This is part two of an exploration into how elements of spell craft can be woven into the ways we communicate with each other, particularly when discussing tough and tender topics. In my last post, I explored magical approaches to showing up for difficult generative conversations as our best and most present selves. In this sequel musing, I’m going to be exploring how the arc of ritual magic can support us in having discussions that are more generative and connective.

Let’s dive in with a summary of the ritual arc as I usually teach it:

• Creating Safe & Sacred Space
• Setting Intention
• Raising Energy
• Release
• Surrender & Giving Thanks

For the purposes of today’s musings, I will be unpacking three of these ritual components – Creating Safe & Sacred Space, Setting Intention, and Surrender & Giving Thanks – and how they might support challenging conversations (I’m not unpacking the Raising Energy and Release components in the same way, since within the “ritual” of such conversations, those are essentially represented by the dialogue itself).

Creating Safe & Sacred Space

Let’s begin at the beginning with Creating Safe & Sacred Space. I have written about this subject before within the context of communication in intimate relationships, and you can read more on that here.

For the purpose of this post, Creating Safe & Sacred Space invites us to do two things when we are facing a potentially challenging conversation:

To carve out space and time that is set apart for that conversation, and that is spacious enough for the subject at hand. And, where possible, to take into account what everyone involved might need to feel safe enough to have that conversation, or at least to be able to self-regulate during it.

If it is meaningful to you, you can also invite the element of the sacred – a higher power or a bigger love – into the space to support your conversation. You can do this individually beforehand, or, if you have a shared understanding of the sacred, through a joint invocation, lighting a candle together, or something else that speaks to you.

Here are three questions to support you in thinking about what the above might look like for you; where possible, discuss them with the other person/people beforehand:

• What could support you in feeling safe enough, and/or resourced enough, for this conversation in terms of when and where it is had? When are you likely to feel the most energised and present? Is there anything that can be adjusted in terms of the environment, or that you can bring with you into the environment, to support you in feeling more grounded, present, and supported?
• How long, realistically, do you think you will need for this conversation? Where possible, err on the side of having more time than you think you need, rather than squeezing things in.
• If you have communicated with this person before, what do you notice about when that has gone well, or at least better? What was the context or the environment? Were you face to face, or did you use some other form of communication? Were you facing each other, or side by side, sitting still or moving (walking, driving, etc)? Mine those memories for anything that might support your communication this time around.

A bonus question which may already be occurring to you as you read through the above might be whether you need any support for this conversation. For example, do you need to talk things through with a therapist or trusted friend beforehand, or ask a loved one to take you home or cook dinner for you afterwards? Or perhaps you’re sensing that you and the person or people you want to have this conversation with do not have the skills between you to create a safe enough container – in which case, think about whether you can access any professional or otherwise neutral support with that.

Setting Intention

Next, let’s dive deeper into Intention. In the last post, I touched on the way that stating your intention for a conversation in advance can give the other person the best possible chance to be your ally in the conversation, rather than feeling like your adversary. This will be all the more true if you can agree on a shared intention for your discussion that resonates for everyone involved. Many of us shy away from having “challenging conversations”, but it is much easier to lean in when the stated purpose or desired outcome of a conversation is one we are personally invested in – for example, to feel more connected, to understand each other better, or to make a plan so that the next shared project or parenting challenge unfolds in a way that is more aligned with everyone’s values.

“Shall we start with what we want to get out of this discussion?”, or simply “what’s our intention for this conversation?”, can be a good place to begin.

An intention can serve as a shared purpose to bring you together at the start of a conversation, and as a North Star to orient towards as you navigate the deep waters of communication. If those waters get turbulent, you can remind yourself of how you intended to show up for this conversation, or invite each other to stay focused on your desired outcome.

I have also witnessed, time and again, that setting an intention can be a magic spell in its own right. Intentions often seem to have their own agency or power; once stated, they unfold of their own accord, sometimes in ways we could not have imagined or would not have dared to hope for.

Try experimenting with setting an intention when you’re next heading into an encounter or conversation that you’re worried about. Just remember: An intention is not an expectation. An intention expresses hopes and aspirations, while an expectation can sound more like a demand. An intention is about your own behaviours, and the purpose you are orienting towards; an expectation might be about another person’s behaviours, or conditional on a specific outcome. Expectation is a closed door, intention is an open one.

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Some additional elements you might consider when building a ritual container for your conversation:

• How are you going to communicate? Do you want to structure your sharing in any particular way? How would you like to be listened to, how will you know if you have been heard?
• Do you need any boundaries in place? Do you need a way to signal a time out?
• What might it look or feel like if you get triggered? How do you want to handle that, how would you like the other people present to respond to that?

For more tools and tips on hearing and being heard, and communicating about those tough and tender topics, you can check out the Being Heard and Clearing the Space Between Us sections of my book Igniting Intimacy: Sex Magic Rituals for Radical Living and Loving.

Surrender & Giving Thanks

Now let’s turn our attention to the end of your conversation. The Surrender & Giving Thanks portion of a ritual is an opportunity to do two things: The first is to hand over your intention to a power greater than yourself, trusting that you have done everything that is yours to do. The second is to give thanks – to that which has held and heard you, to anyone and anything that has contributed to your experience, and to your own self and soma for carrying you through it.

When it comes to difficult generative conversations, we might draw inspiration from the above and get curious about: how to bring this discussion to a close and let it go for now; how we might give thanks for what has unfolded; and how we can attend to any aftercare that might be needed.

You have had your conversation. Hopefully it has not spiralled into conflict and/or retreat. If it has, I nonetheless applaud your courage in attempting to connect and communicate across whatever divide you have been trying to bridge. That being said, if everyone is still present and reasonably engaged, you might take a moment to ask yourself, and perhaps each other, whether there is anything else that needs to be said in order to bring this to a close?

Once that has been done, take a moment to express gratitude. Perhaps this has been a generative enough experience that you can give some genuine thanks to everyone involved. However, if you’re coming away from a hard conversation by yourself, then I invite you to pause; take a deep breath in, and a long breath out; and give yourself some appreciation for doing the hard thing. This would also be a great moment for a spot of embodied self-regulation – giving yourself a squeeze, rocking onto your tiptoes as you breathe in and dropping back down as you let the breath out, or having a little shake. You did a brave thing. It’s time to let it go.

The next most pertinent question is: What do you need right now? If the conversation is taking place in a space where everyone involved is going to continue to hang out – e.g. a working or home environment – this is a good moment to check in and see what everyone’s needs are, and whether they can all be attended to in some form. One person might desperately need a time out from all this intense social interaction, somebody else might need reassurance, another person might be reaching for a hug – all of it is valid. Check in with each other briefly, and see whether everyone’s needs can be accommodated or at least acknowledged in some way.

In a scenario where you’re coming away from the conversation by yourself, I would encourage you to think about your “exit strategy”. Particularly if you know in advance that this might be a challenging encounter, give some consideration to the subject of aftercare beforehand. How can you take care of yourself in the aftermath? Who could you ask for support? What are your favourite ways of soothing your nervous system? What nice things can you set up for yourself to look forward to once this is done?

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In closing, I have been reflecting recently on what we can do when the person or people that we need to have a challenging conversation with are not available for co-creating safety or setting an intention together. Or at least, we fear that they will not be open to having a certain conversation in a certain way – the reality is, we often do not know if this is true until the moment when we gather our courage to extend an invitation or make a request. But when you are convinced, for whatever reason, that someone will not be capable of having the conversation that you need to have with them, or communicating with you in the way you would prefer, what then?

I’ve been wrestling with this question of late. What I keep coming back to is a sentence that I have encountered repeatedly in Politicised Somatics:

We are what we practice.

In this context, that sentence shepherds me gently towards two points of enquiry:

First, I can ask myself, what do I want to practise in this situation? Regardless of how the other may or may not respond, what do I want to be practising?

Or, to put it another way, if I were to look back on this and feel I had done my best, whatever the outcome, what might that look like?

For me, the answer often lands somewhere between courage and curiosity – and perhaps reminding myself that people, like life, are nothing if not surprising.

(I hope it is clear that the above pertains to situations and encounters that are at the lower end of the risk spectrum. If you are at risk of physical or psychological harm – rather than just dealing with someone who doesn’t have quite the relational skill set you wish they did – then I encourage you to practise keeping yourself safe first and foremost.)

Second, I can remind myself that my job is precisely that, to practise, and that to practise is not to be perfect. Discomfort, messiness, failure – all these things I’m so afraid of – are part of practice, part of the process of practising. Intentions, communication tools, other self-regulation and ritual techniques, these are all available to help me practise more effectively, in ways that are more aligned with my values; they are not there to guarantee my perfection, to make me more than perfectly human. They are there, in the inimitable words of Samuel Beckett, to help me “fail better”. And when I remember that, I can exhale; I can remind myself of all the powerful forces that shaped me to be silent, to not speak up, certainly not to share the truth of my feelings; and I can give myself a little extra grace to take forward, and practise!