Difficult Conversations

When I am living a purposeful life, caring for myself and others, I am able to co-create a place for others to do the same. - Quote from Molly Young Brown

The most difficult part of a purposeful life, for me, is initiating conversations that I am uncomfortable initiating. Sometimes, with people who are important enough to me, I initiate them no matter how uncomfortable I am with it. Sometimes I don't.

It depends on the person and how they have responded to me doing that in the past. If I know from past experience that they are going to push me out of their life for the next few months for voicing my opinion, I am very careful what I give voice to - no matter how much I care about them.

I hadn't found my voice while I was still in my first marriage, and that ended in tragedy. I didn't make the same mistake in my second marriage. Sometimes I had to dig deep to find the courage to say the words that needed to be said. And I could often tell that my husband had to dig deep in himself to find the courage to listen to the difficult words I had to say.

But he accepted those words with the love they held; and he never once punished me for saying them.

There is a lot of power in truthful dialogue. In our society, we tend to shy away from the hard issues - leaving a lot of shallow talk being tossed around.

The same way that the healthiest roses grew from the shit at their roots, difficult conversations grow relationships of the deepest beauty, bringing out the best in everyone involved.