Emotional First Aid: The Art of Being There

4 Tips to Support Your Loved-ones Through Text

Empathy can be maddening to get right, especially in real time — but it’s because empathy is a skill.

Especially for Gen-Z and Millennials, our mobile-first adulthood has made it likely that we’ll relay at least a few of the most meaningful moments of our lives over text.

Whether that’s privately shooting a text to your spouse who got laid off, or processing the shock of losing a loved parent, these moments and no less real because they came through as an iMessage, and no less harmful when all the other can think to offer is, “Man, that sucks.”

But much like math, or riding your first big-boy bike, everyone’s wobbly without practice. Everyone’s a novice until the cost of being one spurs them into putting on their helmet and knee pads to try to figure it out in the garage.

And this post is about what that practice looks like and why it matters.

Mastering the four steps below separate those of us who have the emotional hardware to get out our ‘empathy mountain bikes’ on the when an occasion calls, and not be afraid of those cliffs and dips, and those who’ll just have to send their significant other another one of those, “I’ll just meet you at the top on the other side” text.

If you’re interested below a step-by-step guide for those who need to building these emotional muscles fast.

Because we never really choose when difficult times happen — both in life and in business — and unlike most other types of events, difficult times aren’t just a possibility — they are a guarantee.

If you’re leaving— check out some of the other stuff I’ve written on Medium here. And share the infographic .

Step 1: Affirm what has been said.

• 1.1: Mirror tone.
  Express — in your tone — that it matters to you personally (especially if there’s a mismatch between the gravity of the disclosure and the disclosure’s tone).
• 1.2: Avoid Cliché.
  Attempt not to use it platitudes when offering words of surprise, concern, or congratulations.
• 1.3: Sit with the hard.
  Withhold the impulse to skip to the part of it the makes you most comfortable (it will make them feel more alone if you do).

Step 2: Corroborate it.

• 2.1: Put on their glasses.
  See things from their perspective, what are reasons you might feel similarly if you reason from their perspective? Say it. If the person is feeling insecure (and masking that fact), it can allow them to engage what they really mean without the fear they’re being childish, dramatic, or self-indulgent in feeling the way they are.
• 2.2: Authenticate their perspective.
  Connect the disclosure to something you’ve read, or something you’ve seen. Why does this help? Because it helps them legitimate their feelings. They’re fighting as much against themselves to stop the feeling sometimes as they are upset over the issue.
• It’s important to say “empathy is not an endorsement”: there is a great deal of non-judgmental validation you can give someone. You don’t have to agree with something to know that there are other people who think it in the world or to have seen instances in the world where it seems to make a strong case for what they’re saying.
• 2.3: Affirm what you know to be true.
• Affirmation is about the positive declaration about what you know to be true. “I know you worked harder than anybody I know to get that position,”, “I know that I’d be lucky to ever have my future partner love me in half the fullness you loved Steve.” What ever you know to be true say it. It is just a description and evocation of the good things you see.
• (WARNING: do not let one of the things be, “You’ll get another opportunity soon.” “You’ll find another opportunity soon.”
• It has the exact oposite effect people think it does. It only serves to make them more exhausted and possibly more hopeless — pointing to the next hoop they’ll have to ready themselves to jump through. Seems like it’s a bright spot…but it’s only one for the person who says it, rarely the person who hears it.

Step 3: Actively propose where the unspoken silences might be.

90% never get to Step 3.

• 3.1: Stop justifying inaction through performative apprehensiveness.
  There’ll be the temptation to take the easy out by saying, “Well — if you don’t wanna talk about it, we don’t have to.” (Which you must respect if they don’t) but if they’ve mentioned it, chances are something subconsciously deep down inside them wants to engage it. If a person mentioned something it can often be a subconscious bid for connection.
• If they allowed it accidentally to slip into the conversation, take that as a door to knock on a few times.
• Wanna hear a bad joke: what would be the one phrase that unites the soccer mom, gym bros, and the avoidantly attached? “If you don’t wanna talk about it, we don’t have to.”
• Don’t take the bait to not engage. Electing not to engage doesn’t save the relationship, nor does it freeze it in place. Electing not to engage actually teaches people that there’s a limit of what I can bring to this relationship.
• It seals off the doors to further growth with the friends who made the choice not knowing it’s happened. Usually this feeling appears to comes up in the person listening or responding to the difficulty because they don’t want to be intrusive, but that’s often not the real story. The sentence often comes to the top of our minds as a listener to someone else’s pain because we may have underestimated the gravity of being responsible for bearing witness to that pain — and we are getting cold feet about having the skills within themselves, or for another person to not run from it. Whether or not people can say that, they smell it. And as a result, the “we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to” phrase, has the unintended effect of making people feel more alone in the grief, rather than accomplishing making someone’s boundaries respected.
• 3.2: Ask yourself about what might be hard to say?
  Internally explore and identify what has not been said during this disclosure? Would it be something that’s hard to say to a friend because of shame? Would it be a burden to describe and live through this thing and not be able to say it? Then, if we have the patience and the courage to be wrong or silly, we can help them to surface the hard thing.
• 3.3: Narrate the unsaid part as if it were you.
  You may help them over this bridge of difficulty by gently saying what might have happened should you have been in that position, and talk about the weight of it — and sanction the negative emotion by letting them know it’s okay and explore its reasonableness, if only to bring it to the table as a legitimate topic.
• Example: “If a woman made me feel respected and safe like that, I can only imagine that every once in a while my feelings might have gotten a bit confused. And if they did that’s okay because — who wouldn’t and it doesn’t mean you can’t go back to your old like, you just have a new door you can go through, too.” Sometime this might work, sometimes it might backfire but either way it’s ALWAYS clarifying.
• It prompts the part of the problem at issue to be able to step forward in a fuller voice either way.
• 3.4: Choosing you pronouns carefully is ridiculously powerful.
  Using the word “You” (especially in the case of issues involving shame) can feel like an accusation. “Chloe, do you think you are an alcoholic?” “Did he harm you James?” It prompts the person to really tie themselves with the action or descriptor in a way they might not be prepared for yet.
• Consider offering instead: “Was someone harmed?” or “If alcoholism is an issue, maybe we can do something about it.”
• With these more sensitive a subject its important to tread lightly here. A therapist might be better able to navigate these waters but as community members, sometimes we may be on the front lines of emotional first aid. Oftentimes people don’t even know if that they are bleeding of hurting until someone who sees them can help them to look at it.

Step 4: The word “We” is a force quantifier.

• WARNING: Use only if you only are in it for the long haul. If you’re planning to be in this person’s life for more than a year.
• 4.1: Using “We” helps people achieve powerful things.
  Things they might feel overwhelmed to accomplish alone. And if you mean it — really mean it, it also can be a galvanizing point of bonding that the person realizes they don’t have to face the scary mountain alone.

Conclusion recap:

Here’s a version of the four steps above with isolated 3–4 word examples of the direction in action:

Step 1: AFFIRM WHAT HAS BEEN SAID

1.1: Mirror — This is important to me like it’s important to you.

1.2: No clichés — I’m not phoning this in.

1.3: I’m not startled — Not going anywhere, tell me about it.

Step 2: CORROBORATE WHAT HAS BEEN SAID

2.1: Roleplay — Here’s what I feel/see from your perspective.

2.2: That makes sense — Anybody would feel [x], here’s the logic.

2.3: What we know — We don’t know everything but we know [x,y,z] for sure.

Step 3: SURFACE THE UNSPOKEN SILENCES BY PROPOSING THEM

3.1: Cut “if you don’t want to talk” — You’re already talking. Take the lead.

3.2: Roleplay — Here’s what I’d feel and that would suck and be hard to say.

3.3: Roleplay —If it were me, I’d think that [x]. And maybe I’d want [y].

3.4: Minimize “You”— W̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶[̶x̶]̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶[̶x̶]̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶When a person experiences [x].

Step 4: THE PRONOUN WE IS A FORCE QUANTIFIER

4.1: Commitment to being there — We… can all them in the morning.

Infographic (Snapshot below)!

Empathy is one of those funny words we use in society like freedom or systemic — one that is infinitely important but few can tell you what it’s comprised of.

Thanks for reading!

Still didn’t answer your question about how to relay care in the digital age? The check out a preview of my post on “Distance being an emotional reality more than a physical one.”

It’s previewed here:

Often ‘distance’ is less physical than it is emotional

However true it is to say, “God, it’s hard to be there for a person when you’re not physically there,” Sometimes that very real feeling becomes sort of a crutch.

In the modern world of distributed work, friendships, long distance relationships (even marriages) the above is a safe exit. It allows us to move on with no fault and no foul. And, to be honest, it’s infinitely understandable.

But if building that empathy muscle is on our to-do list —

If we’ve made a commitment to ourselves that we wanna be the type of person who shows up for them. Then not doing it was kinda never about ‘the difficulty of the situation’ but was more about us brining into the light that we underestimated what it would require of us. And in finding ourselves unequipped, we knew ourselves to be unwilling or unable to offer what that commitment required.

Again, to the avoidants out there — to those for whom that statement is a comfort rather than a momentary bruise — there isn’t much the below text can offer you.

My apologies.

But to those who still have a want, here’s a beautiful thing about being in the deep end and out over your skis. Even when you’re a million miles away:

Moments of difficulty are really opportunities to bond in disguise.

Anyone who’s lost a partner…. [more here]