Episode 76. Holding Another Person's Pain

What in life deserves our time and attention and what things don't. I hope that as we consider that question along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones - “Holding Another Person’s Pain.”

It is hard to know what to do when you're with someone going through a really  hard time, at least for me. Maybe they're crying. Other times they might be yelling, and on occasion they may be hysterical. What's sad is that I think there have been a lot of opportunities I missed to take some of that pain from someone else.

Had I known what to do. Most of us wanna help other people, even for our own convenience. So most of us will make some effort to solve their problem or to show some sympathy, but to actually shoulder another person's pain is a little tricky. It's so easy to say all of the wrong things, like at least it's not worse.

Oh yeah, that's happened to me. Or you'll get over it. Another person's pain can be easy to dismiss, and on the other end, sometimes we confuse shouldering another person's pain with internalizing it. We go around life absorbing the hurts and pains of the people around us and feeling it on their behalf, but at the end of  the day, internalizing another person's pain doesn't take their pain away.

It just makes two people have to suffer with it instead of one. Holding another person's pain is the process of helping another person be comfortable enough to share their pain with you in the first place, and helping them to know that you understand its source. The pain of some of the worst things in life can begin to dissipate when you know another person has spent the time to fully comprehend what you're  experiencing.

Watching and trying to help my children has taught me more about taking on someone's pain than anything else in my life. Children, thankfully, don't generally have big problems, so learning to take on their pain was a good place for me to start. Whenever my youngest daughter scrapes her knee, she'll come running to me in tears most of the time, and I'll pick her up and hold her for a little while until she's calm enough to start telling me what happened.

And we usually do a little back and forth where she tells me what happened, and I tell her what she told me right back until she's fully satisfied. I understood. And then she gets down and goes back to playing. Adults are really no different from a child. We want someone to hold us or maybe just to be with us.

And then we want to know that person understands what we went through. If we trust them, we might confide in them and they might ask a few clarifying questions. That helps both of you get to the bottom of  what's actually causing your pain. But once we know they understand. We usually just want them next to us or holding us in a way.

I think we're fairly simple creatures that way. Simple as it sounds. When people bring their pain to us, we often get annoyed. Maybe we try to avoid it or maybe we try to fix the problem instead of focusing on how we can take away the actual pain from the. I fully recognize that some people's problems may seem  very silly at times, but the pain is real.

And only after they know you can comprehend that pain will you be able to guide them back to perspective. If you want them to know, you understand, you have to show them by telling them what you understood. There's no other way they can see proof that you heard and comprehended what they said. It's remarkably hard to do when someone's mad at you, but if they see you sincerely trying to understand, they will feel some of that burden be  lifted, even if just a little bit.

When you tell someone what you understood from what they told you, they may correct you and you may have to try again, but you will get there eventually. And when you do, they will melt. The anger or sadness will dissipate and they will adore you for it. And then all that's left to do is just to feel their pain with them, give them a hug or look into their eyes and sympathize.

I like to imagine as if their  pain was like a glowing ember that they hold inside of them. But when you show them that you're able to understand, they'll grab that ember and hand it to you. When we sit with a person or embrace them in their darkest hours, it's almost as if you're taking that glowing ember of pain and putting it inside of yourself.

The remarkable thing is that instead of giving you pain, the heat of that ember will begin to dissipate, and in place of that pain, you'll feel a stronger connection to the person that shared it with you. To put it as concisely as I can, we need to first pause our instinct to fix the problem. When they come to us, then we need to prove to them we heard what they said, and finally we need to share the weight of their burden with them.

It's easy to forget sometimes that we can share pain with others. Of course, it would require a certain amount of trust, which is one of the most important reasons for us to actively be trying to build that trust with other people.  When times are hard, even the most introverted of introverts needs other people.

Pain is not meant to be held alone. People are not meant to do anything alone. Our strength is and always has been in cooperation. We share knowledge, we share our labor. We share happiness and joy. So why should we expect to shoulder pain alone? It's only prolonging and making a martyr out of ourselves when we hold it tight and  refuse to share it with others.

Pain does not like to go away quietly. It finds its way out through resentment, self-destructive impulses, and sometimes even a physical toll. Other people are the best outlet for that pain. It is almost like pain insists it be shared with others before it will fully be gone. Bonds are formed through pain.

No other shared emotion will bond you tighter to a person than will sharing their pain. We  fool ourselves into believing we can be solitary creatures, but it is not our nature. It never was and it never will be. The best friendships and relationships you will ever form will be forged through pain. Pain can become a wedge between people if they don't learn to share it, but if they do, it can draw two people closer than they've ever dreamed.

I find it fascinating that in military training, they intentionally make soldiers' lives miserable.  Partly to acclimate them to a war environment, but just as importantly, to allow the soldiers an opportunity to draw together and it works. Soldiers will gladly die to save their friends. Those kinds of bonds are built through shared pain.

We do not have to limit who we choose to share pain with. It does not have to be restricted to your brothers in arms or your close personal relationships. You can be a pillar of comfort to anyone in your life  for the people at your work, for your friends at the gym, or even a stranger. All pain big and small is more easily carried with another person.

I think a person could say they lived a pretty good life. If they just spent a little more effort trying to hold pain for others. The next time you see someone in pain, try to fight the urge to change the subject or jump to advice. Sit there, hear them out, and see if you can bear some of their burden with them.

And you will both walk away lighter. This is Skipping Stones. You can find this podcast anywhere you choose to listen to podcasts. For more information about me, feel free to visit skippingstonessr.com. And if you enjoyed the show, please like or subscribe. If there is a topic you would like me to speak on, please feel free to email me at info@skippingstonessr.com, new episodes will be released weekly every Monday.