There are inevitable moments in life where someone we know is journeying through a difficult season. Whether it’s called anxiety, depression or grief, pain is not a stranger to any one of us; it is part and parcel to the human experience.
Usually, when someone we love is suffering we want to be helpful. Sometimes, however, our well-intentioned efforts of helping can backfire, resulting in increased distress in our loved one or ruptures in the relationship. To help decrease these adverse effects, I want to provide you with a few tools to aid you in supporting others who are living with a mental illness. These tools are not meant to be exhaustive, but I do hope, given time and practice, you will find them useful and necessary to your life.
Tool 1: Listen actively
Active listening, in my opinion, is one of the strongest skills we can use. Active listening communicates “I hear you”, “I see you” and “You are important to me”. To be an active listener, there are a few concepts to keep in mind:
Active listening defers judgement. When we are listening the goal is to understand the other. It is helpful, then, to minimize offering solutions, alternative viewpoints or your personal experiences, unless you are asked for these things.
To defer judgement and promote understanding of the other, we need to utilize reflections. Reflections are summaries of what we hear, or stating what the other is saying in our own words. They often begin with “it sounds like you’re saying”, “I hear you say”, “what you’re saying is”, etc. An example of this might be: if someone says, “work is really overwhelming, my boss is being mean to me and I just don’t know what to do. I want to quit!”, then a reflection could be “it sounds like you feel stressed due to work”. You might be afraid they'll look at you with a "duh" expression, but reflections often encourage the individual to share more and if your reflection is “wrong”, they will provide a correction.
Active listening is uncomfortable at first, because we want “to fix”, but with practice it will begin to feel natural.
Tool 2: Provide empathy
Empathy is taking on another’s perspective or viewing the world through their eyes. Empathy is not “I understand what this is like, because I’ve been through something similar”, but rather “wow, this is what this experience is like for you”.
To view the world through another’s eyes we must use the reflections I shared about earlier. We must also utilize open ended questions, such as “what is this like for you?”, “how do you feel?”, or “what are your thoughts about this?”. Phrases such as, “tell me more about that”, “this must be really hard for you” or “that sounds difficult” are also helpful in providing empathy.
*On empathy, visit YouTube.com and type “Brené Brown on empathy”. A cute cartoon succinctly describes how to practice empathy.
Tool 3: Limit solution giving
Solutions in and of themselves are not bad. However, many people lean too much on advice giving. A couple of problems with this are 1) solutions don’t communicate “I hear you” or “I see you” and 2) our advice might be bad advice (yep, I said it! We are not “Oz, Fixer of all things”).
I would recommend spending a lot of time with tools 1 and 2 before diving into advice giving. When you do want to provide a suggestion it might be helpful to ask for permission first. This permission could sound like “what do you need from me in this moment?” or “is it alright if I share a suggestion?”. Let them state what their needs are and meet them where they’re at.
Tool 4: Educate yourself
Gathering information on a mental health topic can be helpful for you as you support your loved one. Books, articles, podcasts and social media pages can help you understand the causes, symptoms, experiences and treatments of various mental health concerns. You will inevitably come across resources for your loved one as you begin researching and may be able to offer these resources at an appropriate time.
Tool 5: Practice Self-Care
If you are going to be pouring your time, energy and care into another, then it will be important for you to replenish those resources. It is not selfish for you to practice your own self-care; doing this will help your loved one, because you will be able to show up for them at your best. If you are burned out, then you won’t be able to show up for them well, which is unhelpful to you both.
Lastly, humbly recognize and accept your limitations. You won’t be able to meet every need, but you can refer your loved one to a trusted counselor, pastor or psychiatrist to come alongside them in the journey. Healing happens with others and you cannot be the only support to your loved one. Please relieve yourself of that burden, because it will crush you.
I hope those tools are helpful and that they benefit those around you. Learning is a journey-be kind and patient with yourself.
Blessings,
Whitney