How to help someone who is grieving…

Feb 20

(and help ourselves in the process)

by Cherilyn Schutze

MEd., LPC, CCATP, CGC, EMDR Trained, DNMS Trained

We all will experience grief at some point in our lives. Unfortunately, grief has been a somewhat taboo subject in our culture, leaving many of us struggling with what to do or say when someone we know has lost a loved one. Because of this, it’s easy to find ourselves floundering and even saying or doing the “wrong” thing in an effort to “help.”

Having lost my husband to cancer 9 years ago, I understand this all too well. I remember asking my therapist at the time, “Why don’t people in our society talk about the reality of grief?” My grief experience was not at all what I expected. I found myself feeling overwhelmed with a deep sadness that was unrelenting at times, and at other times, I felt numb, unable to feel anything at all. I remember feeling as though I was all alone in a bubble that nobody could enter—How could they? How could anyone “get” the pain I was in? The truth is that nobody could fully “get it”, and they didn’t really need to. They just needed to be present for me, and they were. Many people were able to empathize and witness my grief. Most of my friends and family did this by letting me cry or talk about my husband, and just sitting in the pain with me. Not by trying to “fix” it– but by letting me be in it and move through it at my pace.

There were times however, that it was too uncomfortable for some and they felt a need to distract me or to avoid saying my husband’s name for fear that it might remind me that he was gone. We all can get overwhelmed, wanting to do and say the right thing, but not knowing how.

Below are some suggestions to help you navigate through these conversations with friends and loved ones suffering through grief.

Do’s & Don’ts for grief:

Don’t say “At least…” Some “at leasts” I heard were: “At least you had time to say goodbye.” “At least he’s not suffering anymore” “At least it wasn’t sudden.” Death is always sudden because rarely are we ready for the death of a loved one. I don’t think it’s possible to be “ready”. There is NO “At least” when someone is grieving. Saying at least, while well-meaning, is invalidating and is often an attempt to make sense of the loss and to feel better too.

Do let the grieving person know you are there for them and offer validation. You don’t need a lot of words. Often just being present is enough.

Don’t compare grief stories-It’s not a competition. Don’t try to draw the grieving person into your or someone else’s story.

Do allow them to be in their own story without sharing yours.

Don’t say, “I know exactly how you feel”. Nobody knows exactly how someone else feels. While that’s an attempt at empathy, it can also feel invalidating. Grief is individual to the person who is grieving. While there may be similarities between the loss and the pain, we can’t “know” how someone feels.

Do validate their feelings and reflect them back to the person who is grieving.

Don’t avoid talking about the person who died.

Do share memories and thoughts of the one who has died. It can be comforting to hear stories and it lets the grieving person know that you are remembering their loved one. We want to know that our loss means something to others and that our loved one is not forgotten.

Don’t try to “fix” someone’s grief/pain. Their pain isn’t something to be “fixed” or to “get over”. It’s something to be honored and to “go through”. The pain is connected to the love.

Do honor that love by allowing the grieving person to feel their feelings and to talk about their loved one and their loss. We must move through the pain, to get through the pain.

Don’t ask the grieving person to take care of your feelings by trying to “fix” their pain. It sends the message that it isn’t ok to feel. When people want to “fix” or distract grief, it is often because they aren’t comfortable with the sadness, so they want to fix it to feel better themselves. It's usually not a conscious response. It’s been ingrained in our culture that pain should be avoided at all costs. This isn’t helpful in grief (and in many other situations as well). What often happens is, the one who is grieving ends up feeling the need to take care of the feelings of those around them.

Do pay attention to your own feelings and take care of yourself, so that you can “witness” (sit with the grieving person in their pain, without judgment or need to control) their grief. This is one of the best things you can do for someone who is grieving.

Don’t have an expectation of how someone “should” grieve – again, everyone’s grief journey is individual. Some people will grieve openly and others will grieve in private. Some people will want to get back to work and “normalcy” soon, while others will need time to process and heal. While there can be patterns to grief (such as the 5 stages of grief) nobody’s patterns are exactly the same. I have 4 daughters. All experienced the same loss – the death of their father, and each one’s grief experience was different. And of course, my grief was different from theirs. A gift we gave each other was respecting each other’s grief journey and allowing space for the sadness, the heartache, the emptiness, the memories, and the eventual return of joy.

Do respect the journey and the process and don’t impose your expectations on the one who is grieving.

Don’t tell the grieving person to let you know if there is anything you can do. That’s giving them a job. In their grief, they don’t know what you can do for them. Think about all the very difficult decisions someone must make when a loved one dies, not to mention the difficult decisions they are often confronted with before death. The last thing they can think about is what you can do for them.

Do tell them what you can do, and then do it. Whether it’s bringing food, picking up kids, running errands, cleaning their house, or sitting with them while they cry, whatever it is, it will be appreciated because the griever didn’t have to make another decision. Pay attention to what might be helpful, decide to do that thing, then follow through and be present for them.

Don’t let the perfect drive out the good. Sometimes we become so paralyzed trying to figure out the “best” thing to do or say, that we end up not doing or saying anything.

Do: Just do something.

Remember, sometimes the best thing to do is to be present.