Side-by-Side: The Best Way to Talk About the Hard Stuff

I think of Peter more often than he probably ever knew.

He was my piano teacher for ten years, and my friend for many years after.

We’d sit shoulder-to-shoulder, eyes fixed on the same sheet of music. We practised Rachmaninoff, but we also talked… about life, the Russian Revolution, my family, the soul.

And, importantly, we never had to look each other in the eye.

As a teenager, I didn’t realise what a gift that was,  to have an adult who could talk about the big things in life with such ease.

Years later, as a psychologist, I kept being drawn back to that same side-by-side magic.

In my early practice I worked with teenagers and young adults who’d been through early adversity - kids in foster care or adoption, some living with chronic illness, others in secure units after brushes with the justice system. A clinic chair and a notepad never worked for them. We built trust while doing things together: playing table tennis, sketching, wandering a corridor. That’s when they talked.

Later, both my Master’s and my Doctorate focused on the benefits of nature for post-traumatic growth, self-esteem, and social connection. The research confirmed what I’d felt all along: being outdoors changes how people show up and how they heal.

The most honest moments rarely happened in a room. They arrived while knotting ropes for a shelter, balancing on a slackline, or cooking over a smoky fire at dusk. Hands busy, eyes on the same task, words found their way out.

That’s why I still offer walk-and-talk and outdoor sessions, for men who feel stuck, for fathers and sons learning to connect, for teams trying to rediscover purpose. Take people out of the boardroom or therapy chair and into fresh air, and everything changes. Shoulders drop. The pace slows. Something opens.

Why it works

There’s a science to this.

Walking gives you bilateral stimulation, that left-right rhythm EMDR therapists use to help the brain process emotion. It nudges both hemispheres to fire in sync, which can loosen stuck thoughts and invite reflection.

Add nature, and the effect deepens. Forests, fields, even a tree-lined street cue the parasympathetic nervous system: heart rate slows, shoulders drop, the body shifts out of fight-or-flight. That calm makes it easier to talk about the hard things.

And there’s something profoundly human about facing the same direction. Research shows many men, in particular, find it easier to open up when they’re shoulder-to-shoulder rather than eye-to-eye - no sense of being judged or cornered. But it’s not just men. Anyone who feels exposed - a teenager, a colleague, a partner - often talks more freely when the pressure of direct gaze is gone.

It isn’t really about the activity. It’s about what the activity makes possible: safety, equality, the sense that we’re in it together.

For leaders, parents, friends

This week, notice where you tend to have the real conversations.
Chances are, they don’t happen across a desk.

• At work: swap one meeting for a walking one-to-one, or sit beside rather than across.

• At home: take the teenager for a drive or a dog-walk instead of “We need to talk” at the kitchen table.

• With a partner or friend: cook together, go for a stroll, let the doing open the talking.

The invitation

Observe what happens.

Notice what’s different about that quality of conversation. 

Sometimes the simplest change - a bench instead of a desk, a trail instead of a meeting room -  makes the conversation you’ve been avoiding finally possible, and it makes change happen that wouldn’t be possible face-to-face.

If you try it this week, I’d love to hear what shifted.