I think most of us would say that we want to help, and often try to help, a friend or loved one who is struggling. We also might be the type of people who try to support colleagues, people in our community, any randomer looking like they’re having a hard time. However are we actually helping them?? Or are we just trying to alleviate our own discomfort? Yes sorry this isn’t going to be a comfortable read, best tap out now if you’re not ready for some hard truths.
From my own experience of trying to help others, my experience of well intentioned people trying to help me, what I’ve learned in my coaching diploma and trauma-informed coaching certificate and the many podcasts, audiobooks and actual books on the subject… We often do two things when we’re trying to help others:
- Try to help them in the way we ourselves would want to be helped.
- Try to help them in ways that make us feel more comfortable in that situation.
Let’s unpack some of this and look at some of the mistakes we’re ALL making and then consider what we could do differently.
So… helping others in the way we want to be helped… Makes some sense right? Weren’t we all taught to “treat others as we’d like to be treated”? When I say it that way I think many of us recognise how flawed that is. Even on a basic level – you might want someone to turn up at your door with pizza and ice cream when you’re having a tough time, however your friend with a dairy allergy would probably find that sort of “help” pretty unhelpful. It is easy to think of what you would want in that situation and to try to force that upon the struggling individual and sometimes we’re not that far off the mark! However, very often that person will then have the added pressure of trying to appear grateful for your efforts even if it’s really not what they wanted in the moment, thus adding to their burden rather than alleviating it. Or they might reject your support and you’re there feeling confused and possibly a bit angry or resentful.
Making ourselves more comfortable is normally less conscious than the above. There are a myriad of ways in which we do this, here are a few:
- We dismiss their experience – we tell them it’s not as bad as they think it is, that they’re taking it too personally, being too sensitive, we don’t see it that way. While we may think we’re helping them see it differently (something that is often worthwhile doing), when we do this too soon and without invitation it can actually be pretty damaging.
- We give unsolicited advice – really sorry to tell you but unsolicited advice is normally just criticism in disguise. What we’re really doing here is telling them that they’re not doing it well enough, not doing the right thing, getting it wrong.
- We try to fix it for them – slightly similar to unsolicited advice but what we’re actually doing is unconsciously telling them that we don’t think they’re capable of sorting this for themselves or that we know better than they do (spoiler – we don’t).
- We sympathise – we say how sorry we are that they’re going through this right now, how hard it must be for them. We reinforce that they’re alone in their deep, dark hole and that we could never understand what that must be like.
I do all of these things, regularly, I am human – we all are. And I also know that all of these things are actually spectacularly unhelpful 98% of the time. If you’re recognising yourself in some of the above and that’s uncomfortable for you – fantastic! We tend to be fairly motivated to move away from discomfort (why we do a lot of the behaviours I’ve just mentioned) so hopefully that discomfort will motivate you to consider how you could do things differently. Here are some of the things you could do instead:
- Believe their experience (this is different to believing their description of events) – get ok with someone else’s reality being different from yours and don’t dismiss what they have to say just because it’s not your experience of that situation or similar ones.
- Validate how they’re feeling. I like to remember the phrase “if you were them, you’d do exactly the same”. We can tell someone that we can see and understand why they’re feeling the way they are, without the need for us to feel exactly the same if we were in their position.
- Asking what they need from us. Let’s stop assuming we know better than they do (again – we don’t)! I love the 3 Hs – “do you want to be Heard, Hugged or Helped?”
- Learn about the language of feelings and needs so we can support others with this (what they should have been teaching us in school instead of trigonometry or how an ox-bow lake is formed). Check out Non-Violent Communication Feelings and Needs lists from various sources for help with this, or even better get yourself on an NVC course to get a deeper understanding.
- Empathise… There are lots of schools of thought around empathy vs compassion vs sympathy with varying definitions. What I mean by this is delve into your own experiences and search for a time where you think you felt something similar (we don’t have to share this experience we can just remember the feelings) and let them know you get it, let them know that they’re not alone in their deep, dark hole (wonderful video on this here).
- Understand how our own baggage might be showing up when we try to support someone and if we’re not sure how to deal with it, acknowledge it! “I really want to be here for you in this, but I’m finding it difficult/might not be the best person right now etc”
- Believe in them and their capability. One of the most important things I’ve learnt from being a coach is no matter how much we think we know what a person should do… we don’t. You can never know everything about someone, stop thinking that you know best or could fix it for them and start empowering and encouraging them instead. Trust that they are truly capable of getting through whatever they are going through and that you can walk alongside them rather than carrying them.
The list could continue but I think this is a good starting point for anyone and useful reminder for myself.
Sometimes I think it can be really hard for friends, colleagues or family to be that support for us because they so desperately want things to be better for us that they struggle not to rush in and fix it. That’s where I think coaching can be such a powerful tool. Time spent with someone who has full belief in you to tackle whatever is ahead of you and can walk alongside you while you figure it all out. If that sounds like it might be helpful then please do get in touch – sophie@sophieeaden.co.uk. We can have a chat about it all and see if I could help you.