We Can’t Fix it: Supporting Someone Who is Grieving
We Can’t Fix it: Supporting Someone Who is Grieving
“Sadness is treated with human connection.” ~Pauline Boss
Many of us never learn how to support someone in their grief. It can be very uncomfortable to be unable to take away someone’s pain. The truth is that we cannot fix someone who is grieving. As much as we wish we could, we are unable to change the situation.
The only thing we can do when someone is experiencing grief is to come alongside and hold space for them.
In her book It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand (2018), Megan Devine says:
The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can’t be cheered out of. You don’t need solutions. You don’t need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.
We can feel helpless and lost when we are supporting someone who is grieving.
That sense of helplessness can sometimes fuel a felt need within us to do something to alleviate the person’s suffering. This desperation within us can cause us to say things that come from a good place but can be hurtful and dismissive to the person experiencing grief.
Most people tend to be quite uncomfortable with pain. We can especially have a very hard time sitting with someone else’s pain. We want to fix it, provide some relief for them. As a result of our discomfort, we find ourselves trying to push people along in their grief before they are ready. We can feel a desire to be a “cheerleader.” Being a cheerleader means that we aren’t necessarily engaged with the person, but instead are focused on cheering them up, or cheering them on from the sidelines, like an observer. We can find ourselves offering platitudes, thinking that we are supporting someone to move forward. However, when we are honest with ourselves, the desire to fix comes from a need to ease our own discomfort. Sharing a platitude like “everything happens for a reason” does more to dismiss someone’s pain, than to alleviate it or support them through it. The truth is that pain from grief and loss is not fixable by someone else, especially from someone simply cheering another person on. Some pain is just not fixable, and we need to do our own work to deal with that discomfort.
All we can do is be a support to someone. Don’t try to fix that which can’t be fixed. Don’t try to cheer someone out of a grief that must be felt and processed.
It is essential that we deal with our own discomfort around pain and let go of our desire to fix someone’s pain.
We must also realize that different cultures, and religions might have a different approach to grief and loss that what you are familiar with. Some of the customs surrounding grief and mourning might feel uncomfortable for you. However, we must take a culturally humble approach to supporting someone who is grieving.
A cultural humility mindset is also very im