K Shel Blogs

Part of the Held together, loosely mini series.

There’s a particular kind of discomfort that I’ve encountered a few times now – enough for it to start forming a pattern. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it stays with me.

Someone – a colleague, a collaborator, a partner – brings frustration to the table. Real, raw frustration. They’re angry at a process, or a decision, or a structure that’s had a negative impact. And that process, that structure… I’m part of it. Maybe I didn’t design it. Maybe I don’t even fully agree with it. But in that moment, I’m the one wearing its badge. I’m the one in the room, carrying its voice.

And it’s hard to know what to do.

There’s a reflex that kicks in – to fix it, to explain, to smooth it over. I’ve caught myself doing it: reaching for the rationale, the context, the caveats. Not because I want to shut the other person down, but because I don’t want them to hurt. Or maybe, if I’m honest, because I don’t want me to hurt – from the feeling that I’m complicit, or helpless, or both.

The alternative is silence. A kind of emotional retreat – hands up, disengaged, hoping it will blow over. But that doesn’t help either. If anything, it deepens the distance.

What I’m learning – slowly, and not always gracefully – is that there’s a third path. And it’s harder. It’s to stay. Not to stay passively, arms folded, but to stay open. To absorb some of the discomfort without neutralising it. To allow the anger to land, and to hold it – not as something to be corrected or countered, but as something real and worthy of space.

It takes more than empathy. It takes presence – a willingness to sit in the fire without trying to put it out too soon.

Because the truth is, I am part of the system. That doesn’t mean I’m the enemy. But it does mean I can’t pretend to be a neutral observer. The fact that I’m in the room – with a voice, with some measure of influence – already marks me out as someone positioned differently from the person who’s been harmed, overlooked, or left behind. And recognising that doesn’t diminish my role – it grounds it. It reminds me that my presence has weight. And that how I show up in those moments can either reinforce the status quo, or create a crack in it.

There’s a phrase I keep coming back to: “Staying present is an intervention.” It doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means not flinching. Not rushing. Not letting my own discomfort hijack the moment. Sometimes, just being there – steady, listening, not defensive – is what makes it possible for the other person to speak their truth fully. And sometimes, that’s the start of change.

This is not a comfortable part of practice. But it feels like an essential one.

What I’m trying now is this: to let myself be affected, but not shut down. To acknowledge pain without absorbing it into guilt. To stop striving to be “neutral,” and instead aim to be honest – about where I stand, what I can do, and what I still don’t understand.

I don’t always get it right. But I’m learning to treat these moments as part of the work – not detours from it. They’re not something to resolve quickly, or to manage away. They’re part of the system surfacing something it usually hides. And when that happens, I want to be someone who stays.