‘Healthy Heat’: Speaking Up Respectfully

Conversations can feel like a minefield at the moment. It’s not always easy to know when a difference of opinion will turn into something more heated or whether to say what we’re really thinking.

I don’t want us to stop having difficult conversations.

I don’t want women over fifty to hold back our opinions, soften everything we say or decide that speaking up isn’t worth the trouble.

Equally, I don’t want us to confuse speaking with conviction with having to win, have the last word or make someone else feel small.

I’ve been thinking about how we make room for disagreement without losing care for one another. How we say what we mean, listen to something we might not want to hear and resist the temptation to smooth everything over before we’ve understood what matters.

Healthy heat. That’s the idea I keep coming back to.

When being nice gets in the way

I think there’s something important here for those of us who grew up with the message that being a “good girl” meant being agreeable.

Be nice. Don’t make a fuss. Think about other people’s feelings. Don’t be difficult.

There is nothing wrong with kindness or consideration. But I want to separate caring about others from feeling responsible for keeping everyone comfortable. They are not the same thing.

If being nice means leaving something important unsaid, agreeing when we don’t agree or staying quiet when someone is treated unfairly, what is that niceness asking us to give up?

At this stage of life, I want to be more deliberate about that choice. What matters enough for me to speak? Where do I want to contribute? What am I no longer willing to let pass without question?

I don’t want keeping the peace to become a habit that makes those decisions for me.

Making room for healthy heat

The phrase “healthy heat” gives me a way to think about a different kind of conversation.

Not one where everyone agrees. Not one where nobody feels uncomfortable. But one where we can stay curious and caring while something important is being questioned.

Priya Parker’s new book “The Art of Fighting” describes “healthy heat” as the willingness and ability to hold tension with care, curiosity, and humor long enough for it to become clarifying and generative rather than destructive.

Some assumptions need challenging. Some things deserve our anger. And sometimes listening properly means hearing something we would rather not hear.

We can care about someone and disagree with them. We can respect their experience and question their conclusion. We can discover that something we said landed badly without deciding we should never have spoken.

For me, the challenge is to avoid treating every disagreement as a problem to smooth over or a contest to win.

I want to be able to say, “This matters to me, and here’s why.” And I want to leave enough room for the other person to do the same.

Speaking with conviction and care

As women, we have experience, knowledge and perspectives worth bringing into conversations. We don’t have to know everything, or have an answer to every objection, before we contribute. (I have to keep reminding myself about the last one).

But having something to say doesn’t remove our responsibility for how we say it.

I don’t have a formula for getting it right but I do have a few things I practise:

• Challenging an idea without attacking the person.

• Starting with curiosity by asking a genuine question before assuming the worst. (This one is ‘work in progress’ for me)

• Resisting the urge to join a pile-on, even when I disagree with the person being targeted.

• Calling out misogyny and intimidation, including when they come from people whose views I otherwise share or people I love dearly.

• Being willing to reconsider, correct myself and apologise.

That last one matters. If I want room to express my views, I also need to leave room for the possibility that I have misunderstood something or caused harm. Changing my mind doesn’t make speaking up a mistake. It represents growth and comes from a place of maturity.

And I want to notice when my aim has shifted. Am I still trying to contribute something useful? Or am I now trying to deliver the line that wins the exchange? (Also work in progress at home - especially when I’m activated)

Respect isn’t the same as agreeableness

There is a boundary here. Healthy disagreement requires room to respond, question and choose whether to continue. Threats, harassment and intimidation are not more intense versions of that conversation.

Being open to disagreement doesn’t mean making ourselves available for abuse. Nor does treating someone with dignity require us to agree with them.

“Respect” needn’t weaken our convictions. We can be angry, direct and determined without being cruel.

I don’t want being a “good girl” to decide when I speak. And I don’t want the desire to be right to decide how I treat someone.

I want what matters to me, and how I want to treat people, to guide those choices.