The Unsaid.
My daughter is a year and a half, and the question that’s been looming over my wife and me is whether we’re going to try for a second child. When we first started talking about it, it seemed like we were just in different places (I wanted another one and she didn’t). But recently we started having a fully honest conversation. And what seemed like a clear-cut issue around a hugely weighty but ultimately binary choice turned out to be the impetus for a much deeper conversation – one that helped us share complex feelings that have been developing for both of us. Fears, resentments, and insecurities that have been bubbling up in our parenting journey. Talking about them didn’t make them go away. But in some important way, it helped close the space between us – even without changing our different experiences and perspectives. There was no longer the “unsaid” between us.
I get to talk with leaders going through their own version of this all the time. Something drives a wedge in one of their personal or professional relationships. There is some disagreement or point of tension that seems to be driving them apart from someone else. But in fact, when they get in touch with their hearts and can identify the feelings arising for them – fear, loneliness, self-doubt, envy – and take the risk to share those feelings with the other person, so much of the tension dissipates and a sense of connection is reformed. Even if the thing initially causing the disagreement or point of tension doesn’t change, somehow the path forward feels more manageable.
I’m not suggesting there’s no such thing as an impasse between two people. But I know that when we’re having a conversation about thoughts, beliefs, or ideas, we’re more likely to encounter what seems like an impasse. But when we’re having a conversation about the real feelings behind those thoughts and beliefs, we’re likely to move closer to reality: we’re both experiencing different versions of the same human struggle.
If you think about someone right now that’s causing you some inner tension or angst – what are the feelings that come up for you? What is the “unsaid” between you? If you allow yourself to say it, how do you think it would feel? What do you think would happen?
