So often, when we encounter the suffering of others, we create distance. We may resort to intellectual answers, empty sympathy, or cliches and “conventional wisdom,” but when we do this, we stifle our empathy and inhibit our ability to provide true companionship to those in pain. I’ve written many times on the importance of avoiding unhelpful cliches, allowing silence, and leaning into compassionate theology, but even those things don’t help if they’re detached from emotion.
Perhaps the greatest tool you can take into a crisis situation
is an awareness of your own feelings.
Back in college, I experienced my first panic attack. Though panic attacks themselves aren’t life threatening, their symptoms can look and feel like a heart attack— sharp chest pains, shortness of breath, numbness, etc. In fact, the similarity to the symptoms of a heart attack makes panic attacks all the more terrifying, and when experiencing one, it’s good to seek medical attention to rule out other possible conditions which might have caused the symptoms. Nowadays, I’ve learned to recognize triggers for a panic attack and use preventative measures (like controlled breathing and solitude), but I still remember the terror of that first attack and the calming voice of a nearby friend encouraging me to breathe.
More than once since entering hospital chaplaincy, I’ve been in a room when a patient experienced a panic attack. Because I’ve felt those symptoms myself, I have an approximate idea what these patients are feeling, so I hold a hand, adopt a soothing tone, set a tempo for breathing, and try to stay out of the way of medical staff who are checking vital signs. (For the record, I haven’t experienced a bar patron having a panic attack yet, but it could happen.) To provide this kind of care, I have to tap into the fear I felt the first time my own chest tightened up over a decade ago. I don’t let the fear overwhelm me, but I remember it and let it inform my behavior in the moment.
This is empathy.
When we enter the place of feeling others’ pain, we cross from sympathy (the acknowledgement of another’s misfortune) into empathy (feeling other people’s pain with them). Empathy comes easier to some people than others, but when you cultivate it, it’s practically a superpower. So often, deeply felt empathy will stop us from saying harmful things and help us know when and how to speak to people in pain (if we speak at all).
The next time you see someone in pain,
resist the urge to rationalize;
don’t try to make sense of it or explain it;
instead, get in touch with how you’d feel in the same position,
maybe hold a hand and slow your breathing,
and let yourself be in those feelings together.