Note: This is a discussion / explanation about a poem I wrote called "When You Are Feeling Down."
What Is the poem about?
I was attempting to address what I felt my response should be when encountering sadness, discouragement, defeat, or emotional pain in others. You can read it here.
Wouldn't advice on how to correct the problem be better?
I think our natural human tendencies when we see someone feeling down is to analyze their life and tell them what we think they should stop doing, and what we think they should start doing - i.e. we try to be 'fixers' of the problem by attacking directly at what we perceive are the sources of the problem.
This certainly seems to make sense from a logical perspective. Suppose a person is depressed as a result of receiving three speeding tickets in the past week. My automatic response is probably to advise the person to stop driving faster than the posted speed limit. This advice, if followed, would almost certainly fix the problem. Wouldn't any other approach to helping this person with their problem be at best ineffectual, and possibly irresponsible on my part?
While it is true that many, though not all, emotional problems are a result of consequences to specific actions we take, and often correcting these actions would probably improve a person’s state of mind, this is not the aspect that I was thinking of when writing the poem. My primary thoughts at the time were more about how to respond compassionately to someone who is feeling down, and why I should respond this way. While it is true that my interactions with others in such situations may help or hinder them overcoming problems they may have, the intent was to explore other possibilities than being a 'fixer'. It was more of an exploration of the question “how should I treat a person who is feeling down?” Aside from the issue of showing love being important, sometimes a compassionate approach can be more effective in terms of practicality as well.
The Problem With the "Fix-it" Response
I think a typical response to a person who seems to be seeking support is some variation of "do what I tell you and it will solve your problems, and then you will feel better." This seems good on the surface, but I question the wisdom in my responding this way. I may think I understand the problem when I do not. In attempting to be solve the problem, I may be making judgments, even if unintentionally, rather than having a primary response of compassion. This could be unwise, and may not be a humble and sincere attitude of treating others in the way that I would like to be treated. I may feel that I am a good amateur counselor in a situation where I am really not. I hope I can do better than that. This was my mindset at the time I wrote the poem.
I was also thinking about the fact that there is a reasonable possibility that the individual already knows what "fixes" would help their problem(s) to go away so that they could feel better. Most people are reasonably intelligent and capable of some insight. Particularly in situations they experience repeatedly or for long periods, there is a very good chance they know what types of actions could help alleviate their problems and thus the emotional pain associated with it. Sometimes, however, people are not capable of correcting specific issues in their life when their state of mind is in the "down" mode. Sometimes the emotional state itself needs to be addressed first.
If this is the case, then the person probably needs comfort and reassurance to help give them strength to deal with their problems and/or state of mind. If I can send the message that I am trying to understand and that I care how the person feels, then I may help alleviate some pain, which may help the person achieve a more positive state of mind and be thereby better equipped to tackle the problem itself.
The practical approach may emphasize faults, even if unintentionally, and responding to a person who is feeling down with a list of actions to take make someone in a fragile mental state feel overwhelmed and hopeless. Immediately enlightening an individual about their faults and mistakes may make me feel better but may not actually help solve the problem. Life is complicated. I may not be in possession of all the facts. In my blundering attempts to be a fixer, I may simply do more damage. There may be a better way than the brute force technique of throwing on my "Mr. Fixit" cap and diving in... but it may require love and patience.
What About When I am Feeling Down?
Another thing I thought of when I wrote this was how I should deal with those times when I myself may be feeling down. In my observation, difficult experiences in a person's life usually seem to lead to one of two opposing outlooks - more compassion and understanding, or increased bitterness and cynicism. I believe that a lot of the trials we experience in life are meant to help build more of the former. I hope that I can make use of the difficult times in life in this way, to grow. It sometimes feels like a hard choice to make, but it can be made.
What About When I Can't Relate?
Through seeming chance, skill, inherited traits, environment, or any combination thereof, I may have not struggled at all in some area that another person is struggling in. I believe this is when I should be most careful not to let pride cause me to err. If I do not respond with love and humility, I may well discover, painfully, what it is really like! I think a good approach is to try to think of some analogy that I can relate to, but even if this escapes me, knowing that I am human, with faults of my own, and that I want to be loved, should be sufficient to temper my judgement. I may also want to be thankful if I discover that I don't personally suffer from every problem known to man!
Emotions Don’t Do Logic
Depression is an emotional state, and emotions affect our behavior. Sometimes, until we get past the negative, repeated attempts at solving the underlying issues may fail. Sometimes, something else is needed. We may feel defeated, discouraged, and depressed. Just like some house-cleaners "don’t do windows", emotions don’t “do logic” - that is to say, emotion is an irrational condition and it doesn’t operate by rules of logic in human beings. The preceding statement is worthy of an extended discussion of its own, but I think at some level most of us recognize this as being true. This is part of the reason why the fix-it approach often fails – it is based on logic. When you throw logic at an emotion, there is little or no interaction that occurs. For example, when you tell a depressed person to do X, Y, and Z, they may logically agree with you that they need to do those things. However, their emotional state of mind may be so strong that they fail. They simply cannot motivate themselves to implement the "logical solution", and they find themselves being defeated while trying to do whatever it is that will help them feel better. This generally leads to a response to the “fix-it” approach of feeling even more negative and discouraged, even (or especially) if the person agrees with you from a logical standpoint, but just can't seem to follow through with the "fix". It can create a vicious spiral leading ever-downwards.
If I Shouldn't Try to "Fix" the Person, How Should I Respond and Why?
The idea in writing the poem was to consider what a person really needs when they come to me for support, and in a lot of cases, a person feeling down may simply be hoping that I will help them feel better. Is this such a terrible motive, I wonder? My hope is that I can respond in such situations by putting some joy and positive energy into their life, not in hopes that I can give them some sort of strategic plan, unless they specifically indicate otherwise, and sometimes not even then, remembering that emotion is not logical, but in hopes that I can empower them. They may well know what they need to do specifically, but something intuitive inside is crying out and saying “I feel wretched and alone and defeated. I want and need to feel better. I need help in getting into a positive frame of mind so I can better deal with my problems. I need someone to believe in me, because even I don't believe in myself right now.”
How To Really Help
I believe that most of the time when someone comes to us and expresses that they are feeling down in one manner or another, the first and best response is to empathize. Try to put yourself in this persons shoes mentally for a moment. Try to genuinely understand what they are going through, and communicate this understanding to them. This alone can work wonders with a person; if they feel like you really understand and care about how they feel, then will help them feel better, and they are likely to be much more willing to let you into their life to help them.
A second but equally important response is to focus on the positive traits of the person rather than the negative ones. This often grates against our sense of logic and sometimes such a suggestion even engenders moral outrage, but generally speaking your viewpoint on this will depend at least in part on where you are coming from. Grace centered individuals will probably have an easy time accepting this premise, while a person with strict disciplinarian sensibilities and strong personal willpower may not. In either case, if a person truly wants to help another who is feeling down, focusing on the positive and not the negative simply works better in terms of helping them, regardless of how counterintuitive this may seem.
There are exceptions. Sometimes a person really doesn’t know what they need to do to feel better or correct their life. This can be true in some cases when raising children, or dealing with specific situations where someone is experiencing a trial unlike any they have experienced before. In such cases, giving good advice in the humble manner of someone genuinely trying to help and sensitive the other’s emotional condition can be of great value if I have experienced something similar and truly know the solution. For complex situations, the best thing to do may be to encourage the individual to seek professional counseling. However, in all cases, the primary response of being supportive and positive is crucial if I really want to help.
So What Do I Know?
I know this from personal experience, because I have been down to the very bottom in terms of depression. At that time, in going to others for comfort, when I encountered a primary response of being given strategic planning in terms of overcoming my faults, I almost always felt defeated and less able to overcome than before. In the cases where I was met with empathy, concern, and love, I found myself stronger and better able to overcome issues that affected my emotional state. I encountered very little of the latter, and for a long time I was caught in a downward spiral. I very nearly lost my life. I finally met an experienced, professional counselor (and a very kind and caring individual) who approached counseling from the viewpoint I have been trying to express. By that time, I didn't feel a counselor could help me - but he did, and his way worked. For the first time in my life, I began to make progress. He didn't want to talk about my problems. He wanted to make me laugh. He wanted to help me focus on the positive, and he did so by focusing on the positive himself. He loved life and he loved God, and he was infectious. Just being around him changed me. I began looking upward, rather than downward. I had a radical, life changing experience encountering this person, so I can say that this is not just something that sounds nice in a poem. I hope that I can do this with others.
Getting to the Point
I want to respond to others when they are feeling down in a positive way with genuine compassion, in a way that can empower rather than defeat a person, a way that works. Love works. Compassion works. Empathy works. Support works. Being positive with someone works. All these things not only help the person to feel better, but by making them feel better can help empower them to overcome those issues that may have been causing them to feel down to start with. That was what the poem was about.
Post originally published on 10/2/2006. Updated/edited on 9/3/2012.
What Is the poem about?
I was attempting to address what I felt my response should be when encountering sadness, discouragement, defeat, or emotional pain in others. You can read it here.
Wouldn't advice on how to correct the problem be better?
I think our natural human tendencies when we see someone feeling down is to analyze their life and tell them what we think they should stop doing, and what we think they should start doing - i.e. we try to be 'fixers' of the problem by attacking directly at what we perceive are the sources of the problem.
This certainly seems to make sense from a logical perspective. Suppose a person is depressed as a result of receiving three speeding tickets in the past week. My automatic response is probably to advise the person to stop driving faster than the posted speed limit. This advice, if followed, would almost certainly fix the problem. Wouldn't any other approach to helping this person with their problem be at best ineffectual, and possibly irresponsible on my part?
While it is true that many, though not all, emotional problems are a result of consequences to specific actions we take, and often correcting these actions would probably improve a person’s state of mind, this is not the aspect that I was thinking of when writing the poem. My primary thoughts at the time were more about how to respond compassionately to someone who is feeling down, and why I should respond this way. While it is true that my interactions with others in such situations may help or hinder them overcoming problems they may have, the intent was to explore other possibilities than being a 'fixer'. It was more of an exploration of the question “how should I treat a person who is feeling down?” Aside from the issue of showing love being important, sometimes a compassionate approach can be more effective in terms of practicality as well.
The Problem With the "Fix-it" Response
I think a typical response to a person who seems to be seeking support is some variation of "do what I tell you and it will solve your problems, and then you will feel better." This seems good on the surface, but I question the wisdom in my responding this way. I may think I understand the problem when I do not. In attempting to be solve the problem, I may be making judgments, even if unintentionally, rather than having a primary response of compassion. This could be unwise, and may not be a humble and sincere attitude of treating others in the way that I would like to be treated. I may feel that I am a good amateur counselor in a situation where I am really not. I hope I can do better than that. This was my mindset at the time I wrote the poem.
I was also thinking about the fact that there is a reasonable possibility that the individual already knows what "fixes" would help their problem(s) to go away so that they could feel better. Most people are reasonably intelligent and capable of some insight. Particularly in situations they experience repeatedly or for long periods, there is a very good chance they know what types of actions could help alleviate their problems and thus the emotional pain associated with it. Sometimes, however, people are not capable of correcting specific issues in their life when their state of mind is in the "down" mode. Sometimes the emotional state itself needs to be addressed first.
If this is the case, then the person probably needs comfort and reassurance to help give them strength to deal with their problems and/or state of mind. If I can send the message that I am trying to understand and that I care how the person feels, then I may help alleviate some pain, which may help the person achieve a more positive state of mind and be thereby better equipped to tackle the problem itself.
The practical approach may emphasize faults, even if unintentionally, and responding to a person who is feeling down with a list of actions to take make someone in a fragile mental state feel overwhelmed and hopeless. Immediately enlightening an individual about their faults and mistakes may make me feel better but may not actually help solve the problem. Life is complicated. I may not be in possession of all the facts. In my blundering attempts to be a fixer, I may simply do more damage. There may be a better way than the brute force technique of throwing on my "Mr. Fixit" cap and diving in... but it may require love and patience.
What About When I am Feeling Down?
Another thing I thought of when I wrote this was how I should deal with those times when I myself may be feeling down. In my observation, difficult experiences in a person's life usually seem to lead to one of two opposing outlooks - more compassion and understanding, or increased bitterness and cynicism. I believe that a lot of the trials we experience in life are meant to help build more of the former. I hope that I can make use of the difficult times in life in this way, to grow. It sometimes feels like a hard choice to make, but it can be made.
What About When I Can't Relate?
Through seeming chance, skill, inherited traits, environment, or any combination thereof, I may have not struggled at all in some area that another person is struggling in. I believe this is when I should be most careful not to let pride cause me to err. If I do not respond with love and humility, I may well discover, painfully, what it is really like! I think a good approach is to try to think of some analogy that I can relate to, but even if this escapes me, knowing that I am human, with faults of my own, and that I want to be loved, should be sufficient to temper my judgement. I may also want to be thankful if I discover that I don't personally suffer from every problem known to man!
Emotions Don’t Do Logic
Depression is an emotional state, and emotions affect our behavior. Sometimes, until we get past the negative, repeated attempts at solving the underlying issues may fail. Sometimes, something else is needed. We may feel defeated, discouraged, and depressed. Just like some house-cleaners "don’t do windows", emotions don’t “do logic” - that is to say, emotion is an irrational condition and it doesn’t operate by rules of logic in human beings. The preceding statement is worthy of an extended discussion of its own, but I think at some level most of us recognize this as being true. This is part of the reason why the fix-it approach often fails – it is based on logic. When you throw logic at an emotion, there is little or no interaction that occurs. For example, when you tell a depressed person to do X, Y, and Z, they may logically agree with you that they need to do those things. However, their emotional state of mind may be so strong that they fail. They simply cannot motivate themselves to implement the "logical solution", and they find themselves being defeated while trying to do whatever it is that will help them feel better. This generally leads to a response to the “fix-it” approach of feeling even more negative and discouraged, even (or especially) if the person agrees with you from a logical standpoint, but just can't seem to follow through with the "fix". It can create a vicious spiral leading ever-downwards.
If I Shouldn't Try to "Fix" the Person, How Should I Respond and Why?
The idea in writing the poem was to consider what a person really needs when they come to me for support, and in a lot of cases, a person feeling down may simply be hoping that I will help them feel better. Is this such a terrible motive, I wonder? My hope is that I can respond in such situations by putting some joy and positive energy into their life, not in hopes that I can give them some sort of strategic plan, unless they specifically indicate otherwise, and sometimes not even then, remembering that emotion is not logical, but in hopes that I can empower them. They may well know what they need to do specifically, but something intuitive inside is crying out and saying “I feel wretched and alone and defeated. I want and need to feel better. I need help in getting into a positive frame of mind so I can better deal with my problems. I need someone to believe in me, because even I don't believe in myself right now.”
How To Really Help
I believe that most of the time when someone comes to us and expresses that they are feeling down in one manner or another, the first and best response is to empathize. Try to put yourself in this persons shoes mentally for a moment. Try to genuinely understand what they are going through, and communicate this understanding to them. This alone can work wonders with a person; if they feel like you really understand and care about how they feel, then will help them feel better, and they are likely to be much more willing to let you into their life to help them.
A second but equally important response is to focus on the positive traits of the person rather than the negative ones. This often grates against our sense of logic and sometimes such a suggestion even engenders moral outrage, but generally speaking your viewpoint on this will depend at least in part on where you are coming from. Grace centered individuals will probably have an easy time accepting this premise, while a person with strict disciplinarian sensibilities and strong personal willpower may not. In either case, if a person truly wants to help another who is feeling down, focusing on the positive and not the negative simply works better in terms of helping them, regardless of how counterintuitive this may seem.
There are exceptions. Sometimes a person really doesn’t know what they need to do to feel better or correct their life. This can be true in some cases when raising children, or dealing with specific situations where someone is experiencing a trial unlike any they have experienced before. In such cases, giving good advice in the humble manner of someone genuinely trying to help and sensitive the other’s emotional condition can be of great value if I have experienced something similar and truly know the solution. For complex situations, the best thing to do may be to encourage the individual to seek professional counseling. However, in all cases, the primary response of being supportive and positive is crucial if I really want to help.
So What Do I Know?
I know this from personal experience, because I have been down to the very bottom in terms of depression. At that time, in going to others for comfort, when I encountered a primary response of being given strategic planning in terms of overcoming my faults, I almost always felt defeated and less able to overcome than before. In the cases where I was met with empathy, concern, and love, I found myself stronger and better able to overcome issues that affected my emotional state. I encountered very little of the latter, and for a long time I was caught in a downward spiral. I very nearly lost my life. I finally met an experienced, professional counselor (and a very kind and caring individual) who approached counseling from the viewpoint I have been trying to express. By that time, I didn't feel a counselor could help me - but he did, and his way worked. For the first time in my life, I began to make progress. He didn't want to talk about my problems. He wanted to make me laugh. He wanted to help me focus on the positive, and he did so by focusing on the positive himself. He loved life and he loved God, and he was infectious. Just being around him changed me. I began looking upward, rather than downward. I had a radical, life changing experience encountering this person, so I can say that this is not just something that sounds nice in a poem. I hope that I can do this with others.
Getting to the Point
I want to respond to others when they are feeling down in a positive way with genuine compassion, in a way that can empower rather than defeat a person, a way that works. Love works. Compassion works. Empathy works. Support works. Being positive with someone works. All these things not only help the person to feel better, but by making them feel better can help empower them to overcome those issues that may have been causing them to feel down to start with. That was what the poem was about.
Post originally published on 10/2/2006. Updated/edited on 9/3/2012.
I want to come back and read more carefully as this topic deserves more than a quick read, answer off the top of the head. But for now what came to mind first was that the right approach would be similar to what one would offer to a person grieving loss of a loved one.
ReplyDeleteThe most helpful thing, I have read and heard, is to grieve with the person, possibly shed a few tears with them, just be with the person in their grief, giving time, sharing the load.
Telling them something pert and positive or as you say giving advice won't make the pain go away, though encouragement can be given in the form of a shoulder, the comfort of a warm embrace, genuine love and concern, expecting nothing in return, not even necessarily results at that time.
So often humanly what we really want when we go to help someone who is down is to say, Hey, look at me. I helped that person, taking comfort rather than giving it. I think this is just exactly what the grieving one senses and doesn't want. No one wants to be someone elses project, so to speak. We want camaraderie, if that is not too light a word. Communion might be better.
More later.
Wow! I've never heard about depression and discouragement quite like this. I must admit that I am one of the "fixers." Rachelle tells me things that are challenging her or frustrating her. I can quickly give "logical" advice. Yep! I happily state "that should do it" as I skip away like Dorothy headed down the yellow brick road, proud that I could be of assistance. Proud might be the key word. She didn't want advice, she wanted to be heard. She wanted me to walk in her shoes for a while. I knew this. I learned this long ago. But it is programmed in my mind. Problem---find solution--give advice or attempt the advice myself---done----next. I understand this, I don't want advice when I'm "down." I must have quiet time with God. You wrote about a person feeling "down" and someone comes with advice. The advice just doesn't sound possible in that state of mind. This sounds like a person "earning" salvation through righteousness without the strength of Christ, being "good." When do you know you've done enough? At what point do you say "man, that was tough, now I have achieved this feat?" "Now I will be prepared to meet my maker." Jesus' life, death, and resurrection was a useless historical story if you intend to scoff at it and try it on your own. So, without the grace of God one cannot be assured of salvation. Without the grace of God a person cannot reach happiness and joy from the depths of a "down" mind. It's just not possible on our own. Strength from God, love, compassion, empathy and Christ-centered counseling are effective. I'm glad you described the poem, it was very heavy. I now see this subject from a different angle.
ReplyDeleteI think your poem said it best. To me, because it flowed outward, it wasn't at all heavy, though I can see why the subject matter could seem ponderous.
ReplyDeleteOnly in poetry, music, and the spiritual realms where we bypass logic and concrete language can we strike the chord deep inside a person (or have it struck for us), and make the heart to heart connection we yearn for.
Some things just can't be explained adequately using common communication.
I was thinking of the following scenario:
A songwriter is sitting staring at his piano keyboard. He is feeling frustration. His fingers pick out random notes, searching it seems of their own accord, or as if the correct keys themselves need to rise and say, "Touch me." It is not a brain activity, but something different.
After many fruitless attempts, suddenly something wells up and and notes begin to flow; the language of the heart comes right out the tips of his fingers, displaying in sounds his ears recognize as being exactly what it was he was searching for, unable to reach.
Beauty is born then and he feels immense satisfaction. He has communicated in music language what he could not say any other way.
What I am trying to communicate is that striking the right chord in someone who is feeling down is just such an excercise. It might be one thing for one individual, entirely different for another, but it is always a note of grace.
I believe that is where the Holy Spirit comes in and that is the reason for my comment that it makes me tremble. It is such an awesome thing to affect the life and heart of another living being -for good or bad.
When Lazarus was lying in the tomb he couldn't do a single thing to raise himself. After four days (forgive my grossness) he was good and dead. It took an outside force to call him forth, to implant life where there was none.
But it also took the right voice. Not just any voice would do. There is a voice that resonates with our voice, our soul if you will, and I think this happens as a gift.
Sometimes it might be a gift specially selected for the present circumstance, the right person at the right time, so to speak, interacting in a Jonathon/David type of connection uniquely for that one instance of need.
Other times there is a spiritual gift present in a counselor for the benefit of both counselor and recipient. (And also many persons God will bring throughout the counselors Christian walk with the Lord.)
And there might be many other scenarios I haven't thought of. Probably too many to record if I did think of them.
One thing I know, that when it happens right, it feels like someone has touched something deep inside of us, something that needed touching, needed the grace chord to be struck.
As you said in your discussion,
"It works!"