I recently shared my perspective on what it means to cultivate psychological bravery in my post The Bullies Inside Our Heads

I defined psychological bravery as; feeling safe to show up authentically, speak up, try new things or take risks without fear of negative consequences from the parts of ourselves that are; judgmental, perfectionistic, extreme, critical, scared, immature, vulnerable, reckless or volatile.

For our workplaces to be safer spaces, we must give our people the skills to cultivate braves spaces.

I recently discovered a powerful passage called “Brave Space” written by Micky ScottBey Jones that can help us to do exactly that.

I just had the wonderful opportunity to facilitate a two-day conference for a Finance Department of about 50 people. The theme we co-created for the event was “New Perspectives, New Possibilities”.

I read “Brave Space” to open Day 1. It really set the scene for a different type of conversation – one that the team had never had before.

It was a conversation about how to be honest and kind. A conversation about what was making it hard to trust each other. A conversation about the real reasons people were resistant to change. A conversation in which people felt genuinely seen and heard.

I was blown away by the wonderful feedback I received from the participants at the end of the two days, including this comment: “It was brilliant to have you facilitating honest conversations, helping us to peel off the masks, getting to the real us and recognising that people are inherently good deep inside.”

I invite you to play with using the Brave Space passage to support the emergence of real conversations in your organisation.

Brave Space

Together we will create a brave space

Because there is no such thing as a “safe space”

We exist in the real world

We all carry scars and we have all caused wounds.

In this space

We seek to turn down the volume of the outside world,

We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere,

We call each other to more truth and love

We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow.

We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know.

We will not be perfect.

This space will not be perfect.

It will not always be what we wish it to be

But

It will be our brave space together,

and

We will work on it side by side.

 

If you are on the path from self-betrayal to self-fidelity and might benefit from a little guidance and support, click here to see how I can help.