Companioning Honors the Deeper Work of the Soul and Spirit

Companioning is the practice of coming alongside someone who is grieving. It’s sitting with people, walking with them, and being fully present not with answers but with your presence, empathy — not your advise or counsel.

In this series on Alan Wolfelt’s 11 tenets of companioning, I talk about the third tenet. Read about tenet one and two here.

Honoring the Spirit is of Utmost Importance When Grieving

The third tenet of companioning says: Companioning is about honoring the spirit; it is not about focusing on the intellect.*

It’s difficult to describe the unseen reality of grief but that’s what we must pay attention to when companioning. Those unseen aspects are the dimensions of the spirit, soul and heart of a person. “If you wish to companion people in grief, I believe you must be present to matters of the spirit and soul” (Wolfelt).

One way to describe what it means to honor the spirit is to recognize the importance of the work of the soul in contrast to “thinking” about grief. Thinking has it’s place but not early on in the grief journey. Thinking also lends itself to trying to fix the problem or give advise about the best pathway forward.

What if there if no clear pathway forward? What then? Grief is complex, multifaceted, and requires time to meander through.

“He who has no time to mourn, has no time to mend.” — John Donne

Accepting and Savoring Grief

Paying attention to the soul and spirit of the person grieving allows the message of grief to be communicated and expressed. Getting into your head takes you away from feeling the sadness, anxiety, depression, and fear that often surfaces during the grief journey.

One exercise I used on my grief journey was the Grief Cleanse. I learned it from Christina Rasmussen (author of Second Firsts). It was a powerful tool that helped facilitate soul and spirit and heart work and helped me to swim to the deeper places of my grief and listen to what my grief was saying.

“A homeopathic response to grief is to go with what is presented rather than against it. We befriend grief instead of making an enemy of it. Instead of trying to quickly get away from our grief, we savor it.” — Alan Wolfelt

When you experience deep sadness, the inner parts of our being are being expressed. When you allow yourself to be with your grief, you stop fighting it and allow it to be processed.

Respecting the Internal Journey

The reason why empathy is such a welcome approach for grieving people is because it comes with understanding and a sharing of what’s going on in the soul. Solutions and “things to try” that are spoken too soon can short circuit the spirit and soul work that needs to happen.

“The only way beyond the experience of grief is through the experience of grief. The mourner must descend before she can transcend.” — Alan Wolfelt

Final thought

Albert Einstein once said, “I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” In a similar way, many of the discovers and breakthroughs we need when grieving do not come through the process of thinking but through the work of the soul and spirit.

When have you experienced the benefit of doing soul and spirit work while grieving?

*Source: Companioning the Bereaved by Alan D. Wolfelt

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