Companioning as being present to another person's pain
Companioning is the practice of coming alongside someone who is grieving. It’s sitting with someone at the same table or in the same space. It’s share life with a grieving person and being fully present to listen.
Companioning is not about assessing, analyzing, fixing or resolving someone’s grief.
Author and grief counselor Alan Wolfelt has created 11 tenets of companioning I want to share in my next few weeks. This article expands on tenet number one.
Being Present to Another Person's Pain
Tenet One: Companioning is about being present to another person’s pain; it is not about taking away the pain.
Those bereaved have been torn apart on the inside. No surgery or pill can put the pieces of that broken heart back together again. With broken-heartedness comes feelings of pain and suffering.
The worst thing you can do when grieving is internalize your pain and not be allowed or permitted to let it be expressed. Denying your grief puts you at risk of living in the shadow of the ghosts of grief.
In the words of Emile Durkheim, “Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced…Melancoly is morbid only when it occupies too much place in life; but it is equally morbid for it to be wholly excluded from life.”
Our instincts cause us to want to take away the pain of another. Yet, to be a companion requires us to sit with the pain as we overcome the instinct to want to “fix.” To suffer does not automatically mean that something is wrong.
The Shadow of the Ghosts of Grief
A person who lives in the shadow of the ghosts of grief have suppressed or denied the pain of grief. Several symptoms are present in the person for whom this is true.
Negative outlook on life
Generalized anxiety
Addictive behavior
Low-grade depression
Difficulty forming intimate relationships
Unconscious despair
Chronic anhedonia (the inability to find pleasure in normally pleasurable activities)
Living fully means feeling fully; it means being completely one with what you are experiencing. If a person is unwilling or unable to integrate loss into her life, she will project her symptoms into her body, her relationships and her worldview. The old, unhealed wounds of grief will linger, influencing all aspects of her life, her living, and, particularly, her loving. — Alan Wolfelt
To take away a person’s grief pain is to remove the opportunity to integrate the loss into their life. There is a paradox at play: when you affirm someone’s feelings of suffering, you are affirming at the same time the possibility that they will eventually move beyond those feelings.
Living This Out
I’ve been practicing companioning the last few weeks and find it both rewarding and challenging. I have had moments where I’ve felt helpless and speechless but I’m learning to be OK with that. I’m learning that doing nothing is exactly what’s needed when grief is real.
Companioning is not telling my story or teaching others about how I dealt with my own grief. There’s a time for that and a time to be silent.
I have so much gratitude for the people who were companions with me when my grief was real and raw. The best companions didn’t have many words but simple showed up with an ear to listen and a heart to feel my pain.
Final Thought
Who in your life needs you to be present with them in their pain?
May you have courage to sit with those who are suffering from loss in your life. May you experience the reality of knowing you don’t have to fix someone’s grief to be exactly what they need you to be.
For more insights on how to grieve well, check out our online course:
Discover How to Live Again After Loss
