Several people in my life are going through really hard things. And I find myself struggling with how I can support these people I care about. My instinct is to try to figure out a way to truly help fix it. But I am realizing more and more that this business of life and adulthood is simply tricky terrain and sometimes there are no solutions. I am also realizing more and more that sometimes all we can do is be there, and listen.
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How have you helped those you love through hard times? Do you agree that sometimes all we can do is listen?
Love this post! As a counselor the number one thing my clients say is ‘it is so nice to just be able to talk and have someone listen without giving advice’. I swear, if we would just listen in a loving supportive way–my job as counselor would be obsolete! That is my life goal to make my job obsolete. Feeling the need to fix it is more about us then them because fixing it isn’t possible. But to be able to sit in the uncomfortable with our loved ones to unflinchingly hold their fears, doubts and pain–now THAT is a gift!!
I am so thankful for this comment, Nancy. Because I have felt so often that I have zero expertise, that I am “not a counselor.” But, again, I am realizing more and more how little this matters. What I have are ears and experiences and emotions and time. I have been through really hard times in my own life and what I wanted and appreciated then was listening, people who would check in and ask how I was doing. That was all I needed. Nothing more. It’s good to remember this.
As for the advice thing… I have been thinking so much about advice recently, and what it means. I am slated to do a video interview this coming Tuesday for a wonderful career website for young women and I am supposed to speak for a bit and offer some professional advice for women in their twenties. And I felt myself resisting the very notion of advice. But I am realizing more and more that we are all experts in something, that we have things to say, insights to offer. And that’s all advice really is.
So. I have been thinking a lot about the things I have learned. And there are so many things, so many bits that have occurred to me. They are little snips of wisdom I would like to remember FOR ME and I realize that maybe, just maybe, that is what advice is. Things we have felt, and arrived at, passed along.
Anyway, I am rambling and oh how I love rambling, but thank you. I wanted to publish this little post because this is all stuff I’ve really been thinking about and it strikes me as important.
xox
I totally agree: advice is what has worked for us and what we have learned. Sharing our stories, our struggles and our lessons is immensely helpful and one of the great gifts of relationships. Yet, as with anything it is all about the timing!
I have found when I am sharing something to make myself feel better and ‘feel helpful’ that is usually when I should just be quiet and listen
. We want to shield others from the pain and help them with our own lessons and as you said that is what worked for us–allowing them their journey is the real gift,
As with all of life it is like a wonderful dance. Thank you for the ramblings and the discussion–always such a fun one to have!,
I can definitely relate — especially when the person struggling is very close to you. I want to swoop in and right all the wrongs, but it’s impossible. After a death in my sister’s soon-to-be family earlier this month, I’ve felt completely helpless to help both she and her fiance… but I try. Whether it’s just a listening ear or dinner packed to go, I try. You’re absolutely right: sometimes all we can do is listen. And I hope it helps others to know how much we care.
Feeling helpless is so hard. But here’s the thing – and I am amazed that it has taken me this long to realize it – I think that just listening does actually help. I think that when we are going through things in life, the attendant loneliness makes it so much worse and having people there to listen and respond helps lift that loneliness a bit. I think that I am just amazed by how much “stuff” comes with adulthood. How to cope with the stuff in our own lives and the lives of those we love? One of the most important questions to think about.
Thanks, Meg.
Absolutely in touch with this post, Aidan – it’s so important to take the time to be quiet enough to listen. Resisting the urge to fix makes a person feel your support!
“…take the time to be quiet enough to listen…” I love this.
I am just now realizing that this is one of the main reasons I continue to blog. I think that blogging makes me feel heard on some level, that there are people out there listening. And all of this, this feeling heard and supported and understood even, makes life a much happier thing.
Thank you for helping me connect the dots, Sara.
Love how you worded this, “business of life and adulthood is simply tricky terrain.” No truer words have been spoken. Er…written. I’m trying to remain quiet and open myself up more to just listening. ALl too often, I try to fix the problem, and it just so happens that more often than not, a person hearing themself talk out loud, recognizes the solution on theor own.
Thank you. Something just occurred to me when reading your comment… I think a big challenge in life is also learning how to listen to ourselves. There is so much noise in the day-to-day that I think we often forget to forge the quiet to listen to, and help, ourselves. Honestly, I think this is what happened with my drinking. For a long time, I was in a pattern that felt unhealthy and I would ramble on and on to my Husband about how I wanted to change, how I wanted to feel different. One day, I started listening to my own words. And that’s when everything changed. Or I should say: That’s when I changed everything. Or one thing. But for me that one thing felt like, and feels like, everything.
Sorry for the tangent. Actually, not sorry for the tangent. I love tangents almost as much as I love rambling. They are part and parcel of the same thing, no?
Listening is good. I love Nancy’s comment: “But to be able to sit in the uncomfortable with our loved ones to unflinchingly hold their fears, doubts and pain…” I agree – that is a gift. Having just gone through the worst two years of my life (and that truly is no exaggeration), I can say that listening is special. My best friends, all with great intentions, most could not bring themselves to be close to me (out of fear that divorce is contagious I think). Alternatively they would spew ugliness (thinking that’d somehow help or mixing in their own troubles) or to to try fix things (as if they could – they could not). I found I stopped talking to any of them – except my sister. Because she would just listen.
One other piece to note – I was really, really helped by someone (funny because we are/were not all that close) who would just randomly call and ask me out for coffee or wine. And even though I declined more times that not, the constant random reaching out was priceless. I am so thankful. She just helped – never asked “what can I do”. Just did. Brought me a house plant when I moved. Offered up her services and husband’s truck for an IKEA visit when I moved. Showed up with a bottle of wine…. I think I could’ve isolated myself so easily but she kept me living.
Cathy – Thanks so much for this. First of all, I am so sorry that the past two years have been so tough. I am thankful for the fact that you are chiming in here because I really find what you have to say insightful. I am particularly taken by what you have to say about intentions. More often than not we have good intentions, but we act in ways that are not ultimately helpful. Looking back, I know there have been times when I was trying to help someone but got too “in it,” where I did not sit back enough. Also, looking back, I think there have been times when I’ve stayed away and let distance form, again not from bad intentions, but because of fear and confusion and the paralysis these things often engender.
Ever since losing my father, I think I have really changed the way I approach these things. I have suffered and I know what helped me, and what didn’t. I know that it is better to reach out and say something even if that something is bumbling and inarticulate. I know that small gestures can mean so much. I nodded when I read about the someone in your life who kept calling and doing things that mattered.
Anyway, I am just grateful to have your words here today. I think figuring out how to navigate suffering – that of ourselves and others – is a huge and ongoing challenge of adulthood. It’s certainly something I will continue to think and write about.
I so agree with the actions of Cathy’s friend who kept showing up and I have written before on this blog about my best friend losing her 8-year-old daughter to leukemia and how it upset her to the core when people popped little notes and cards of sympathy in her mailbox by the front gate, but didn’t actually ring the doorbell and interact with her – as if they were scared of her or she had a contagious disease. So, for me, it doesn’t even go as far as listening, it simply starts with showing up and being there. My best friend initially could seldom get herself out of bed after the loss of her daughter. I would go around, pull up a chair next to her bed and sit and read my book or the newspaper, just so she wasn’t alone, so there was someone by her side. She was in a place where there were no words, but she did cry a lot and we often held hands.
Another thing to do, if one really must do something, is to think of anything that causes the person additional stress during their period of suffering. So things like cooking meals, doing the school run, helping clean up the house, baking a cake, washing the car, taking the kids to the park or on an outing, helping older children with homework. But do try to find out first what is needed or could be helpful. Too often a friend will deliver a prepared dinner, without realising that countless other people have done the same. The gesture can then become overwhelming (to the receiver) and rather thoughtless (on the part of the giver).
And, finally, do try really, really hard to communicate from the heart. Try not to deliver a note that says “my deepest condolences on your loss”. Rather take a minute to really think about what the person is going through and, if this were you, what you would be thinking. Then, no matter how raw the emotion or how difficult it is to write down, just express it as best as you can. People really, really appreciate to know how you feel for them and connect with what they are going through. So say “I don’t know how you manage to get up in the morning. I couldn’t do it, that is for sure”. Make them know that their suffering is okay. That they don’t have to be brave and strong and, worst of all, just carry on as if nothing has happened.
You will be a pillar of strength to those whom you reach out to, Aidan.
It’s one of the hardest things to do, to walk with someone through the valley of their life. It kinda breaks a part of you as well.