Donate consolation: give tips for strength
It's been 32 years. I got used to it. But the sadness has remained. One day in April 1986, my father died. He was 57 years old. I was 34. And suddenly in another life. Now I knew what pain is, what loss means, how strong I must be. The so-called seriousness of life - here he started. And then never stopped. I was angry. One person, a thoroughly wonderful person, whom I needed many, was taken off the chessboard. And the game just continued. I glared at every older man in the street, thinking: You can live! Do you even know what happiness that is? Are you even nearly as sweet, as wise and funny as my dad was?
What consoles? and what not!
There was no consolation. Nobody tried at that time either. My mother and brother had their own grief. It was the time when you did not talk so much about feelings. And life went on. I had to.
Is there any consolation at all? What is that supposed to be? This shell of five letters. Who or what can really comfort you? Verena Kast, the Swiss psychoanalyst, who has dealt with the phases of mourning, knows no patent response. Only so much: If someone says, in half a year, the world looks different again, she would like to jump that one in the face ?. That's what she calls "cheap comfort."
There are these things that are good in hard times. When I fell off my bike and scraped my knee, a plaster helped. My grandma blew on it and said: "Heal, good blessings, tomorrow there will be rain, sunshine the next day, then everything will be fine again." I chuckled, got on the bike. And on it went. Only that later in life just worse happens than abrasions on sand.
The personal Chernobyl will eventually come to almost every one of us. It is paradoxical, but this knowledge alone contains a lot of comfort. Because the worst thing that causes disappointment and loss in us is the feeling of separation - of all the others who are just fine, who have no idea who just keep on doing so. At that moment you think you are terribly alone. And needs more than ever: connectedness.
Where to mourn?
For centuries, only religion was responsible for solace. And those who could not or did not turn to God felt alone. Especially our generation.
- From whom should we have learned what it is like to give real comfort?
- Whom could we turn to ourselves in difficult hours?
- To the war-torn parents, if they were still alive?
- To the girlfriends behind the perfectly trimmed garden hedges?
Sickness, loss or even marital problems had long no place where they were allowed to be pronounced. Partially that is still the case today. "I'll handle it by myself." Therapeutic offers that are taken for granted by young people today are still taboo beyond the 60s.
I do not need any psychological counseling, I'm not crazy!
Valor, strength and competition were in our education long higher values. The misfortune - whether own or strange - made us awkward. And while modern psychology is already discovering the phenomenon of over-empathy, our generation must first practice expressing, allowing and living empathic.
What to say if the girlfriend is left by the man after 40 years? When cancer brings her sweetheart? Or was she diagnosed with herself? What consolation is really good and which only meant well?
The worst thing is, "Cheer up, be fine again." Followed by: "You can do that. You've done quite different things." Just as painful the comparison: "You, I know that, it was like that with me ..." Or: "What can I say, I've been alone for so long."
That sounds like a call to the supermarket checkout. Stand behind while moaning. Such phrases are helpless. And only spread more loneliness. The affected person feels: "I'm not understood, I'm a burden on others, everybody wants me to work fast again, but how is that supposed to work if you're completely deaf to misfortune and nothing makes any sense?" Many then say generously, "Always contact me, I'm always there for you."
Do not you understand that's too little? If you are too paralyzed to even think about existential processes such as eating or sleeping. Not to mention having to play the supplicant with his friends? Why do not they just come by, hold their hands, hug and hold out tears? Without a word, without comments and advice.
What really helps against the grief
The best consolation I have ever experienced was very energetic.I shouted into the phone, "I have cancer!" And my best friend yelled back: "No, no, no!" Then she grabbed herself and said, "I'll get your findings from your doctor now, fax them to my brother and he'll take care of everything else." She acted lightning fast. She took responsibility. I was not alone with the worst health case from now on. And that's exactly how it was done.
The brother, chief physician in a large clinic, became my patron saint. I got well again. My girlfriend never said "head up." Or: "That will work." It was just there. Great. Sometimes you have to show courageous presence yourself. And jump over his shadow.
Not long ago, I was sitting at the bed of a friend who had not much to live. I did not know if that was really clear to him and if he wanted to talk about it. I asked, "Are you scared?" That was vague enough to give him the choice of dodging or dropping. He said, "Of course I'm scared, I'd like to have two or three years left." Then we were silent. And because I did not go, even though I was not comfortable with the situation, we came back to the things we used to laugh about. Memories from the study time, Love, Peace and Rock? n? Roll.
When I think of him, I still see him laughing. But what I could say to his sons at the funeral was not much. Sometimes it is not possible to be more than there - because you could use comfort in case of accidents of the very big kind.
It's okay not to do anything
As banal as that is, it helps to admit this helplessness: "I do not know what to say." A good sentence. Sometimes you just can not shake anything useful out of your sleeve. And it should not be. Also helps a lot better than "I know exactly how you feel." Because you usually do not know. And you do not have to.
It's weird that we get so worked up with effective consolation. We have already installed a comfort automatic already as standard. Dr. Werner Bartens, doctor and author, describes empathy as "automatic reaction, a kind of reflex". Mental pain activates the same brain regions as physical ones. So, if we observe that other people are suffering physical pain or psychological distress, we also activate the pain centers. That's why we automatically rush to help when comfort is needed.
Although this reflex is superimposed on many people by negative feelings such as stress, anger, anger or anxiety. We may think, what can I do with my words? But what we have to remember: very much. Compassion is actually a real pain killer. Bartens writes in his book "Empathy, the Power of Compassion": "The pain subsides when a sensitive person not only expresses his regret, but credibly shows compassion." And best of all, compassion not only helps the sufferer, the compassionate has some of it. It's contagious, says British psychologist Paul Gilbert. If one consoles somebody, not only the comforting system of the supported one becomes active, also the comforter feels strengthened. The brain then releases calming messengers. And you feel almost comforted.
Compassion can heal the wounds of grief
Politicians need to find consolatory words of their own accord when catastrophes shake a country. A truck races into a crowd, an airplane crashes. That's everybody's business. Because everyone could have been affected. The common sense of security is disturbed. But for just a moment. Then everyday life has us again. In misery those who have suffered a personal loss remain.
Affiliates can only guess what those affected need. I always ask myself, when something has happened again, whether candles, flowers and teddy bears in the place of misfortune are really a comfort to the deep-seated. And if they really like to be called "victims". The word separates those who have suffered something from those who have remained unprotected. This separation also hurts. That's why there are mourning rituals, fundraisers, donation runs. They should create a great, shared feeling of connectedness. The Dutch psychologist Claartje Kruij also knows that this feeling disappears quickly.
"We live in a time of ad hoc communities, and there are moments of intense support that quickly disappear."
For those in need of consolation, this means pulling strength out of the good moments and - as clichéd as it sounds - comforting oneself on a lasting basis. A solution that fits our time.
Self-compassion has long been recognized as a healthy, empowering attitude. Not to be confused with self-pity. It's not about lewdness, it's about wallowing in your own suffering. But to be good to yourself - perhaps the most lasting comfort there can be. Find out what I need in the here and now. A good meal, perhaps, that warms the soul? Why not. A red wine evening with the girlfriend? Wonderful.Or just a through-night, hoping to feel a bit better after the catharsis effect, the cleansing effect of tears. Also good if a trip or a change of scenery on time bring new distance to the painful event. Claartje Kruij: "Sometimes you feel lost as a human being, so it helps to be touched inwardly, when your own yearnings connect with something external."
Comfort can make grief more bearable
Sometimes, comfort is very close. In great art, for example. Or in a novel that widens your gaze. Those who allow the touch of something greater than their own destiny may comfort it to belong to a humanity that, in addition to all the crap around them, has produced something like Bach or Michelangelo. But beware. Nobody should expect this view. She can reconcile - or be a mockery for the injured. Grief and comfort are as different as our ways of life.
Maybe we are good consolation only when we understand what helps us. The mourning does not end there. It never ends. But consolation can stifle, make endurable and help to build them into life. I am comforted by the view of the sea - for my father, for everything that came afterwards. When I see the ocean, hear, smell, all questions about meaning are silent. At that moment there are only beauty, eternity, infinity. The horizon continues. Kitsch? So what! When it's comforting.
