Photo by Chanatip Sangbunnag on Unsplash

Let them cry

(Don’t worry, I’m not talking about babies.)

It can be a pretty uncomfortable thing to be in the presence of someone while they have big feelings of sadness, disappointment, grief. Our urge, and even our cultural upbringing dictates that we do something to make it better. Do something! Those tears can be so painful for us, we feel it too. They can be awkward for us, what do we do? They can be intrusive, or even triggering for us as well.

Our empathic nature kicks in and we’ll do anything to just move past the vulnerable moment. We want to fix what isn’t actually broken, so that we can feel better. In doing so, we risk shortchanging others of their own healing process. When you are with someone who is sad, and your urge is to make it “better”, ask yourself… who is this for? As a doula, I have had many diverse opportunities sit with my clients as they cried and processed and adjusted, and it has informed my personal life and given me skills to be with the people I love in these hard moments, as well. Here’s what I know.

Recently a colleague asked in an online group about how best to support her client’s struggle to accept the more limited options offered by their provider. The doula asked for words of encouragement that she could pass along to her client. There were many helpful responses including many loving, warm reminders of the client’s power, strength, self-empowerment, and the wisdom of her body. There was a heavy focus on reminding her of her strength and helping her see the positive side of her situation. “Keep your chin up,” everyone seemed to say.

I noticed we were all missing a step. “Let her cry,” I thought. When we are overwhelmed, our heads can’t clear until we take a moment to let the storm wash over us. We rush to solutions, silver-linings, reframing the situation, so that we can hopefully skip like a stone, right over those murky waters beneath us. But life is meant to take us under. We watch our clients go deep into their physical pain of labor, to find this place, and we say, “Yes, I know it hurts, and you’re doing it.” But when their hearts break, we don’t know what to say, we become uncomfortable and we rush them through the process to avoid that discomfort.

Locking up a feeling just puts it in a pressure cooker. When things don’t go as we expect, we need a minute to process, let go of what we’d hoped for, and make room for what is happening next. Those feelings don’t go away if we rush past them, and as much as we all like to think we’ll just deal with it later, we never really do. The lifespan of a feeling is when it is happening; after that, it becomes something else in our bodies. Muscle tension, headache, bad dreams, a racing heart. Anxiety, depression, and trauma. As a birth worker I know that tension and stress increase sensations of pain. This isn’t just about our bodies, it translates to our feelings as well.

Give people quiet space in your presence to just catch their breath. Ask permission to sit with them, and if they grant it, just do that. Touch gently, if that is something they want. Gift them with your silence; it gives them space to process, and takes the pressure off of you to know what to say. I will usually offer my clients, my partners, my friends, a little time alone to absorb the new information. Sometimes they do not want me to leave, and sometimes a look of relief washes over them when I offer. Follow the other person’s lead. It isn’t about our desire to rescue them (ego), it’s about their experience of their own life.

Speak the truth. A doula’s job is not to cheer up our client, or to constantly write a positive spin on something. The highest form of our work, I believe, is to speak the truth, especially when it is most uncomfortable to do so. The most sacred offering we have is to say, “This is a storm, and I see you are in it.” This flies in the face of our cultural teaching to minimize hard moments, or to surround ourselves with messages of positivity that never give us space to have a hard day without feeling guilty about it. The message of “Live, Laugh, Love” is equally as valid as “This is super fucked up and I hate it.” They’re both real. Find a way to say yes to both without asking the person to change their narrative.

Survey the mountain with them. I’ve had clients say to me, their heads hung low as a feeling of defeat washed over them, “This is exactly what I didn’t want, and here it is, happening to me!” They cry, surrendered that they will have to suffer this circumstance that they’d spent many months working so hard to avoid. They are resigned, and giving up, in a way. Hope is beyond the shadow stretched long before them, and they no longer believes there is light ahead.

“You’re right,” I say, looking them square in the eye. “This is what is happening. I know this is hard, and even feels impossible, but here you are doing it. You are staring this down, and there’s no way around it. Here it is. What do we do next?” It’s helpful to acknowledge what is happening but we can get stuck there if there isn’t a next step to consider. Give that space and when it feels right, encourage them to consider what might be next, even if it’s something as simple as getting a cup of water.

Reflect their experience. Listen to the words they use and use them, if you are comfortable doing so. If a client says she had her baby “ripped from her body” after her emergency cesarean, I do not tell her to feel another way. I do not use cute language about hard things; speak frankly. It builds trust in others that you are not afraid to say hard things.

Move the goal post. Things have changed. What do we do now? Figuring out the new goal gives everyone something concrete to move toward, even if with more hesitance and less excitement.

It isn’t about making that vulnerable, tender person feel better. I can’t do that — their feelings are their own responsibility. But what I can do is encourage them to move their feet out of the sticky, tacky, mud they’re standing in, sucking them into inaction and emotional paralysis. I can sit with their tears, without rushing them through it. I can sit in space with them as they walk into the dark grief, and when they are ready, help them move their brains to the next thing that needs to happen. And hopefully, their hearts can move as a result. But first, they have to feel the the things.

When someone is sitting in the dark space of loss, in whatever capacity, it is the perfect thing to speak what is. “I see how broken your heart is over having to accept this. It’s real, it’s big. We’re going to confront it together.” Make no promises. It isn’t your job. Speak what is real, and is actually happening. That reflection of the bald-faced truth is a lighthouse in the dark because it tells them that their experience is valid, it is understood by another person. It is held by others, and has weight. From there, they can be more open to the next step.