A “crisis” is any situation, expected or otherwise, which disrupts the normal flow of life and family. Whether a death, divorce, job loss, move, or mental health emergency, everyone eventually experiences a crisis, and everyone responds differently. Unfortunately, for those providing support, someone else’s crisis can be highly uncomfortable, and there are a number of cliches which escape our lips to occupy the uncomfortable space. From what I’ve studied and seen in nearly a decade of ministry, saying nothing at all and just being present is almost always the best option, but if you feel like you have to say something, I have a suggestion:

What not to say:
“Don’t feel ________ (angry, sad, remorseful, etc.).”

Why it’s bad:
Don’t think of an elephant!
Okay, what did you just think about? One of the best ways to get someone thinking in a particular direction is to tell them to do the opposite, so if you don’t want someone to be sad, instructing them not to be is highly counterproductive.

Going deeper, telling someone not to feel a certain way usually just makes people less likely to share their real feelings with you. Feelings don’t go away simply because we want them to, and telling someone not to feel a certain way adds in a feeling of guilt for feeling the way you said not to feel. For example, telling someone not to be angry does nothing to dispel the anger; instead, it adds a guilt for feeling angry, which makes a person less likely to share his/her anger, and now all that anger will remain pent up inside (where it can build up and do real harm instead of being shared healthily). Anger, sadness, frustration, anxiousness— if we don’t express them in healthy ways, they’ll creep out in unhealthy ways instead. Telling people not to feel these emotions only intensifies them. The expression compromises your support and provides no relief, but there is a better option.

Better option:
“You’re going to feel a lot of things in the days, months, and years ahead, and it’s okay to feel them.”

Why it’s better: 

Grief tends to involve certain emotions, but on the whole, it remains unpredictable. Several decades ago, researcher Elisabeth Kubler-Ross conducted a series of interviews with people in end-of-life care to learn about their emotions and their families’ responses. Kubler-Ross catalogued these emotions into five general trends: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. These five gained notoriety as “the five stages of grief,” but this name is a misnomer. Kubler-Ross never regarded these five as a linear progression. Rather, she observed dying people and their families jump all around these five major emotions, and none of these “stages” were restricted to particular timeframes or orders.

Because every crisis affects every person differently, there is no way of knowing what emotions a person will feel when. The better approach is to leave the door open and encourage people to be candid about their feelings. Sharing your emotions is far healthier than wasting mental energy trying not to be sad. Our emotions give us powerful cues about how we’re processing the events of our lives, and we ignore them at our peril.

Don’t tell people not to feel certain emotions.
Invite them to acknowledge their emotions,
think, work, and feel through those emotions,
and then, when appropriate, release those emotions.
These feelings are part of the process after all.
We need anger.
We need sadness.
We need fear.
But most importantly, we need people in our lives who will help us process these feelings,
not simply tell us not to feel them.