•“AT LEAST YOU HAVE ONE HEALTHY CHILD.”
•“YOU CAN ALWAYS JUST ADOPT.”
•REALLY, ANYTHING BEGINNING WITH “JUST” OR “AT LEAST.”
EMPATHY TIP: If fix-it platitudes are so unhelpful, why are they so common? Val Walker, in her book, The Art of Comforting, argues that our culture values production over presence, and organization over emotional mess. We believe in getting things done rather than just letting things be, and we believe that “healing” means getting over rather than learning to live with the loss. Our discomfort with suffering, and our rush to make it stop, can result in simpleminded fixes that suggest the problem of grief is an easy one to get over. This superficial effort just makes the suffering person feel even more broken (and pathetic) for suffering at all, and more detached from the person trying to help.
For all these reasons, it’s best to avoid look-on-the-bright-side phrases and platitudes. Instead, find out how your friend is feeling about what’s going on.
It’s simple: just listen.
SEEING IT IN ACTION:
Here, Mardie is telling her neighbor Wendy about her child’s diagnosis:
I can’t sleep. I’m a wreck. She is getting a psychological workup. The doctors say based on her history and what they’ve seen so far, it’s more than fifty percent likely that she has Tourette’s syndrome.
Don’t worry. They didn’t say a one hundred percent chance.
Instead of hearing Mardie’s worry, in this dialogue Wendy tries to reduce it with a positive view of the odds.
I don’t know, more than a fifty percent chance isn’t a one percent chance. There’s a fifty percent chance I’ll have a cheeseburger tonight, meaning I really might. So my kid really might have a disorder. You know?
Everything will be okay. You have to stay positive.
Here, Wendy inserts her own belief system about what causes good health outcomes. By doing this, she implies:
1.Mardie’s belief system is inadequate and is the cause of her suffering.
2.Mardie’s failure to stay “positive enough” may even be the root cause of her child’s condition, and this failing somehow means Mardie willed it to happen, or the family deserved it. Let’s try this again:
I can’t sleep. I’m a wreck. The doctors say based on what they’ve seen so far, it’s more than fifty percent likely that she has Tourette’s.
I am so sorry this is happening.
Thank you. I don’t know what to do. I guess all I can do is wait and see. And stay off the Internet. But it’s so hard.
Wendy’s simple acknowledgment of this difficult news opens up a lot of trust for Mardie to then talk more about how she’s feeling.
EMPATHY TIP: Follow their lead. If you ask the person in crisis how they’re feeling, and they respond with unbridled optimism or a phrase that you would consider to be a platitude, it’s okay to follow their lead and mirror their language. Your positive perspective, in this case, would likely be helpful.
RESIST
ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACKING
It’s hard to resist sharing the twenty-twenty hindsight that comes to us so clearly in the time of someone else’s difficulty (but so rarely in times of our own). But it’s never ever the right thing to do.
INSTEAD OF THIS TRY THIS
“I never did like him.”
“I thought you would hate that job.”
“I knew you shouldn’t have moved near that landfill.” Zip it!
“I could see the signs.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t do this sooner.”
“You have to pay to play.”
FIREFIGHTERS ARE HEROES
(NOT ME)
When I was having chemo, I heard “Oh, you’re so brave!” a lot. I appreciated that people were just trying to be complimentary, but it also made me feel like nobody had any idea what having cancer was like. People who choose to run into burning buildings to save strangers are brave. I was just stuck in a shitty situation that I would have given anything to get out of, and the only way to do that was to just keep waking up every day and putting one foot in front of the other.
It’s not crazy to want to encourage and embolden your friend. We’ve all had feelings of defeat and insecurity, so we know how important it can be in those times for loved ones to cheer us on with how awesome and special we are.
Sometimes, too, our difficult times are a long and exhausting road. Living with a chronic illness is a good example of this. When this is our reality, we need to feel seen for the tenacity it takes just to get up in the morning, instead of judged for any complaints we might have. (And hard times can make all of us complain. A lot.)
However, unless you know a lot about someone’s particular situation, it’s best to skip making observations and affirmations about how they’re handling it. When these comments come from people who don’t know all the ins and outs of a situation, a well-intentioned phrase like “You are so brave” can sometimes sound like “Your life is so awful I can’t imagine living it.” And that kind of admiration, for the act of waking up and doing what you need to do to get through the day, can feel less like genuine awe, and more like the pity we discuss on this page.
Another possible, undesirable side effect of a comment like “You are so strong” is that it puts the suffering person on a pedestal and can make them feel reluctant to be “real” with their emotions, for fear of letting others down or burdening them by sharing the real pain they may be going through. As Kelsey was told by a woman after she lost her spouse: “I cringed when people said ‘You are so strong.’ I may have appeared strong, but I was falling apart inside. I was surviving only because of Paxil.”
SEEING IT IN ACTION:
SCENARIO 1: Mindy has a six-year-old daughter who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. She is helping her daughter navigate the chair through a tight bathroom doorway at the movie theater. She runs into Priya, the mother of her daughter’s classmate, who is standing in line. They chitchat idly for about ten seconds about the movie. And then, after a pause:
You know, Mindy, I simply just don’t know how you do it.
“Do what?” [She asks with dread.]
Oh, you know, raise Samantha like that. Managing all the challenges. I just could never do it. You’re amazing.
Given what you have read so far, you can take a guess at which of the following (likely unspoken) reactions Mindy has to Priya’s comment:
1.Appreciation for Priya’s support.
2.Annoyance at Priya’s condescending pity.
You get a gold star if you picked number 2. Whether you got this answer right or wrong, consider why Mindy would feel annoyed rather than supported by this comment. Then imagine why, in this situation, the most compassionate way for Priya to be with Mindy would probably be to say nothing about her daughter’s condition. To help, think about these questions:
1.What message is Mindy hearing from Priya’s comment?
2.Why does Priya feel the need to make this comment? [The reasons could be both benevolent and condescending.]
3.What benefit would Mindy feel from not hearing a comment about her daughter’s condition?
4.If Priya wants to connect with Mindy, what kind of observation, comment, or question about Mindy’s daughter could Priya make that would help “normalize” her role as a mother, in the same way that Priya is also a mother?
SCENARIO 2: Joe has lived with multiple sclerosis for over fifteen years. His condition flares every now and then, and lately, his neuropathic pain has gotten worse. His fatigue is getting really bad, and he hasn’t been able to go to work for the last five days. It causes him pain to do it, but he still walks his dog every day and is reading to his children before they go to bed. His younger brother, John, has been staying with the family for a few months as John tries to get his life together.
Joe, seeing you do what you do with the pain and fatigue you have . . . it has been making me think. My anger issues and hotheadedness cause me a lot of problems at work
and with my marriage. Seeing you handle this, just doing what you have to do, I am learning so much by your example. I know you never signed up for this disease or for being my hero. But right now, seeing you with your kids and that goofball of a poodle, I give you major respect.
You sound like a goofball yourself, man. But seriously, thanks. I needed that. Especially now. I feel so lame that I haven’t been able to get to the office this week.
That’s a bummer. From where I sit, though, you are doing an incredible job. What’s going on?
We all need to be picked up when we are feeling down, and hearing that we are doing a really great job or that we’re amazing (because we really are) when we are feeling quite the opposite is a godsend. If you don’t know the nature of someone’s particular struggle, however, it’s ultimately best to avoid specific statements about how that person is managing it.
IF THEY DIDN’T ASK YOU,
THEY PROBABLY DON’T WANT TO KNOW.
We all know unsolicited advice can be annoying, even if it’s useful. Yet, when something is wrong, many of us instinctively move toward trying to solve the problem. That’s when we I-wanna-be-helpful types start rattling off the benefits of headstands for fertility.
As tempting as it can be to offer up your gem of knowledge that will fix someone else’s problem, 99 percent of the time, your friend doesn’t want to hear your advice. But don’t take it personally. You can rest assured that you are not the only one with really good advice to give.
PEOPLE IN THEIR DARKEST HOUR HEAR ENOUGH ADVICE TO MAKE A PERSON CRAZY.
And as the advice starts piling up, it gets even crazier to manage, because it inevitably gets contradictory. Macrobiotic diets versus raw. Plant-based versus Paleo. Native American versus Chinese herbal extracts. Mediators versus attorneys. IVF versus adoption. And on (and on) it goes.
Meanwhile, one can rest assured that the person who is living with a difficulty is thinking about how to approach their situation twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and they’ve probably put way more time than you have into figuring out what to do. As a mother described about her daughter’s unusual health condition, one that took years to diagnose:
“For years, people told me what to feed her and what doctors I should visit, when I had already explored those options. What did they think, that I hadn’t looked into it? It is my child that is sick.”
ADVICE IS MADDENING, BUT ITS MOST SIGNIFICANT FLAW IS HOW JUDGMENTAL IT CAN FEEL TO HEAR IT. As one woman struggling with fertility told Kelsey, advice about her infertility made her problem feel “merit based,” as if only women doing daily yoga while drinking kombucha deserved to get pregnant. By the same logic, those that don’t take the “helper’s” advice deserve to struggle. Fearing this kind of judgment is highly rational, because research shows what we instinctively know: that we feel less compassion toward people when we believe they’re the cause of their own problems. To learn more about our tendencies to give advice, read about Foisters on this page.
SO WHAT TO DO WHEN FACED WITH THE LURE OF ADVICE-GIVING?
1.AVOID SUGGESTING CURES. Though the instinct may come from the right place, remember: force-feeding your sick friend wheatgrass, or some other thing you read about online, is not helpful.
2.AVOID THE WORD “SHOULD.” If you have entered a house of sorrow, and you feel the word should crossing your lips, stop talking. There’s probably food around—eat something instead.
3.AVOID ALL OF THESE:
What to say instead? Going back to our recommendations on what to say on this page, try “I trust that you know what to do.” If you must, because you have some kind of deep, specialized knowledge and experience regarding the person’s situation, and you’d feel like a terrible person if you didn’t offer advice, you can add to that statement something like “If you want any extra info on XYZ, I can give that to you.” If you do offer information, however, you are strongly advised to end that overture with “But I imagine you’ve got it covered.”
YOU GET IT, RIGHT? IT’S NOT YOUR JOB TO MAKE SUGGESTIONS RIGHT NOW. REMEMBER, SUFFERING PEOPLE ARE IN CHARGE OF THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES. UNLESS THEY ASK FOR YOUR SUGGESTION OR FEEDBACK, ASSUME THEY KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW, AND THAT THEY’VE CHOSEN TO HANDLE THINGS THEIR WAY FOR A VERY GOOD REASON.
A great rule of thumb when supporting someone in a hard time echoes the Hippocratic oath in medicine: “Do no harm.” Resist the problem-solving urge; resist the urge to be smart and “fix” it. Take comfort in the fact that life gives us plenty of other opportunities to prove how smart we are.
What to do instead?
EMBRACE THE AWKWARD SILENCE.
YOU’LL LIVE THROUGH IT JUST FINE.
MY FRIEND IS DRIVING ME INSANE AND I CAN’T DEAL
(BUT I FEEL SO GUILTY EVEN THINKING THAT BECAUSE HER LIFE IS SO HARD RIGHT NOW)
HELP!
Sometimes, hard times can leave a suffering person so stuck in their sadness or anger or fear that they keep repeating the same harmful behaviors over and over. This type of pattern may make it very hard for the person’s friends and family to stay quiet and listen without trying to “fix it.” Sometimes, our complaints or frustration with the person are momentary, and it’s okay to share those feelings with others (but not with the person at the center of the problem). Other times, however, they are causing a real rift in the relationship.
When a loved one’s personal trial is so consuming that there’s no room for you in the relationship anymore, it’s easy to get frustrated, and it’s natural to get to a point where you just want to set them straight and get back to “normal.”
The best way to approach this challenge is to focus on where your heart is. Leave aside the advice you’d love to give, and simply talk to the person about how you’re feeling about the relationship the two of you now have.
SAYING HOW YOU ARE FEELING IS A LOT HARDER THAN TELLING SOMEBODY WHAT TO DO, BUT IT’S A FAR MORE VULNERABLE, AND TRUSTWORTHY PLACE TO BEGIN.
Here’s a chart laying out common impulses and our recommended actions.
INSTEAD OF THIS TRY THIS
Giving advice Don’t advise; exercise restraint.
Being tired of listening to it Don’t advise; be patient.
Ending the relationship over it Talk about what’s hardest to say: how you are feeling about your relationship in light of this hard time.
This is all so much tougher than giving advice, but when you really listen to your friend, you’ll hear something far more rewarding than the empty echo of your own brilliance.
We know this is going to feel superhard. It will get easier over time. If you take nothing else away from this section, remember this:
ALMOST NEVER, EVER DOLE OUT ADVICE AT ALL.
TRY NOT TO BE THAT ANNOYING PERSON
INSTEAD OF THIS TRY THIS
“You must feel _____.” “I’m sorry.”
“I know how you feel.” “Wow, that can be hard.”
“I felt _____when I _____.” “What’s that like for you?”
“What happened to me was _____.” “That happened to me, but I want to know: How are you?”
“You should try _____.” Advise nothing, or only offer a resource if it’s requested.
“Did this happen because you _____?” “What is known about why this happened?” (Ask “why” questions cautiously.)
“Oh no! But what about _____?” Be concerned, but stay calm and proffer no examples of worst-case scenarios.
“I wouldn’t worry.” Listen to the source of worry.
“You’re a saint! / I could never do it . . .” “You’re doing a great job under the circumstances.”
THE BOTTOM LINE:
EMPATHY IS NOT
TELLING SOMEONE HOW TO FEEL.
SQUELCH THE FOLLOWING IMPULSES:
•SUGGESTING THAT YOU KNOW HOW SOMEONE FEELS
•IDENTIFYING THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM
•TELLING SOMEONE WHAT THEY SHOULD DO ABOUT THEIR HARD TIME
•REACT
ING WITH PESSIMISM
•MINIMIZING PEOPLE’S CONCERNS
•BRINGING “PERSPECTIVE” TO A SITUATION WITH FORCED POSTIVITY OR PLATITUDES
•TELLING SOMEONE HOW STRONG OR SAINTLY THEY ARE
Too often, efforts at comforting a suffering person are made before that person is asked how they’re feeling. We want to help by fixing, but that often implies the “fixer” is right, and the person being fixed is “defective” for not having “solved” the problem on their own. When such attempts to comfort don’t work, it’s not a problem of the sufferer being unappreciative—it’s simply that the consoler failed to connect.
Instead:
ASK. LISTEN. LEARN.
For a griever, there is rarely any more comfort than companionship on the awful path of sorrow. Hopefully, that path will also include joy in time. But there is no guarantee that it will, and there is no timeline for when it does. There is no human gain in shying away from that reality, as difficult as it may feel. That is the plight of the griever; that is the plight of the witness.
CHAPTER 7:
EMPATHY DIRECTORY:
DOS AND DON’TS CHEAT SHEETS
If you’re looking for some quick information to help someone in an immediate crisis, you’re in the right place. Even if you’ve memorized every exercise and topic covered in this book, this directory is a handy reference of dos and don’ts for hard times such as loss, illness, divorce, and other situations that inevitably come our way.
We all know you can’t “cheat-sheet” your way into meaningful connections. (Why can’t life just be organized into bullet points?) But the tables and tips on the coming pages can definitely help you feel more confident in offering support, and help those in crisis feel more supported.
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