Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
Proverbs 27: 6a
Hard conversations can be about unmet expectations, infertility, selfishness, inattentiveness,
un-forgiveness, pride, anger, righteous behavior, insecurities and more. I’m sure you could add yours to the list.
Here is one of mine that had to do with someone expecting something from me that I didn’t deliver.
I was so angry after I got the text that I wanted to throw my phone.
How could something be so misconstrued?
My intentions or lack of we’re not meant to injure but nonetheless there was wounding.
After stewing for a few days in disbelief that I had wounded another by my inattentiveness, I knew I needed help with how I should respond.
I wanted to share my hurt but in a hard conversation where you are the offender, (even if it was never your intention to hurt) to respond in love and wisdom means you listen at the heart level to their woundedness and you say I’m sorry that my actions (or lack of actions if they were expecting something from you) caused you hurt.
There is no place for a but… If you are facing a hard conversation and want help processing so you can respond in love and with wisdom, coaching can help you and I would love to guide your process of discovery.
As I sought out coaching for the hard conversation I had to have I benefitted from several sessions where we looked at how to respond in love and with wisdom and how to eliminate the but.
My coach gently guided me to help me discover my own solution and what I wanted and needed from the conversation to respond in love and wisdom. I’m not going to lie, I wanted to justify my actions, I wanted to tell my side of the story, I wanted the other person to know how hurt I was by their actions from their wounds and I had to coach through all of it.
Each week, I had a different goal for my coaching conversation to work on and that helped me prepare my inner self and let go of any expectations or rights I thought should be a part of the conversation.
What did happen through coaching was that I was able to prepare myself for how I would step in the conversation with what I needed moving forward. That was hard for me as it felt selfish, but I needed to be able to share what I would or wouldn’t be held hostage to in regards to expectations that I might not meet for the other person.
This was freeing as I was now able to be myself, own up to the hurt I caused and then set a foundation for moving forward in the relationship.
Once I worked through all of that, I then felt peace to step up to the plate and have that hard conversation.
I was able to truly apologize and the other person felt heard.
There was a beautiful restoration of friendship and a new awareness moving forward.
Who wouldn’t want that? Don’t fear the hard conversations, call a coach!!
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