This year I have had more hard conversations than I ever have in my life. With my husband, my friends, my SSI team, and especially with myself.
It’s been a year of growing pains and having conversations with the people I love in order to better our relationships.
Now these conversations haven’t always gone well. People got mad, in their feelings or flat out refused to take accountability. And as someone who once used to run away from confrontations, I get it. Although I didn’t approach anyone in an accusatory manner, some still took it that way. In moments of frustration it’s easy to take things out of context and misunderstand the other person. I remember being in secondary school and having a heated debate with a friend about something that I had said that was misconstrued and mis-communicated to her. It was the first real time I realised I didn’t like confrontation when it came from an accusatory standpoint. The friend didn’t bother to find out the facts, she was running with a narrative that was simply untrue. Since that experience I decided that when I want to have a hard conversation with someone, I have to come with love. Not tough, brash, love but soft, kind and gentle love. The kind of grace I wish I was afforded when that argument ensued. For a period of time after that I ran away from confrontation. I took everything personally especially when the other person said not to. 🤣 because if you tell me “don’t take this personal but …” I would absolutely take it personal. But thank God for growth, and healing from experiences that no longer serve you. Not everything is actually personal — get some perspective and get out of your head.
Now when I approach people I have to think about how things will be from their perspective as well. I know some of us have also gone through experiences with family and friends that make us defensive in our response to what you might think is an accusatory conversation but might just be a hard conversation. And listen, hard conversations are just that — hard. There’s usually no easy way out from them unless you bury your feelings and say nothing (which in my opinion is way worse). But for relationships to grow and blossom you have to be willing to do hard things, and part of that is speaking up when things aren’t working right or something has gone awry. And if people aren’t willing to go on that journey with you and honour your feelings, then sometimes that’s where your journey with them will have to end.
When I approach people to say something difficult to hear, I have to be willing to give them the benefit of doubt and be open to listen to things from their own perspective and experience. I have to understand without passing judgment and I have to be honest. Sometimes what we think of a certain situation or experience is not necessarily untrue, but it’s just that we don’t have all the facts to be able to come to an accurate conclusion. There’s always three sides to every story — your view, their view and the truth likely somewhere in the middle.
So, here I am, 2 months or so from my mothers transition and having to tell my friends who I knew really cared about me, how to love me and show up for me in this difficult time because they weren’t meeting the mark. As I do, I sat with my feelings, however tough and painful they were to acknowledge how I felt and more importantly how I wanted to feel. I wrote a long text message and sent it to my close friends. It was hard but it was brave. There was no point getting upset because they just didn’t know what to do or say. I know that if they knew better they would, and so they did once I shared my heart with them. It was a freeing and beautiful moment once I let go of my feelings and let the truth settle. And the truth is that I have great people in my life, great friends especially, but this year has tested some of my nearest and dearest friendships. It’s been tough dealing with grief and also navigating through those feelings and emotions.
In an interesting turn of events, the older I get, one thing I’ve come to love in my twenties is accountability and transparency. No longer do I run away from confrontations or even conflict when they occur. Hard as they might be, I know that it’s better for my relationships. My friends know if they’re in the wrong I will call them out on it. And if I also do something wrong, they will do the same. That’s in my friendship book 101 when you become my friend — especially a close friend. I expect that we will be honest with each other, even when it’s hard to hear, especially when it’s about something important to myself or the friend.
I think in every relationship it’s important to be able to advocate for yourself.
Just the other day on the train I was writing this newsletter when a couple came to sit next to me and were talking loudly. I was in the flow so I knew I had to deeply concentrate and their conversation was very distracting. I could do two things — stop writing my newsletter (or move), or ask the couple if they wouldn’t mind talking in low tones so I could focus. What would you do? What do you think I did?
Plot twist — They moved. I told them I was a writer and I was struggling to focus because I was getting distracted by their conversation and initially the man kicked up a fuss and said they had the right to speak openly. The easier thing for me to do was back off or move, but I reiterated that I had a limited amount of time till I had to get off the train so it was important that I focus on my work. In fact my exact words were “I’m sorry I’m not asking you not to talk, but I need to finish this and I’m getting distracted by your conversation.” He apologised and said “yeah that’s fair enough, I know I have a loud voice so we’ll move.” Can you imagine?! So what was the initial ruckus about?! You know what it was — defence. Even though I didn’t say anything wrong he instantly took a slight confrontation as an affront and his first instinct was to defend and push back. A lot of us are like that. A lot of my friends have been like that this year. And I get it because I’ve done that too in the past. But I’ve had to learn better how to stand up for myself in a non-threatening way and through several of these small events and moments I’ve learned to be braver. My mum was the perfect example of advocating for yourself. She worked in several places and organisations where she had to constantly stick up for herself and have hard conversations with both her superiors and her juniors. She never made it look easy but she also taught me how to do it well — with patience, with wisdom and all in love.
Having hard conversations will require you to be transparent and vulnerable. But make no mistake they are not one and the same.
“Vulnerability will cost you. But transparency is free.” — Adama
You see with transparency you’re being honest and stating facts; ie “You didn’t call me during this very important moment in my life so I was disappointed and sad”. But vulnerability requires you to go further, go deeper— “because I was disappointed and sad, I felt like I couldn’t show up for you because my emotions were clouded by the hurt. I felt ignored and so my immediate reaction was to ignore you too.” Whew. Even typing that gave me goosebumps.
Transparency might be allowing people see you at the surface, but vulnerability will demand you let them in deeper. It’s never easy and there’s no guarantee that the other person will see your hurt and make it better. But we will have to do it anyway, for us, and not for them. For lack of vulnerability many people have self sabotaged their way out of good relationships and friendships. You tell yourself you don’t need to tell anyone how you truly feel because if they don’t give you the response you’re looking for then what’s the point? The point is you have to live your life for yourself and not based on the actions of other people. When I’m offended by someone, I take the time and space to recalibrate and cool off before coming back and rebuilding. Because you can’t stay mad forever, and things don’t always snap back to where you left off so you will have to rebuild. As I say to my friends, if you kick me to the curb because you’re mad and didn’t communicate, you won’t find me there when you come back. I would pick myself up from that side walk and keep walking on. Life will move on, with or without you, even if I want it with you.
Accountability and transparency is important in life, but especially with friendships it’s imperative it’s backed with vulnerability.
Taking accountability isn’t always easy. Of course not. We hate that we’ve messed up and done something wrong. But can you own up to it? Can you acknowledge it and honestly want to do better? Not everyone can. But if you can have a hard conversation or two, perhaps that relationship can survive, maybe it will even thrive because of it.
Enjoyed this newsletter? Let me know what you think in the comments. Have an experience to share? Reply this email, share in the comments, and share it with a friend or on socials.
19/8
12:00
I really love this ! Wow it actually felt like you were in my head at some points 😂
2 main points stuck out to me - the first being the example you gave of you being on the train and actively speaking up for yourself in a good way. It’s interesting how the mans first reaction was to defend himself/his rights which is genuinely human nature. But what I love is you didn’t just decide to move, but you explained further and I believe that then spoke to his actual nature and clearly he must be a nice person but initially didn’t want to feel “pushed around”
The second thing I love was the explanation at the end of you may not always find me where you left me regarding a friendship breakdown/pause. that’s a really key point because we all sometimes forget life happens! Bigger things happen when you give people time/space - no matter how much you desire to still be in someone’s life, I feel lack of communication and extreme time without intentional work during the space could end up meaning you both move on. The balance is key but prayer is keyerrr😂 always asking God to know how to navigate these things is really helpful for me
Didn’t mean to go on for this long loool🤦🏾♀️ but thank you for this write up Bukiie !
This was so good and timely too! Recently had a hard conversation with a friend and turns out we were both feeling the same way about each other. More communication was needed. But I loved that we both came to a resolve. As you said it’s much easier to be avoidant, but real maturity comes with being able to share our minds with our friends in love. Hard conversations are necessary for real relationships