Brave Relationships: How to Keep Your Footing When Emotions Rise by Anita Kanti
Whether we seek out a life partner, choose to be a parent, or embark on a people-focused career, we encounter different platforms of love and, inevitably, fear. These experiences bring the ecstasy of joy and, at times, despair when we feel loss of control and power in our relationships, the most precious commodity in human experience. In navigating these experiences, the key to thriving is believing and choosing to adopt bravery as a guiding principle.
Bravery means a willingness to face fear, difficulty, or uncertainty, whether physically, morally, or psychologically. This quality is a core trait that enables us to advance our relationships, manage change, and navigate better. For most, bravery is not innate. It is a learned skill and once cultivated over time, evolves into a character strength to lean into.
Even lions aren’t born brave. Yes, they have instincts, but as cubs, they are nurtured eventually into the fearless by adult lions. Humans have the conscious choice to select bravery in fight or flight scenarios. Mind shifting is key to managing fear in relationships.
Here are 3 areas to begin creating new footsteps that yield to new patterns.
1. Use thoughtful language. Keep your thoughts in the language of love mindset. This keeps you in a respectable frame of thinking for better behavior to follow. When on the offensive or defensive, using pointed and careful phrases can diffuse stress and move one’s energy towards a healthier position.
Signaling that you need to have space and reflect before responding is beneficial and respectful. Stonewalling creeps into burning bridges and builds walls rather than building mutual trust. Moving from “Stop acting like or treating me like…” to “We are both upset, and before we hurt one another, let’s…” supports enhanced collaboration in communication.
2. Redefine your narratives. Reframing is key in how you see and deal with challenging relationships. This takes time as we contemplate how to move forward with new methods of former conditioning from those individuals and environments that influenced us in our younger days.
If we view our relationships truly as teammates in life, it reminds us that we must walk, run, and move cooperatively while managing the obstacles along the way, and celebrate when we reach the finish line. Reframing from “I hate when they say that it reminds me of…” to “I know they are coming from a place of concern…” will place us in a position of positive contemplation.
3. Practice honest compassion. When we’re moving through conflict, it can be challenging to truly step into the opposing individual's shoes. Emotional self regulation teaches us that compassion is required for effective listening and understanding. When we truly listen, it can provide vital information that can influence our behavior and possibly modify it, leading to self-trust. Practicing from “I get sensitive when I hear…” to “The angle my partner is taking, I will try to sympathize and understand better…” gives us the extra edge to engage thoughtfully.
Bravery can shape us to set healthy boundaries, be honest, and stay connected in hard moments. Going beyond our former patterns and habits can attract, improve, and assist with relationship management. Courage is a building block that needs ongoing strengthening.
When lions are charged, they default to defensive aggression by standing their ground, roaring, and counter charging from dominance, not out of bravery, but rather from their survival instincts. Independent of what comes charging at us as humans, we have the unique ability to pause and make a new choice: respond with conscious bravery and gentleness with ourselves and in our relationships.
As a certified coach and female powerhouse, Anita Kanti empowers clients to navigate life transitions, enhance relationships, and achieve career advancements through personalized, results-driven strategies. With extensive experience in career advisory coaching and talent recruitment at leading corporations like Samsung, Huawei, Broadcom, and Nvidia, Anita brings a wealth of industry knowledge to her coaching practice at AnitaKCoaching.