Guide for Brave Conversations: 6 Ways to Stay Connected Amid Crisis

by Dr. Brandon Nappi

Lately, many of us have found ourselves thrust into brave conversations, the ones where we find ourselves in the midst of passionate disagreement. This is especially heart wrenching when ideological divisions threaten to fracture families and friendships. Most of us want to stay connected to the people we love even amid disagreement. These practices are designed to keep us connected in crisis.

We would like to offer these six principles for brave conversations to help our community lean into important and challenging conversations. Even when we disagree intensely, we can still agree to these mindfulness principles which will support us in staying connected amid crisis. We hope that together, we can all lean into the discomfort of challenging conversations. The health of our nation depends on our willingness to engage with each other. This is not always easy. Democracy isn’t fun all the time. We need practices to keep our hearts soft when the conversations get hard. Yet, our hope is that these simple practices will allow us to speak to each other in a way that honors our full humanity and leads to mutual understanding. We need brave conversations more than ever as we seek to explore what it means to share this world together.

1. Listen to Understand
We listen to understand the experience and the suffering of another person. Our commitment to deep listening springs from our belief in the infinite worth of every person. First and foremost, we listen not to seek agreement or find evidence for disagreement or disapproval. We listen as an act of love. Predatory listening is waiting to catch someone in the act of messing up. We miss each other when we assume the worst intention of others and create deeper division and pain. Cheryl Richardson’s insight is needed more than ever--Healing begins the moment we feel heard.

2. Talk to a Person not a Pathology
Relationship is more important than being right. How you are with someone is far more important than what you say. Often in challenging conversations, we put ourselves on the pedestal of righteousness and put those with whom we disagree in the pit of pathology. In this scenario, we no longer simply disagree with others, rather we pathologize them, labeling them as crazy, evil, and sick. Reducing someone to a sickness is not only unhelpful, it’s dehumanizing. Dehumanization is always violent. Remember you are speaking to a person who, just like me, has suffered. Just like me, they long for love and belonging.

3. Let Go of Labels
Name-calling and labels freeze a conversation in conflict. People are unique and complex with many facets, both visible and invisible. Letting go of labels means not making assumptions about a person because they have a particular belief. This also means not assuming that you know why they believe what they believe or what their experience has been. Stay curious about why someone believes the way they do. This curiosity will provide you deep insight into their humanity and may even provide deeper clarity and insight into your own perspective.

4. Remain Focused
One of the common strategies that humans employ when we feel overwhelmed by intense conversations is that we deflect by changing the subject. We bring up other events and examples that might be loosely related to the core of the conversation but is in truth only a strategy for avoiding the discomfort of the conversation. When you find yourself in an intense conversation, stay focused on the issue at hand as inviting other issues into the dialogue most often confuses and overwhelms the discussion.

5. Cultivate Compassion
If you can’t speak with compassionately and respectfully, don’t speak until you can. Honor the infinite worth of your dialogue partner. Ideally, you can share these seven principles before your conversation. If your dialogue partner is not speaking in accord with these principles, you might gently guide them back to these 7 principles or you may need to pause the conversation until emotions have subsided. When you are aware that harm is being done, either to you or by you, pausing or even ceasing the conversation altogether is the kindness and wisest decision you can make.

6. Stay Humble
Understand that all of us have blind spots and areas in our life that we don’t have full insight into. We all have shadows selves that harm others unintentionally. Humility keeps us grounded in the truth that we are all imperfect. Learning is a life-long journey that is never complete.