Difficult and uncomfortable conversations are something we all participate from time to time and are hard to avoid both in our personal or professional lives. A difficult conversation is any conversation in which there are strong differences of opinion and involves contentious and sensitive issues that may elicit strong, complex emotions that can be hard to predict or control.
Avoiding a difficult conversation will only lead to more problems and will make the situation bigger in your mind than it really is. We are usually reluctant to open a difficult conversation out of fear of the consequences as they usually involve disagreement over what happened. Key is to be aware of how you frame your thinking and what to avoid during such conversations.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://sscascades.org/2021/04/22/how-to-handle-difficult-conversations-effectively/