Be with the pain of the Other

Listening is probably the most important thing you can do to help someone who is grieving. It’s more important than saying the right things. Allowing your friend, neighbor, child to communicate and to just be with the pain, can make a change.

When someone has experienced a significant loss, listening, and acknowledging their pain is critical. Failing to do so is the equivalent of invalidating their loss, and their emotional response to that loss. 

Please listen to this conversation. I was touched by the sentence of Anderson Cooper: “I’m a different person than I feel like I was meant to be”

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.”

-C.S. Lewis

Schilderij: Feeling Blue – Kathleen Steegmans