Why We Avoid Hard Conversations

Most people don’t avoid hard conversations because they don’t care.

They avoid them because they do.

In this episode, Michael and Shannon talk about why we avoid the conversations we know we need to have — fear of conflict, fear of being misunderstood, and the risk of damaging relationships.

But avoiding the conversation doesn’t remove the problem.

It just delays it… and often makes it heavier.

Because the longer we stay silent, the more space we give for assumptions, frustration, and distance to grow.

At some point, the conversation may need to happen. Other times it may not.

The question is when — and at what cost.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, I'd like to welcome everyone back to Unloaded the Podcast. This is Michael Seahorn. Shannon Morrow. And we are glad to be back recording our next episode. Shannon, how's you how you been this week? Good, man. It's been a good week. Likewise, too. Yeah. It's been a good week for me as well. Pretty excited today. So if listeners kind of hear a difference in the in the voice today, I'm a little excited. This recording, when it hits next week, I'll be back on the big island, taking some time off. I debated talking about this uh a little bit on the podcast, but it fits real nicely uh with everything that we've talked about to this day. Yeah. Right. Uh so I um, as most of the listeners have heard, or uh if we have any new listeners, go back and listen to our uh other episodes. A few weeks back, I I had a couple rough, rough days. It was a three-day sequence of events, and um that Friday I decided in the raw moment that I needed some uh time off to reset myself. So um here we are now. The time is coming, as they say, the time is nigh. So uh this Sunday I'll be uh heading out to the Big Island um to reset myself internally, both mentally and spiritually, definitely physically, um, because I feel like I'm in a point now in my life where um I've been doing a lot with work and the podcast, my own business, and um I feel like there's a uh uh my batteries are drained. So it's recharge time. So um looking forward to that, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

So just for the listening audience, what we've been talking about is uh knowing yourself and just kind of knowing when when those batteries are depleted and you're just toughen it out a little bit and you're just worn out, man. And I feel like it's good to know when that is. Um you gotta listen to your body at some point, and I I have a tendency not to do that very well. Tough it out. Just tough it out. Suck it up, tough it out, and and keep moving. And so I made the decision just on the fly. And it's unusual for me, and just so I give you maybe some backstory, and Shannon will can can confirm this is uh I generally only take one week a year in October every year.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Not this year, not this year, man. And now you recognize like you were pretty pretty crispy.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah, yeah. They say what do they say? Um uh burning the candle at both ends. Yeah. And then I lit the middle in between.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

It's just this melted puddle of wax, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

So anyway, with all that being said, I'm just looking forward to uh a little little R and R and immerse myself uh back at the islands and uh enjoying nature to the best of my ability with uh no itinerary other than eat real good food and enjoy some enjoy some time in nature, man. Go swimming, jump out of an airplane. That's happening too, yeah. Yeah, little itinerary. Going to do a little little jump out there at the big island and uh do some free falling and just uh enjoying this life, man. I only get one shot. So yeah, yeah, just live it. Yeah. Not recommending that for everybody. It's it freaks a lot of people out, but uh I'm looking forward to it, man.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Yeah, yeah, you need it.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah, I appreciate that, man. Well, following up on uh last couple weeks, um Shannon and I have been talking about getting to the uh granular level, if you will, of um what we do here at Unloaded and why Unloaded exists, and we're trying to really talk about this day-to-day dealing with this thing we call life. I think last week was pretty good segue, if you will, into uh what will be the next good five, six, seven more episodes of just talking about the nitty-gritty day-to-day stuff. What do you think about that, man?

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Nitty gritty. Day-to-day. Day-to-day, man. What things do you do every day?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

A lot.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, do a lot of stuff, man.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I I listen, I was listening to our episode on my way here today to the recording, uh, from last week, just kind of recapsulating and trying to just figure out if there was something I missed. Because I I like to go back and look at some some of those really good thoughts that you and I have during our conversation here at Unloaded. And um one of the things you you mentioned, you said, and I'll I'll paraphrase that we were still kind of high up on the view. We weren't really at that granular level, if you will. So today I really want to try to get a little bit more concrete. Yeah. Yeah. Good. So uh I mentioned about having hard hard conversations. Um, you know, we talked a little bit about what strength looked like when it related to trying to uh have these difficult conversations because it does take some inner strength to you know sit up tall, sit up straight, and lean into having a hard conversation. And I th I was thinking to myself, why why do we have a tendency maybe to want to avoid having hard conversations? There's a lot of reasons. Do you do you think there's maybe just like from your standpoint, because you deal with this obviously as a professional, do you see any repetitiveness on like maybe some of the top reasons why most people I know I know Shannon doesn't like when I say most or all, so I'm just trying to narrow it a little bit. Most is fine. Most is okay. So would would you say that there's like a like maybe like a top three, top four, where you like you you keep kind of hearing those scenarios or reasons come up?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah, man. It's uh it's kind of scary to when you say hard conversation, like this isn't easy fun stuff. This is like something's been on at you, you're starting to get kind of pissed off about it, and you know that I mean there's some conflict happening there, you know. So because of the conflict, um, most of us are varying degrees of conflict adverse. Um, some people seek it out, some people create it mostly subconsciously because they're just used to it and they like the the excitement or the adrenaline of confrontation. But many others of us, we like things to be more chill, just more easy, relaxing, peaceful, you know. Let no, don't don't rock the canoe, man. Let's just uh I I I'm a little pissed off. I can see that you're getting agitated, but man, if we go there, if we start trying to figure this out or have that difficult conversation, we're we could go to blows, man. And that's that's kind of scary. You don't know how it's gonna go.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

No, you don't. And uh, you know, I was thinking a lot about these um conversations, if you will, the ones that aren't necessarily on the fun level, right? Um I'm not talking about meeting my you know partners or friends or whoever at a coffee shop and we're just BSing or um, you know, I'm talking about where you know that that this conversation is probably most likely going to happen, but you internally you you feel that avoidance start to come up, right? You're just like, you know what? Man, maybe if I just happen to not have to be there that day, or uh maybe I can push this off for another week, right? So I was really thinking about internally, uh, even in my own personal life, is early on in my journey for sure, I can there are countless times where I just wouldn't have the damn conversation. I just refused. I'd leave to get up and walk away. Or I would just do the head shake, nod, grunt here and there, and just remove yourself.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

No, you know, every time it happened, I would just do the same thing, rinse and repeat it. Now where I'm at is I really look at is there something driving that avoidance feeling in me? I I try to look at that now and go, hmm, why don't I want why do I not want to have this conversation? You know, is there a driving force behind that? Is there a a catalyst, if you will, which we've talked about in previous episodes? You know, is it because maybe maybe it's somebody that's close to me and I and I know in my past I try to convince myself, if you will, that oh, I don't want to have this conversation because I I don't want to hurt their feelings, or I think this conversation is gonna make them feel a certain way. I I know that I used to do that. You know, and then what would I do? Not have the conversation. Right. So now I look at conversations in a whole different context, is they're just conversations at the root and if they have to be had, if you will, I I really try to go into them if possible, because obviously, you know, two weeks ago that wasn't the case. I had three very difficult conversations uh in three different days and uh they weren't to my liking. I I didn't really want to have those. I found myself in the midst of it. And as I said two weeks ago, I felt like I had some wins in there. I felt I had some losses. Um I definitely could have handled myself a little bit differently, and um I definitely allowed my emotional reaction to drive my internal feelings. So when I really looked at that, I was thinking to myself, I'm like I I spent a lot of energy and I allowed myself to give all this energy out when I probably could have maybe handled it a little bit differently. And I don't necessarily like going back and uh Monday quarterbacking myself, but I I do look at when I feel like I I had a shortcoming, if you will, I I do like to go back and look at where those indicators were. Because I think if I can spot some of the indicators, then it will help me in my future at some level when maybe another conversation will come up. And I can go back and reflect on hey, last time I had a conversation in this context, I I I got a little emotionally involved, I had an emotional response, and it it really does kind of help me encapsulate where that trigger mechanism was. And you and I've done this in session for years now, right? Trying to work out where's this like where what's the root, man? And that's hard. That's so hard, man. Like I got a lot of admiration for you guys in in your line of work, Shannon, because man, sometimes it's not easy to get to the damn root.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Most guys are just pissed. Most guys are just really fucking mad, and they just want to punch something or someone. Right. And yeah, there's a lot of anger. Yep, yep, okay, okay. And then working through that, and then, huh, wonder what's under that anger a little bit. You know, that's probably secondary emotion. What was there a little hurt under there? A little fear, a little pain, what you know, it's and yeah, it takes a little time to even admit to ourselves, mostly admit to ourselves, the reason I was so effing triggered and am now so reactive is because of blank, you know. Oh, yeah, when I was five years old and treated this way, and you know, this has been a kind of almost recurring theme through my life, and this to this day still really pisses me off. But underneath there, it's just some old some old childhood wounds.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

You know, and it's weird too, like even in in my place in this time and and place when I look at when I have these moments, like I I even after ele uh going on eleven years now, I still don't even recognize sometimes where those come from. I just know that there is a irritation there for some reason, and it takes a lot of time, man, to really like Shannon said, uh the first hurdle is just admitting to yourself.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

No, man, it's way easier just to point at the person across from you. Blame them for everything. Yeah, yeah, it's your fault. You made me feel you made me feel this way. You upset me, you made me mad.

unknown 13:59

Okay, man.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

You got some stuff going on in there?

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Like dumping gas on the fire.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

You can't say that out loud, of course.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

That's a flamethrower right there. No it it's just it's very ironic to me that um in this self-help world when I look at these moments of time, it it it's bringing a lot more clarity to you to other areas. You know, I'll give you this perfect example, and uh I I caught myself yesterday. So Thursday's a busy day. Uh we have uh staff meetings on Thursdays, and it's uh it's a hot just a uh a fire of a morning uh leading up to staff. And so I was working on a problem uh on a software suite and I couldn't I couldn't figure it out. That was causing a little bit of uh irritation, but then I just settled down. I was like, it's not a big deal. So in the midst of doing eight, nine you know, different emails, and uh my I've got contracts on my desk and I got uh legal things going on over here. I I get on the cell phone, I dial into the 800 number for the software company, you know how that goes. And uh so I have my phone on a stand on my desk. I'm I'm working, I have it on speaker, listening to the music, and it's the oh, we'll be with you in the next seven minutes. You are number two, right? And then we're gonna get with you. You're still number two. You know, I'm just using different verbiage, but you you know I'm going with this, right? Well, ironically, I found myself at about four to five minutes into this being on hold. It was causing a reaction. I was getting irritated by listening to the dang constant music that was playing loop and the constant verbiage. It was creating something in me, which is fine. It's actually pretty funny because it doesn't bother me. But for some reason, man, that morning I finally just I just hit the end button. You couldn't take it. I couldn't listen to it anymore, Shannon. And I thought to myself, I actually laughed out loud at my desk, and I thought, why are you you so worked up, dude, over this recording, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Here's why. It wasn't actually the recording. You had contracts on your desk, yeah. You had legal stuff coming at you, you had a big staffing meeting coming up shortly, you had about, I mean, what did you say, eight or nine emails you're trying to figure like the you add all that up and the pressure you were experiencing. Here you are, just another morning in your office at work as VP, trying to do as much as you can in as many ways as possible to keep the ship, you know, sailing as best as possible. And the cumulative effect of that much pressure, you you add one more. I really like that that voice you do. Yeah, and so um rarely, you know, as a marriage and family therapist, the the saying it's not ever really about the dishes. We all fight about the dishes, but it's the dishes is just that's the byproduct, right? That's the straw that broke the camel's back, or just yeah, the symptom or whatever, you know, and just like yeah, you could wait on hold. You have way more tolerance normally than that. But if you zoom out, look at the bigger picture and everything you're experiencing that morning and add it all, like it's just that was that last thing that just pushed you over the edge.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah, it it was very interesting, but the most I think the most clarity that I had was that I could recognize in the moment that's it that I was irritated. Well done. You know what I mean? And and I literally was in my head, I'm like, why are you so triggered right now? Good work. That's hard to do.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

That takes years because generally, I mean, initially we don't even hardly recognize we're just in the moment, just you know, not even really aware of how fired up we are. But through the years, through practice and and more awareness, like, ooh, to be able to that just that observing eye, and just zoom out just a little bit to see ourselves from outside ourselves a little, like, ooh, good work. I appreciate that identifying for yourself and even being able to laugh at it, then to fuck, this guy's pissing me off, and kind of chuckling and like goodbye, boop, and then yeah, good that that's healthy coping.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Which is and then this this will date me a little bit, but then it took me back, took me way back to the days where you know you were trying to get a hold of your best friend or something that made meh meh meh meh meh, right? Busy segments. You hang up, you do hit redo, hang up, hit readal, hang up, hit readal, right? And you're just like, ah, that's stupid, you know. That's the that's where we came from. Yeah, yeah. Now we're in this instantaneous, like, eh, I'm gonna buy a car from my couch eating Cheetos, and I'm gonna hit the buy button, and then I can't wake up tomorrow and it's sitting out front. You know what I mean? So uh kind of encapsulated everything I was feeling in that little bit of a moment. Yeah, yeah. You eat Cheetos?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

No.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

No, I don't. However, they have naked Cheetos. Now we're going way off the line here, but they have naked Cheetos now, so they got rid of the dye, the orange. Oh, okay. The orange dye. Yeah, my daughter showed, she said, Hey Dad, you seen these? I'm like, man, that ain't a Cheeto. Your fingers aren't orange. Okay. Off topic, but anyway, that's what we do here. So back on our our um when we're having these hard conversations, do you do you think Shannon or or what's your um what's your thought on if if I'm avoiding to have the conversation, if I just keep avoiding it, would would we agree or disagree that if you're continually avoiding these conversations, that that could maybe cause a bigger issue for you or or the person that's dealing with the avoidance issue?

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Sometimes, yeah. Again, this is very case by case. It really depends. Sometimes, even maybe more often than we recognize avoidance can really serve. There's a reason we're avoiding that conversation. And I know this is a little bit kind of on the other side of your point here today, but just to honor both sides, uh, yeah, there's reasons we avoid. And sometimes, oh good, yeah, we weren't ready to have that talk yet. Nope, that was not the right time. Like, nope, that would have been premature. Oh, I'm just a little too emotional to say those things. Like, yeah, oh good, I'm glad I waited, I'm glad, you know, that's you know, can be quite beneficial. Yeah. More to your point, if then it kind of moves on over to the other side of the scale where it has been too long, too much avoidance, too much like uh um yeah, of course that can create its own set of secondary problems.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah, I I I know when we've we've talked about this many, many, many times. There's there's no crystal clear black and white answer here. We're just we're talking in a little bit of a generalities, but I think it's prudent to have. Have these conversations so people can understand. But my hope is that we're just creating a space where um maybe we're helping people um see those indicators in themselves. Right. And I think that's the win for me personally uh when we created this unloaded podcast was the intent to give people um different avenues to explore in their in their journeys, in their personal journeys. But uh more importantly, if we can create an opportunity for people just to just a you know, maybe they never had an indicator, or maybe they did and they could never see or hear the indicator. And I think if if somebody was like, Oh, I just avoided having this difficult conversation, you know, and then to Shannon's point, you know, we talk about that duality that you know there's two sides to the same coin. Why did I avoid that? Well, maybe like Shannon said, maybe we're not ready for it. Maybe you're just in the moment and you're just like, mm-mm. Put the pause button on this. Uh maybe I'll come back to that tomorrow. You know, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Maybe right? Sometimes it really serves. Other times, oop, that was unnecessary. You'd be surprised how often we uh create issues, how how often we uh make issues out of what maybe more could have been a non-issue. What if we just, yeah, that's kind of getting my attention, that's kind of agitating me. Uh that's mine, that's my emotion, that's my agitation. Let me just pause, give it a little space and time, sleep on it, and okay, have a little acceptance around it, a little more self-awareness, and then tomorrow, like, uh, you know what? Whatever. It's it's fine. It does. It's because if I actually now go there and create some drama around this, and it all of a sudden I'm creating an issue, and I could have just like uh chosen to just kind of let it let it keep going, and yeah, okay, never mind. You know, that man, that's a skill to be able to resolve things more within ourselves. This is bothering me, this is why it's bothering me, this is mostly my issue. I'm going to actually process my issue, and oh, here's some resolution. I don't even even need to pull other people into my internal drama.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

No, it's that's great. I mean, it's very valid because I think a lot of times, even if you know, I go back again to you know two weeks ago where I felt like I was being misunderstood because I was, but more importantly, I felt like I had to try to validate my position. And what I have seen in my own personal life is when I feel like I have to validate something, then that definitely hits that emotion response button for me. And then you're just like, Oh, I'm gonna, you know, now you're all in. Right? 'Cause you're just gonna make your stand, you're gonna plant your flag, and you're like, This is where I'm gonna, you know, live or die. Well, to Shannon's point, no, maybe I didn't. Maybe because over the last 500 conversations I didn't engage, or I felt like, eh, Roger that, okay. Point taken, moving on.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Man, it's nice to move on.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Sometimes it is 100%. It is. I mean, there's when you can let go of something, oh man, man. What a skill.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

So powering internally. Yeah. I'm gonna choose to not let this mess with me anymore. You know what? I uh whatever. You know, and then just go about it. Like it's it sometimes we're not able to like if it's if that emotion is that intense or whatever we're experiencing is that strong, we we can't just let it go, of course. We like uh it's gonna keep it's gonna keep knocking until we address it. And um, but to be able to distinct to distinguish between the two, and that's even hard sometimes. That's why again giving it time, you know. Um and sometimes, nope, I can't just it doesn't feel right if I did not address this. I'm this wouldn't it wouldn't be right to let this go. I actually need uh I want to have this conversation. It's scary and it's gonna ooh, it's gonna create some stuff here, but okay, this is what has to happen because if I it yeah, um if I did not, it would um actually create more problems.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yeah, I it's I kind of just flash back, and I think to probably was in our first three episodes where you know you were talking about you know ripping things out of your backpack, right? You just you're you're throwing all this stuff out. Maybe you just maybe you just tip the damn bag on the ground, right? You just you dump it out, and then you're like, okay, it's it's 95 degrees, there's not a a cloud to be seen for the next 40 miles. Maybe I don't need the poncho, maybe I don't need my wet weather gear. I'm just gonna toss that over there under the bush, and maybe I'll come back for it later, maybe I won't, but my backpack's gonna be lighter, right? And then there are other things that you were talking about, or we've talked about, where you're like, can't live without this. Gotta go back in the backpack, right? And I think that's what Shannon is alluding to, is that you know, you the more we put into this work um individually, it will help bring some clarity to when you do have to have a hard conversation. It's okay, you gotta have it, you're gonna have to have it. But I hope and my prayer is that maybe through this outlet that we're providing people, it will give them a little bit more courage, if you will, to just say, hey, you know what? You know what, we could, you know, I'm comfortable just having that, you know, difficult conversation, or maybe I say, hey, I'm okay not having that conversation for today, and maybe table it. Yeah, there's the decision. You know, but as always, we're we're running out of time today. Um, I would like to say though, is as we continue moving forward with uh Unloaded, I think Shannon and I's hearts are always in the same place. We're just trying to create a space that's comfortable for people, and we're giving people just some different thoughts to think about, some different outlets to think about. And at the end of the day, if if we can impact, you know, just one person where they r maybe have a new recognition where they're like, Man, I had an emotional response there in that conversation, and I've never had that before. To me, that's gonna be one of the biggest wins of why this podcast exists, man.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Yeah, that's it. Just expanding on things a little more understanding of self, really.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yeah, it's all about self, especially in these. Not all about self, but 90%. It depends.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

In conversation, it'd be a nice one.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Two way, it's a two-way on the whole, but we we definitely are are trying to just give people some space and opportunity to uh help them in their self journeys. Yeah. At the end of the day, right? It's been an amazing uh recording. I wish the best.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

I'm the one laughing at you. What an amazing recording today.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

The reason the reason I was gonna say is it's been a great recording today is because I know in two days I'm yeah, there it is.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

It doesn't matter. Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

That's that's where I was going with it's been a great recording today, is because I know that after this recording hits, I will literally be on the island. And uh I wish uh the best for all of our listeners this upcoming week. Um and as they say in Hawaii Mahalo, which basically just means thank you. Um I appreciate all of our listeners, and I wish you guys the best this week. And uh for Mike Seahorn and Shannon Morrow. We'll catch you on the next episode.