In work and in love, the conversations that matter the most are those that ask us to be real. The depth of authenticity they elicit bring us face to face with what David Whyte calls the “cliff edge” of ourselves, where we stand at the limit of our familiar modes of engaging the world. In these moments, we enter a new conversational reality where risk, courage, and vulnerability commingle. As we reveal to another that which we kept tightly bound within our inner worlds, we bring our interiority into contact with the raw unpredictability of that which lies outside of us—the perceptions, feelings, and reactions of our interlocutors. As we begin to give voice to our feelings, our yearning for authenticity enters into an uneasy dialog with our longing for harmony and belonging.

In workplace trainings that Yuri and I run, people often express how hard it is to be real with their colleagues. Many say it rattles their nerves to express themselves when something feels off. When we ask them why, we hear the same answer again and again: “It feels unsafe to speak.” Sometimes this stems from a fear of retaliation. At other times, it comes from a fear of causing hurt. However discomforting the dynamic is, many stay silent as it seems on the surface that safety lies in leaving the unspoken unnamed.

At the heart of this silence is a vulnerability inherent in sociality. At stake is our sense of ourselves in relation to others and an uncertainty about which parts of ourselves feel permissible to share. “When one’s activity occurs in the presence of other persons,” sociologist Erving Goffman writes, “some aspects of the activity are expressively accentuated” while others, which might discredit the fostered impression, are suppressed. Goffman draws on the metaphor of a stage to describe what we conceal and reveal, delineating these as the front and back stages of social life.

The conversations that matter—the ones that are truly transformative—call us to bring to the front stage that which we keep sequestered backstage. They ask us to vocalize what is hard to express, request what what we are afraid to ask for, and name what feels unsayable.

The transformative potential of these exchanges hinges on our capacity to create a conversational space that directly addresses the conundrum of safety. Change unfolds when we establish a foundation of connection within which we can convey the truth of our experience to someone for whom it might be not be visible.

How do we do this?

Crafting a Conversational Space

The first step is to acknowledge the dynamic and the reality of the disharmony without judgement or blame. When we give voice to the unspoken, name the unease or the pattern of behavior that creates disconnection, it often brings deep relief for everyone involved.

Next, is the task of moving everyone away from the cliff edge. Our capacity to hear each other rests on being grounded in ourselves, so we are not engaging from a place of fear and activation. Before we process, it is vital to create a space that can hold the conversation where each person’s experience can be shared without retribution. Often this involves explicitly naming that you want to create a judgement-free zone for people to fully express what is real for them.

Third, and most important, is to see the distinction between realness and a thought-stream of judgements, blame, and criticism that fall under the umbrella of “brutal honesty.” Often, when people describe themselves as “direct,” “confrontational,” or unafraid of “telling it like it is,” Yuri and I find that they are sharing unprocessed aspects of their backstage that emerge from a triggered state. When we look deeper, we see that these judgements, as Marshall Rosenberg so powerfully elucidated, are “tragic expressions of unmet needs.” Underneath these judgements, we find valuable information about what people long for that gets obscured in the telling.

Finally, as we listen beneath our judgements, it reveals what is painful for us to experience. Once we touch upon what we don’t want, we can get to the core of what we do want to experience with others, and make requests in that direction.

A Different Kind of Realness

What does this do for us?

When we establish a baseline of safety and mutual recognition in a conversation, our nervous systems calm down. We enter a state of relaxed attention where we can focus together on the problem at hand, rather than expend our energy on managing the dynamic. We can access our creative capacities and get to a new kind of realness.

This kind of realness is honest, gutsy, and nonviolent because it comes from a place of clear seeing. It breaks the silence maintained by avoidance and yet it is different from “brutal honesty” because it is not generated by a triggered state. It has an entirely different affective quality, a power bereft of aggression. We channel a strength that comes when we choose not to conceal or suppress our vulnerability, but turn towards our experience and share it with courage.

When we speak this way, our words are grounded in our truth and carry the confidence of congruence. These words have an alchemical power to transform a difficult relationship because we can see the bigger picture of where everyone is stuck. We create the space for them to reveal to us the needs behind their words or actions that are damaging. We get to see the core of the problem, which is often not what we thought. With the clarity of vision we gain, we can design solutions that solve for the right problem, solutions that are both transformative and lasting.

Becoming Real: Speaking Your Truth