Do not dictate the direction of another person’s grief

“The length of the grieving is determined by the griever, not by how long you, as a comforter, can stand to be sad. Your work is to be with them where they are, not drag them out where you are more comfortable,” says Diane Langberg, PhD.

Those who, sooner or later, insist on dictating terms regarding another person’s grief are unsafe to relate with. It would be better that we got limited doses of these kinds of people.

But we don’t always get a lot of say over where our help comes from. The hope is everyone who reads the Langberg quote, or these words of mine, might get the gist that grief is a slave to nobody—it will never be dictated to, so we are best not to dictate to those around us how they should be grieving.

Grief goes on far longer
than those who grieve can bear.
It’s just the way it is.

What adds to the burden of the one who’s grieving is the pressure others can place on them to ‘get over it’. It’s not about what’s sensible or logical or rational, as if the person who’s not grieving has a better barometer for these things—they don’t. For starters, they cannot see the world from the griever’s perspective, no matter how much they think they can.

Whenever somebody determines that they know how to direct another person’s grief journey, they sin, they do the wrong thing, and it is never done out of love and care for the grieving person, no matter how much they rationalise it.

We can do a great disservice to people
when we insist on helping them.

Myriad damage is done in terms of abuse when people manipulate or coerce others against their will, and they say, “I’m sorry it feels bad, I’m doing this for your own good.” Nah, sorry, it’s abuse!

If it were a case that we need care because we can’t make the decisions ourselves it would be different. But if we’re living a normal life and someone takes over, it’s just wrong. We see this happen very often as elder abuse, when the elderly person still has agency over their decision making.

There’s no question it’s one of the hardest things we can ever do, to bear another person’s pain. It takes a great deal of faithfulness, humility and intestinal fortitude to journey alongside someone who’s trying to be faithful, humble and gutsy.

In many ways, to journey with the grieving is to enter a journey of grief ourselves. This is about saying no to the things we would ordinarily have freedom to say yes to. Whenever we give up our control we experience loss. 

One of the hardest things we can ever do
is bear another person’s pain.

So it’s very much the case that whoever journeys alongside the person grieving—much as the Holy Spirit comes alongside—chooses to enter a journey akin to loss.

This is why counsellors train around their own character deficiencies. People who help must know and be acquainted with their own triggers. This is a process that can take years of mastery. It often doesn’t mean they’ve brought everything into perfect balance and control, but they have learned to bear what is uncomfortable.

What a blessing it is for the grieving person to have the support of someone who can bear their own pain amid the sharing of another’s.

Photo by Sylas Boesten on Unsplash