Dare to Share is a structured way to approach a difficult conversation. One person shares what is happening for them; the other listens, reflects and checks their understanding.
Begin with an invitation
Before sharing, explain what you want to talk about and why. Check whether the other person is available and willing to listen. A no or a request for another time needs to be a real option.
Agreements that protect the conversation
Agree that either person can pause. Personal disclosures should not become ammunition in a later argument. If that trust is missing, sharing more vulnerable material may not be the right next step.
Speak and listen in layers
The speaker describes the situation, what they notice in their body, and the meanings or assumptions they are bringing to it. The listener reflects what they have heard before responding. Both can ask questions, correct misunderstandings and consider what they each recognise as true.
Christian suggests beginning with less charged topics while learning. The aim is understanding, rather than forcing agreement or risking the relationship to prove openness.
Through the Eyes of a Student
By Shalini Tewari
It’s halfway through the 90-Day Challenge and I am feeling courageous enough to trial the skills developed thus far with my partner. He is not on the challenge and therefore hasn’t learned the Heart iQ language beyond the snippets I’ve shared here and there, so I’m curious how it will unfold.
I’m nervous that I’ll mess up or come across as trying to push these methods onto him, and risk creating closure or trigger us both into our pain bodies. While he’s been open to hearing about the practices, I don’t want to direct the experience by holding steadfast to the suggested stems or structure. At the same time though, I know how easily these types of conversations can go awry without these protocols in place. I take a leap of faith.
I decide to incorporate some structure to begin with since the creation of a safe container feels like a natural and important part of any vulnerable exploration. This involves creating context, sharing my heart’s intentions and checking if he is open and available to be fully present to my share.
‘I’d like to share something that came up for me last week when you didn’t reply to my messages and stopped communicating with me for several days.
The reason I’d like to share this is because in addition to wanting to communicate and explore the impact this had on me, I’d also like to open up my heart to your journey and deepen our understanding of one another.
I don't need anything other than your heartfelt presence. I would simply like to share what moved for me and be heard and seen in that place. Are you open to receiving this right now?’
The invitation allows him the opportunity to actually drop in and check. He closes his eyes, takes a few breaths and says yes, he’s open to being fully present to my share.
I suggest that if either one of us feels like we are closing or moving into a triggered reaction, we can call a time-out and take a pause. He agrees.
For the sake of my own safety in the exploration, I choose to follow the tracking layers I’ve learned over the last 5 weeks.
I start by sharing the physical sensations arising in my body as I take space to share the content with him, and then I move on to the actual content.
I know it is important to layer in my relationship to this content from the perspective of my own stories, beliefs, judgments and shadows, and I add how it feels to share all of this in his presence right now.
I mention that there might be parts that I am missing or muddling up.
Finally, I track the trigger that set me off and find myself remembering a time when I felt similar emotions in relationship to my father.
I could feel him dropping into his heart as he listened earnestly, and after 5 weeks of learning how to speak the Heart iQ language, this experience gave me a visceral understanding of how important it is to share these layers when communicating our grievances with loved ones.
What happened next was amazing. This method of communicating naturally led him to reflect back to me what he heard and the impact he could imagine it had on me.
This was in fact the next part in the series of steps outlined for this practice. I realise that these steps are there for reference and to create a foundational structure that can assist if conversations go astray. But like any language, once you have the basic structure down, communication flows effortlessly.
When speaking from the heart, defense mechanisms drop because there is no longer a war of blame and attack. Instead, there is ownership and responsibility for each side of one another’s journeys, and the space for real intimacy opens up and deepens.
I share how his reflections make me feel heard and felt in my pain, and that this has created a feeling of expansion in my chest.
He shares how his body feels relaxed and at ease. Without asking for anything from him, he adds on his own accord that this conversation encourages him to check in the next time he feels himself withdrawing, knowing the impact it might have on me.
What emerged felt similar to how two people might communicate when they don’t speak the same language. While initially a bit bumpy and fragmented, much like the universal language of a smile, speaking from the heart can be understood beyond words and sentences.
This process brought us closer not only in how we relate and communicate with one another, but we both gained a deeper understanding of how we individually operate in the world, and the impacts this might have on others with whom we come into connection.
Recording Notes
This session introduces the Dare to Share Protocol as a structured practice for voicing difficult or vulnerable truths within a relationship and for receiving another's difficult truth without shutting down.
The shape of the practice
- Partner A sets context and invites Partner B in. Rather than launching straight into a disclosure, Partner A checks whether the other person is genuinely available to receive them.
- Partner A shares and tracks. Using the tracking skills built earlier in the course, they voice the content along with their relationship to it (sensations, stories, judgments, triggers).
- Partner B listens and reflects. Rather than staying silent throughout, Partner B has room to pause, reflect back what they heard, ask clarifying questions and deepen understanding.
- Both move toward ownership. Instead of defending their own position, each person looks for where the other is right and where there is common ground, so the sharer can feel truly heard.
On failing well
Christian suggests making room for imperfect attempts, noticing what happened and adjusting the approach. Starting with lower-stakes conversations gives people room to learn.
A note on family
He describes close family as "like Mount Everest" - the hardest people to practise this with, because of accumulated history and trigger, and cautions against expecting the skill to transfer instantly to those relationships.
The Dare to Share Protocol
- Partner A sets context and invites Partner B to receive
- Partner A shares content and tracks their relationship to it
- Partner B listens, pauses, and reflects back what they heard
- Both explore where the other is right and find common ground
- Deepen understanding through ownership rather than defensiveness
