Telling Hard Truths with Bluntness vs. Kindness in Adult Relationships
Everyone of us at some point in our lives is going to have to receive a hard truth about ourselves or our situation, and tell someone else a hard truth about themselves or their situation, but when the time comes to lay everything our on the table, there is a right and wrong way to go about delivering the message.
This episode explores some strategies for telling people hard truths with a healthy mix of sensitivity and bluntness, including the important factors to consider for each individual so that your communication method is as effective as possible.
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Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Free Guide: 6-Step Guide to Small Talk for Awkward Introverts
Communicate with Quiet Confidence: https://theintrovertedmisfit.com/coaching
Transcript:
Welcome to The Introverted Misfit Podcast with me, Caroline Smith, where we discuss topics related to the human experience of connection and communication with a slightly awkward, introverted twist.
In today’s podcast episode, we’ll explore some strategies for telling people hard truths with a healthy mix of sensitivity and bluntness, including the important factors to consider for each individual so that your communication method is as effective as possible.
What is it about the human psyche that makes receiving hard truths about ourselves so uncomfortable?
And why is telling someone else the truth about themselves equally as comfortable?
And what makes certain people better than others at accepting and telling these hard truths?
As a woman with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the concept of knowing when it’s time to be blunt and when it’s time to be more sensitive has been a recurring theme in the relationships throughout my life.
I’m constantly fighting my natural urge to say exactly what I mean with no filter or treating the topic at hand with more sensitivity and empathy.
Trying to figure out which communication style is right for which situation used to be a struggle for me and sometimes still is, but what I’ve learned is that there is a time and place for each different method.
There is a little bit of a science behind getting it just right; it’s a combination of asking yourself the following questions:
Are you the right person to deliver the truth?
Is this the right time and place for a difficult conversation?
What’s at stake and what is the weight of the situation at hand?
Is the person in a place mentally and emotionally to accept the truth?
Before we go into more details about those questions, I want to talk a little about what goes on in the brain of someone who is hearing a hard truth about themselves.
Our brains are wired for familiarity. When we are set in our ways for a long time with little-to-no challenge, our brains are more and more likely to accept that way of thinking or being and less and less likely to search outside of those familiar patterns.
I’m currently reading the book, “Willful Blindness: Why we Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril,” by Margaret Heffermen, and towards the beginning of the book, she sites a former neurologist named Robert Burton who compares the formation of our neural networks to how riverbeds are formed.
He says:
“Imagine the gradual formation of a riverbed. The initial flow if water might be completely random — there are no preferred routes in the beginning. But once a creek is formed, water is more likely to follow this newly created path of least resistance. As the water continues, the creek deepens and a river develops.”
So basically, our brains are trying to create neural pathways that are familiar to us, which can be a good or bad thing depending on the context, but if you can imagine what happens when you try to challenge someone’s way of thinking with hard truths, it’s like you’re adding resistance where there previously was none, which is difficult for our brains to grasp.
That’s why those hot button issues like religion and politics tend to get so heated and usually people only walk away from those discussions more convinced of their initial beliefs.
And that’s why telling someone that they’re wrong about something when they were so convinced they were right can cause such friction.
So considering all of that, plus the fact that each individual will come with their own personality, habits, tendencies, mental states, communication styles, hormonal differences, you can start to understand how telling people negative truths about themselves can require different methods of delivery.
Some people’s brains are more wired to accept the truth with a more open mind while others will completely shut down or get defensive.
So knowing what we know now about how they react to being challenged — even when the challenge is for their own good — how should we approach telling people hard truths, and how can we figure out the correct balance of bluntness and sensitivity?
So now let’s dive into answering those four questions introduced earlier:
Are you the right person to deliver the truth?
Sometimes we find ourselves in situations in which we might not be the best person to initiate a hard conversation.
It’s one thing if you know the person or have to work closely with the person, like a sibling, parent, friend, coworker, boss (even that can be up for debate because there is a line between coworkers’ personal and professional lives), but in instances where you don’t really know the person that well and they didn’t ask for your input, it probably won’t land as well.
Is this the right time and place for a difficult conversation?
Usually, hard truths are better delivered in a setting where only the people involved or directly affected will be, and it’s good to ensure you have enough time for a discussion to take place. This is because you want to avoid embarrassing someone by talking about something serious, private, or demoralizing in front of others.
What’s at stake and what is the weight of the situation at hand?
Sometimes the truth that you’re telling someone is not that big of deal, but sometimes the situation is much more serious and the stakes much higher.
For instance, if you need to talk to your roommate about them not cleaning the bathroom, that’s a relatively low-stakes situation, but if you are going to tell someone something that do something drastic like crushing their dreams or potentially harm their self-esteem — even though it still needs to be said — that is a much heavier situation where the stakes are higher.
This could be about someone’s unhealthy habits, unhealthy communication styles, behaviors that are harmful to themselves or others, or anything that would severely embarrass the person.
Understanding the weight of the situation is important for determining which communication style is best for the situation.
Is the person in a place mentally and emotionally to accept the truth?
Everyone of us at some point in our lives is going to have to receive a hard truth about ourselves or our situation, and tell someone else a hard truth about themselves or their situation, but when the time comes to lay everything out on the table, there is no guarantee that the person on the receiving end will be in the right mental and emotional state to accept the truth.
And honestly, there is nothing you can do to change that for them — that’s their cross the bear and not yours. That’s work that they need to do on themselves or that you need to do on yourself — but knowing this information can help you craft the right messaging for when you tell them the truth.
For instance, is this a sensitive topic for the person?
Is the person sensitive in general or more strong-willed?
Has this person’s behavior been enabled for their entire lives with no questions or challenges?
Does this person lack emotional maturity?
Has something traumatic happened in this person’s life that would’ve caused them to behave this way?
Are they comfortable or even happy being in their dysfunctional state, which suggests they are not in a place to receive the truth?
These types of questions are good to consider before having tough conversations.
So now we’ve considered why these different contextual facts matter, but how can we use this information to figure out the right messaging and the right balance between bluntness and kindness?
I started out this episode with an analogy comparing how our brains neural networks compare to riverbeds, and I’m going to use another analogy to nature because I just think nature is one of the best universal examples of the issues we struggle with as humans.
When you’re about to interrupt someone’s thought patterns and way of life by telling them a hard truth, it’s kind of like you’re looking at a still, calm body of water, and you’re holding a pebble in one hand and a large rock in the other, and you have to decide which one you are going to toss in to disrupt the calmness of the water.
This doesn’t mean that the person is calm necessarily — I’m comparing the calmness of the water to being comfortable sitting in their dysfunctional state. In fact, their life might be the opposite of calm, but they are comfortable in the chaos.
So how do we break this calmness and comfortability with the truth?
It starts by asking yourself those four questions:
Are you the right person to deliver the truth?
Is this the right time and place for a difficult conversation?
What’s at stake and what is the weight of the situation at hand?
Is the person in a place mentally and emotionally to accept the truth?
So just to give you a few examples, if the person has shown that they take criticism pretty well, you can be more straightforward and blunt with them.
If you don’t know the person well enough to have a tough conversation, telling the hard truth might look like asking a simple question that makes them think about their situation in a sincere way. For instance, “Has that strategy worked for you in your life?” or something like that.
If what they are doing is directly harming others, you need to be more blunt about it.
Or say the person is indirectly and unintentionally causing harm to others, but they are also not in a healthy mental and emotional state to really understand what’s happening, you might need a healthy mix of being sensitive to their issues and concerns while being blunt about their unhealthy behaviors.
So now what does sensitive and blunt communication even look like? Especially for people who may struggle with their communication skills?
In my experience, the behaviors may look a little different for each individual person especially for men and women because of course we have different communication styles, but the basic behaviors of using the right words, eye contact, body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions are pretty much the same, which by the way if you happen to be an introverted woman who struggles with basic social and communication skills, you should check out my course Communicate with Quiet Confidence, which will teach you all the basics you need to know about socializing and communication as an more quiet, reserved woman.
Sensitive communication includes being empathetic by using a softer voice and using language that conveys you understand what they’re going through, while also being clear that the behaviors they are doing are not healthy. It might even include using physical touch to comfort the person if they are receptive to that. Sensitive communication does not include being overly sarcastic about their situation or joking about the person or their situation in a demeaning way (it may include light-hearted joking if that’s your style).
Blunt communication includes being straightforward and direct with your words, body language, and voice. It doesn’t mean you completely dismiss the person’s feelings, but it does mean you are more focused on stating the facts or pointing out the damage their behaviors are causing to themselves or others.
It might not be comfortable, but telling hard truths is a necessary part of life. As my dad often tells me, it’s a dangerous place to be when the people closest to you can’t tell you the truth, and I think that’s a great mindset that everyone should have.
That’s all for today’s episode. If you enjoyed this talk, please don’t forget to hit the follow or subscribe button, leave a review, like or comment on whichever platform you’re tuning in, and share this podcast with a friend. Thanks for listening, and have a great day!
Connect With Caroline:
Website: https://theintrovertedmisfit.com
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-smith-5119b0311/
Contact Me: https://theintrovertedmisfit.com/contact
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