The following is the 3rd in a series of 7 brief posts to help all of us be there for those we love who are grieving, especially during the holiday season. The content is taken from my presentation, “How Not to (Unintentionally) Say Something Stupid: BE-ing With Those Who Are Suffering” © 2013. All rights reserved. Feel free to share/re-post, but please don’t swipe or present it without my permission.
In Day 1 and Day 2 of this series, I covered two of the most frequently mentioned barriers I hear to BE-ing with others’ pain (as listed here):
- Fear not knowing what to say
- Fear saying the wrong thing
- Feel the need to fix it
- Uncomfortable with pain and tears
- Uncomfortable with silence
I offered Lao Tzu’s wise words about being a “midwife” and not trying to “fix” others’ pain or process. Then I shared some simple tools for simply being with others in pain.
Today and tomorrow, I’ll talk about the greatest, and perhaps most challenging, of tools—silence. I believe it’s one of the top 5 things we most crave and fear (sounds like another blog series!). It is the best advice I have to offer when folks ask me what to DO when others are hurting…I say, just BE.
A nurse who attended a training I did in Iowa last year summed up the philosophy handed down to her by old-school nurses this way, “We just get to show up and shut up!”
But the silence has to start before we are even with patients or our hurting loved ones. If I can’t be quiet in myself, how can I be quiet with you?
John S. Savage writes, “You can enter the pain of another only at the level you can enter your own.” If I can’t be with myself, with my own “stuff”, how can I even pretend that I can be effectively WITH anyone else and their pain?
I share more about how and why we practice silent presence with others in tomorrow’s post. Today, I want to discuss how we find silence for ourselves.
I ask folks in conferences and webinars I lead, for lay persons and professionals, “How comfortable are you with silence?”
- 5 “very comfortable”
- 4 “somewhat comfortable”
- 3 “neutral”
- 2 “not very”
- 1 “not at all”
- 0 “Don’t know, I’ve never tried it!”
We have so little silence in our world and lives, even when we truly want it, that when we do have the opportunity for it, it can feel uncomfortable. We often try to keep the homeostasis to which we’ve become accustomed by turning on the radio, tv, cruising our smart phones, calling a friend, or talking to our pets. We don’t know how to be quiet within ourselves, anymore.
As a big ole pot calling everyone else black, and as a raging extrovert who loves people and thrives off the energy of interactions, I confess that this has had to be a discipline I’ve practices, since silence isn’t always a natural trait for me.
I spent innumerable hours as a child sitting in the same patch of grass watching the tiniest of pin-head-sized flowers wiggle in the wind and rolly pollies/pill bugs walk across my blue jeans and shoelaces and the smallest of pebbles. I knew about it once and did it well.
Realizing that I had allowed the noise in my life to get out of control, and realizing how I was addicted to “needing” noise to feel “ok”, I intentionally chose not to connect internet or phone or television to my home the last time I moved. Since I did not have a smart phone at the time, when I was home I was completely unplugged.
I was just beginning to do more traveling to present conferences and workshops (largely around the topics of presence!). I knew that A) as a chaplain, if I could not sit with myself, I couldn’t really think that I could sit and really BE with anyone else and B) that I risked losing my sense of grounding in the midst of the new busy-ness and did not want to become any of the yucky things we humans can become when we start to spend more time on a stage.
So I created silent space for myself. I faced the fears we often come up against—will I like what I see inside? Can I handle being “alone” with myself? Will I be enough? Will I fall into a well of emotions or thoughts (that I avoid when I stay flooded with noise) and get lost in there, not be able to find my way out?
One afternoon I was presenting this to a group of chaplains. As I spoke, I noticed and named 3 distinct reactions,
“About a third of you know exactly what I’m talking about and are giving my slow, smiling, knowing nod of understanding. Another third of you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about and are looking at me with that sideways head tilt like the RCA dog. Another third of you have that deer-in-the-headlights look because you know what I’m talking about but you haven’t gone there and you want me to hurry and shut the hell up because it scares the crap out of you!”
Hank, my little old man, waiting for someone, anyone to throw the ball again!
The whole room cracked up, laughing gently at themselves. There’s no shame or judgment in this. It’s just a reminder that the best way to care for others is to put our own oxygen masks on first. I’ve learned that, for me, if I start to avoid silence then I’m usually avoiding dealing with something. It becomes a signal to me that I need to spend some time alone before I stuff things too far down for too long.
Bella, my youngest Border Collie rescue, at one of our favorite swimming holes.
Today, I know if I’m not out on a hike at least once a week, something is wrong. Either I’m too busy, have allowed life to become too chaotic, or I’m avoiding something (or all of the above!)
Having 2 border collies who need that exercise and whom I run with a few times a week also makes a huge difference. By mile 2, my thoughts start flooding and I can hear myself in ways I cannot when I flood my ears and brain with other noise.
This picture is of one of my favorite places on earth. It is where I often go to find silence within. I hope you can find space for yourself, even if you need to ask a friend to join you on the quest so it feels less overwhelming, to seek out quiet in and for yourself.
I promise you, you won’t get lost in there, you will be able to handle what you find, you will be enough, and the gifts are so worth the scariness of the initial process! The positive side-effect is that BE-ing truly present with others’ struggles becomes much, much less challenging.
Peace…
