Episode 161 - The Two Conversation Buckets
There are almost always two things happening when hard conversations feel impossible, and understanding the difference can change everything. In this episode, I’m introducing what I call the two communication buckets—clarity and vulnerability—and why they so often lead women into silence, self-protection, and disconnected relationships. You’ll hear why confusion between the two buckets is one of the biggest reasons hard conversations stay stuck, and how the relationships that feel most alive and nourishing are built on both the willingness to say the true thing and the willingness to let yourself truly be seen. Here’s what I cover:
A story about an emotional moment with my husband when I finally admitted something I had been terrified to say out loud
How years of communication struggles and independence caused me to armor up in my relationship
What the clarity spectrum looks like from softening and hedging to direct and honest communication
What vulnerability really is and how the “glass wall” keeps people from truly knowing you
Questions to ask yourself and tiny first steps that help you move toward the conversations you want to have
Find Sara here:
pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations
youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333
Transcript
00:59
One of the things that I have been really open with, because it's the place where I have made the most progress that means the most to me, is in my relationship with my husband.
01:12
And I want to tell you a story. We were on a weekend trip. It was just the two of us. And by that point, we had done a lot of hard work, right? It was several years of really kind of unraveling and untangling what had been broken between us, all of the codependency, and even some of the hurt.
01:40
And we were genuinely in a different place than we had ever been. It was better. And I remember sitting across from him at this restaurant where we were having dinner, and I was just flooded, like totally flooded with love for him, with longing, with wanting to be not just even physically closer to him, but emotionally closer to him.
02:08
And it came out of somewhere that I hadn't been anticipating and that I hadn't let myself access in a really long time. And the feeling was so big and it was so overwhelming that I was tearing up a little bit.
02:26
And I was just, you know, completely overwhelmed. And so as I was just sitting with that feeling, something that I had not ever let myself really feel, how much I wanted him, how much I needed him, and how terrified I was to say that.
02:45
He noticed and he said, what's wrong? Are you okay? Now, I had spent the first eight years of our marriage, which was really hard, really, really hard. We did not know how to communicate with each other.
03:02
And I had resolved that by very carefully learning how to not need him. I was very independent. I did what I needed and wanted to do largely on my own. And I told myself that needing him was weak, that it was pathetic, and it was the kind of thing that made women into people they definitely did not want to be.
03:28
I loved him. And there were a lot of things about like our partnership that were actually going okay. But I kept him at arm's length. And subconsciously, I could not have told you this at the time, but I was certain that if I let myself really need him, really love him, and really express those things to him, that he would reject me and that I would not survive that pain.
03:59
So I armored up, right? The safest thing that I thought was just to kind of close these heavy iron doors and not let any of that out. And so that's where I was on that trip, like noticing the tension between like I can't quite armor up in this moment.
04:21
I'm flooded with all of these emotions and my eyes are teary and I'm just, you know, sitting here not saying anything. And he was waiting for me to answer his question. And so I finally said the truest thing that I had ever said to him, which was, I am so afraid that you will leave me if I show you, it's making me emotional again right now.
04:50
If I show you who I really am and what I really want, I'm so afraid that you will leave me. And I'll come back to that moment in a minute. And I want to tell you that what I've learned in the years since about why that moment was so hard and not just emotionally hard, it was structurally hard because there were two different things happening at once.
05:15
And I couldn't see it at the time, but once I could see them through this work of coaching all these other women, everything made sense in a new way. And it's actually really shaped the specific work I do around helping women have hard conversations.
05:33
So when women come to me because they can't have the hard conversations, they freeze or they cave or they stay silent when they most need to speak, there are almost always two things going on. And they're not exactly the same thing.
05:48
And I think separating them out is really helpful because they might look similar from the outside and they both produce silence. But there's some differences and I call them the two communication buckets.
06:04
Bucket number one is about clarity. Clarity is about saying something in a clear, unambiguous, unapologetic way. It's about knowing what you actually think, what you actually want, and what you actually need, and being able to say it with enough directness that the other person can actually hear you, but with enough kindness and respectfulness, if that's what you want in that situation, that you can say it,
06:36
that you feel comfortable saying it. Clarity is the difference between someone who says, oh, I don't know, whatever you think, it's fine. And, you know, I want to be honest with you about something. And I really hope you can hear me out.
06:53
That is clarity. And clarity is on a spectrum. If you can imagine a scale from one to 10, on the one side of that scale, you are soft, you are apologetic, you are indirect, you are accommodating. And you are saying something technically, but you're saying it in such a way that it can be easily missed, easily dismissed, and easily absorbed by the person you're talking to without anything actually changing.
07:22
And on the 10 side of the scale, of that clarity scale, you are candid, you are even bold, you are clear, you are unapologetic, and you are direct with your values of kindness and respectfulness as well.
07:39
But the difference is you say the actual thing. Most women I work with can feel the difference between those two ends of the spectrum and they can tell and they start to be on to themselves about when they're being vague on purpose.
07:54
They know when they are softening something into like almost being invisible because they are afraid of what will happen to the relationship if something lands too hard. Lack of clarity sounds like whatever you want when you're afraid to have an opinion that could be uncomfortable for the other person.
08:14
It sounds like, no, no, no, no, no, it's okay when it's not okay. It sounds like 20 minutes of context and hedging and qualification before you actually get to say the thing you need. When I'm trying to drive this point home, I often ask if anyone can imagine a woman who wants to ask for something, like maybe a specific table at a restaurant.
08:37
But here's how she asks. Oh, I'm so sorry to bother you. It's totally not a big deal. I know you have a lot going on. But I was also wondering if maybe, possibly we could have a table closer to the window, maybe even right by the window, only if it's available though.
08:51
I know you're busy. It's totally okay if it doesn't work out. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience. That's a more extreme version, but the heads are always nodding and chuckling because it's also a true extreme version.
09:06
It also looks like a woman hinting at something like you're on a road trip and asking if anyone else needs to go to the bathroom because you need to go to the bathroom, but you don't want to be the only one.
09:19
And you needing it is somehow not enough to say, hey, can we pull over at the next gas station? I need to go to the bathroom. Those might feel a little more extreme, but if you notice the ways that that is showing up for you, that is a clarity issue.
09:35
The skill of clarity is learning how to move toward the more direct end of the scale. Not necessarily all the way. I'm not saying that all communication should happen at a 10. I'm saying that a 10 should be accessible when you need it.
09:55
And that the way that you bring your values of kindness and respect and compassion definitely don't undermine the message. They complement it. So bucket two is vulnerability. And this one is different because it's not about the words.
10:17
Vulnerability is about access. It's about what you let people see. It's the difference between managing what you reveal, you know, carefully curating which version of yourself is visible at any given moment and actually letting someone in.
10:36
Vulnerability is on its own spectrum, you know, one to 10. On the one side, you are guarded, armored up, hyper-independent. I'm fine. I don't need help. I can handle this. You are stoic. You are competent and you are private.
10:53
You only share your struggles after they are resolved so that by the time anybody hears about them, they are already proof of your strength rather than evidence of your need. On the 10 side of the scale of vulnerability, you are open-hearted.
11:13
You are relational. You are emotionally available. You can say, you know what, I'm really struggling with this. You can tell people how much you appreciate them, how much you might love them, how much they mean to you.
11:27
You can admit to having feelings like shame or fear or anxiety because it doesn't mean anything negative about you. You're just a human having a human emotion. You can say, I need you. You can say, you are so important to me.
11:46
You can let the other person in front of you actually see you and not that curated, has it all together version, the real one. Someone who can communicate with vulnerability is strong and competent too.
12:02
They just believe that vulnerable communication is actually the door to more connection, more good feelings. And if the other person doesn't respond as they hoped, they don't make it mean that they were wrong to try.
12:19
Lack of vulnerability sounds like, I'm fine. And that's said behind a glass wall, right? You want people to only see what you allow them to see. It sounds like sharing parts of yourself, but it only goes to a certain depth and no further.
12:38
It looks like relationships that work, but don't really feel alive or satisfying or energetically delicious, right? To be sharing that much of yourself with another person. And because you're a highly competent woman, it ends up looking like being needed everywhere and truly known almost nowhere.
13:05
Here's the thing I want you to hear. Clarity and vulnerability are not the same problem, but they often show up together and confusing them and not knowing kind of which one to work on is one of the main reasons that hard conversations stay stuck.
13:24
Sometimes you lack clarity. You have an inkling of what you want. You don't know how to say the thing. You have been trained to soften and hedge and apologize. You've been so trained to soften and hedge and apologize that the words you have access to aren't the words you actually mean.
13:44
The skill you need is about finding more direct words and trusting yourself to use them along with your values of kindness and respect and compassion. Sometimes you lack vulnerability. You have the desire to be closer and express more of your inner world, but you feel trapped by the not knowing about how they will respond.
14:11
And something in you will not let the other person actually see what's true. That glass wall goes up. The armor goes on. You are good at delivering words clearly when it's about anything outside of you.
14:25
Naming facts is easy. And even letting, you know, some of your emotions show a little bit when it's on behalf of others, your kids, your clients, right? You can speak up and even be vulnerable for them.
14:38
But when it comes to you, your inner workings and desires and needs, that glass wall will just not let those words through. And sometimes, often actually, it's a combination of both, clarity and vulnerability.
14:55
So back to the story with my husband. That night on the trip, sitting across from him, I knew what I wanted to say. And by that point in our marriage, I had done enough work that I could find, you know, the language for what I was feeling.
15:13
And I could have described it, you know, very well. What I didn't have, what I had been actively preventing myself from having for eight years was the willingness to let him see it, was the fear of what would happen if he saw it, to let him see that I needed him, to let him see that I was afraid, that the wall I had been so carefully maintaining wasn't just about independence.
15:43
It was about protection. And it was keeping him out of the very parts of me that I most wanted him to reach. And the sentence I finally said, I'm so afraid that you'll leave me if I show you who I really am and what I want.
16:02
There was some clarity, right? But there was so much vulnerability in that clarity that it was about both of those things for me. And he responded with more love than I knew what to do with. And that moment changed everything for us.
16:20
It changed everything for me. And it's why I do what I do, because I want women to have those moments of intimacy and connection and vulnerability with the most important people in their lives. Because I love to think about this quote from Esther Perel, the quality of our relationships is the quality of our life.
16:46
You can't have a rich, rewarding life without rich, rewarding relationships. So for just a second, I want you to think about the conversation you haven't had. Maybe there's many conversations. Maybe there's one that sticks out.
17:03
It's maybe it's something that you have rehearsed. Maybe it's something that you just kind of feel in your chest. Maybe you kind of think about having different versions of it, but then you just in the moment, you can't say it.
17:18
Which bucket is it in? It might be a little bit of both. Here's something to consider. Are you stuck because you don't have the words? Because you've been so well trained to be accommodating, to soften everything, that you don't actually know how to say the direct version of what you want.
17:40
That's a clarity problem. The skill is about finding the more honest words and then building the muscle and the inner sturdiness to use them. Or are you stuck because there's tension between letting yourself be seen and how that might be perceived as weakness or neediness or too dreamy or silly.
18:03
Maybe you'll be looked at as someone who's lacking competence. Maybe you worry about being rejected, being too emotional. And your worries about those things just feel like an insurmountable task. So you just retreat behind that glass wall.
18:19
There's too much fear or shame or worry if you actually let the other person see what is true. That is the vulnerability bucket. And the skill there is a little different. It's about learning to stay.
18:34
And the skill there is actually exactly the same. It's learning how to manage the feelings in your body and have enough inner sturdiness to be able to let those emotions be visible instead of managing them into invisibility.
18:55
It's about being able to say the words that feel most true and vulnerable along with your values and then not caving under the emotion that it takes to say them. Here's what I want to leave you with.
19:11
When you think about either that conversation or the relationship that that conversation is a part of, I want you to just think about the one that feels the most stuck, the one where you know that there are true things that have not been said.
19:30
And I want to just give you three questions to ask yourself. First, what is my hunch about which bucket or buckets I need to draw from to move this relationship from this place of stuckness into something that feels more alive and satisfying?
19:51
What's my hunch about the buckets? Question number two. What is the first tiniest step in the direction of having that conversation I someday want to have? The first teeniest, tiniest, maybe feels a little scary or risky, but it's doable step that you could take.
20:14
And then number three, just let yourself sit with that first teeny tiny step. Let your nervous system feel a little activated about it, a little worry, and just sit with it and breathe your way through it until it passes.
20:30
That's giving your nervous system some reps that will actually expand your ability to feel uncomfortable and to be sturdy on the inside as you work through the emotions that are totally normal to feel.
20:45
Let me give you a personal example of how I used those steps. I have a son who loves to argue with me. I mean, he just relishes being the contrarian. And it was wearing me out. It was pissing me off.
21:00
It was making it so that every time he and I were going to have an interaction, it was almost like I was ready to fight with him. And sometimes I would overreact or I would come down harder on him than I might have otherwise because I just, everything was a fight.
21:16
And I started noticing some distance between us and I didn't like it. I knew that eventually I wanted to talk with him about this situation of like everything turning into a fight. And I knew that I was going to have to be both vulnerable and clear with him.
21:36
And I wasn't ready to address it directly yet. So I looked for that smallest, teensiest, tiniest step. And I just started touching him more. A short rub, you know, on the back when he was standing next to me, seeking him out for a good night hug, giving him knuckles, which he thinks is so lame when he did something that we were both proud of.
22:02
And I noticed that he started reciprocating. I mean, granted, sometimes it was trying to like jokingly wrestle me to the ground, but other times it was coming to me for a hug. And so then I took the next smallest step.
22:17
One day he was telling me about a TV show he was interested in watching and I said, hey, why don't we watch that together? He agreed. And I bought his favorite snacks and I jokingly said, because I couldn't say it directly, like, hey, if you want these snacks, which are all your favorites, you're going to have to come sit right by me.
22:38
He jokingly acted like I was asking him to saw off his right arm and that was the worst thing in the world. But then he came over and sat by me. It was months later before I really addressed the bigger fighting contrarian dynamic, but we got there.
22:55
And that's what I mean when I suggest, you know, those three steps. Something truly small and doable, even if it still feels a little risky. That's teeny tiny steps that I'm talking about where you can be successful and it moves you ever so slightly in the direction of having the conversation you want to have.
23:19
And when you're ready to learn how to move from where you are to where you want to be, the words and developing that inner sturdiness, that's exactly the work that we do together. Here's what I know, relationships that are deeply alive, the ones that feel mutual and real and nourishing, they are built on both, on clarity, the willingness to say the true thing, and on vulnerability, the willingness to let the real you be seen.
23:52
You cannot manage your way into intimacy. You cannot curate your way into being truly known. You cannot have those really deeply satisfying, true relationships where the real you is loved and known and celebrated.
24:13
If you're living behind that glass wall in your most important relationships, and it's totally possible to change. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.
