. You will not lose yourself in that hole!
  • You won’t be alone in that conversation for more than a heartbeat, because the other will join you fully when you know how to do it. They’ve been waiting, too.
  • It’s empowering because you’re deciding not to be a victim of the conflict.
  • At the other side of the conversation, I found myself—the person I had lost for all the years I had avoided that conversation.

At the other side of the conversation, I found myself. Can there be anything more powerful than that?

I’m humbled by what my students did, because sitting there in that classroom with them, I could see that they had really, truly stepped up. They had spoken up and gotten to the heart of what mattered. They had made a difference in their own lives and in the lives of another person. And in mine.

What difficult conversation have you been avoiding and how can I help?

The 4-part series

  1. Stepping up to difficult conversations: What my grad students taught me
  2. Stepping up to difficult conversations: Fear is normal
  3. Stepping up to difficult conversations: Know your strongest hopes
  4. Stepping up to difficult conversations: What my grad students would tell you (above)
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