When it comes to difficult conversations, I have a way to go. I often swing between hyper-assertiveness and retreating entirely, but both avoid vulnerability. I often tell myself silence is “skilful”, though it can easily turn into passive aggression. And avoidance has consequences – not speaking out of fear can create distance and irreparable damage to relationships and communities.

As the Buddhist activist-scholar bell hooks says: “to know love we have to tell the truth to ourselves and to others … Commitment to truth telling lays the groundwork for the openness and honesty that is the heartbeat of love.” That, to me, is the kind of love I aspire to, even if I often miss the mark.

So how can we intentionally cultivate our capacity to have difficult conversations in a way that lovingly acknowledges our radical interbeing while honouring what must be said?

From a Buddhist perspective, life itself – not simply formal meditation – is our broad field of practice. Which means this question demands serious contemplation. The way we speak and respond to one another, and ourselves, shapes experience and has the real power to harm or to support.

The psychiatrist Dan Siegel’s “interpersonal neurobiology” reveals how our nervous systems co-regulate through relationship – through language, tone and presence we bring can either settle or activate another.

We are living through times where speech has become a........

© The Guardian