Some of the most encouraging moments in my life have been completely absent of advice.
The most discouraging moments however, have been rife with advice and platitudes. It’s happened often, when I’ve shared something heavy or sad or stressful that’s been weighing me so low I felt like my arms are dragging on the floor behind me, and the friend, upon hearing my misery, reached into their sack of sayings and dug out whatever they thought would fix me.
For example, in response to my confessing a rising sense of panic in a fearful situation, a friend might say,
“Yeah, everyone’s having a tough time right now.”
or
“I know what you mean. The other day I was washing the car when…..”
Or, what is infinitely worse,
“Well, Jesus said ‘do not fear’ so there’s no need to feel fear.”
None of these demonstrate excellent listening; they do, however invalidate the person’s feelings and demonstrate that the ‘listener’ has more important things to say than the speaker. Gee, thanks.
I get it. I’ve accidentally discouraged my friends, too.
We mean well.
We really do.
We want to help. Encourage. Inspire and uplift those we care about.
But we don’t know how, so we guess. We grab at what we think should be encouraging, fling it at the problem, and hope it helps.
The thing is, discouraged people aren’t broken, and encouragement isn’t about fixing problems anyway.
Actually, encouragement is not about accomplishing or DOING anything.
Encouragement is about meeting someone where they are, and BEING with them in it.
And it’s much more difficult than it sounds.
Common Encouragement Mistakes
To understand what’s encouraging, let’s first look at what’s NOT encouraging. These are some common ways people try to encourage others, but which accidentally accomplish exactly the opposite.
Encouraging Answers
It’s been said that people don’t care what you know until they know you care. And it’s true.
When someone shares a struggle and answers immediately come to mind that will solve all their problems, that’s the moment to put a big deep bite mark in our tongues. All those answers we think we know are actually just about us. They are whispers from our ego about how smart and experienced and wise we are, and not at all about the person who is sharing their heart.
Those ‘answers’ also betray our beliefs about what it means to feel sad or fearful or discouraged. Our desire to ‘fix’ someone experiencing difficult emotions reveals our belief that difficult emotions are the result of being somehow wrong or broken, that the person experiencing them is somehow off track, and that they will be ‘fixed’ when they no longer feel negative emotions. It’s a North American thing. To us, happy is the ideal while unhappiness is something to flee.
Note to self: When the answers whisper their need to be released, stop it. When someone is sharing their heart, they don’t’ need answers, they need ears to hear them, and a compassionate friend who will love and accept them even while they experience messy or difficult emotions.
Encouraging Scripture
For the Christian, Jesus is ultimately the answer, yes. But common sense needs to be applied too.
This one point alone could be developed into a book, but for now, let’s just keep it super simple:
Jesus and his word are good for edifying, encouraging, directing, and comforting, however, just because something is good doesn’t mean it’s good for everything or every time.
After all, “There is a time to be quiet and a time to speak.” Ecclesiastes 3:7
The Christian does need to be affirmed and strengthened in their faith, they do need to pour out their complaints to the Lord, and they do need to remember that God is sovereign and good even in their suffering.
But.
Just because every Christian needs to have faith in their suffering, does not mean every Christian who is on the listening end of a conversation is now assigned the task of holy orator. Sometimes, the divine assignment is to shut up. Much more often than we realize. When encouraging others, the first person we should apply scripture to is ourselves.
“Be quick to listen, slow to speak.” James 1:19
When we forget to listen, and prematurely break out the scriptural Band-Aids to ‘fix’ our friends, we unintentionally add to the pain rather than lessening it. Worse, we hurt people in the name of Jesus, which has a weird way of compounding the pain.
Encouraging Stories From Your Life
“I can relate!” We’re dying to say it, aren’t we? Someone shares their heart and two or three life stories come to mind that show how we understand their pain. Plus, as a bonus, we can share what we learned in that trial, how we got through it, and voila! The person will be encouraged!
Unfortunately, relating to someone else by sharing our own story – particularly when it takes the place of listening -makes it about us. It robs others of the space to share, undercuts their own story which is unfolding in real time, and becomes a soapbox for us to stand on and “teach” from.
By prematurely sharing our story, we send the message that the person needs to be fixed, and needs to do what we did, think what we thought, and become what we are. It’s kind of insulting, actually. Plus, since we’re speaking instead of listening, we’re sending the additional message that what we have to say is much more important than anything they have to say. Bummer.
How to Encourage Effectively
Listen
Listening does not mean hearing sounds with your ears or having the ability to understand the language someone is speaking. Effective listening does two things: First, it shuts up. Then, it engages empathy. (Notice that neither involves speaking)
Listening feels powerless and useless sometimes, I know. But sometimes it’s the most powerful thing you can do. I could share multiple stories of how someone’s act of just shutting up and allowing me to speak – and then letting those words hang in the air uncorrected and un-accosted – has transformed my life.
I could also share multiple stories where that kind of listening – the kind that has left bite marks on my tongue – has powerfully impacted others.
It’s happened a number of times, for example, that women have sat across from me, pouring out their hearts to me about their marriages and how betrayed and rejected and lonely they felt. Each time, I was careful not to pepper them with questions, make suggestions, or offer any opinion at all. My divine assignment in such a moment was to shut up and listen.
As I did, something amazing happened. Each time, the woman across from me exhaled and sighed relief in the silence that followed her statements. She did not have to defend her feelings or debate the validity of her perceptions. She was allowed to exist, messy, troubled, and sad, and sit in it without strategy or correction. This was powerful for them. I watched their eyes moisten and shoulders relax, almost like they could finally put down their defensive weaponry and just exist and process in peace. Listening disarmed them. Validated them. Lent them a moment of peace and safety in which to feel freely.
That’s a powerful thing, and a deeply moving act of love.
Accept Them (Their Potential is None of Your Business)
This is much harder than it sounds. Loving someone naturally means we want the best for them. We want them to feel happy, to heal, to grow, to make progress. We see the best in them, and all the potential of who they are. We even see the potential of the dark and troubling circumstance they’re in.
Unfortunately, this can cause some of the deepest hurts when we speak.
People suffering with depression will tell you one of the most grating, demeaning, frustrating things is to have people wave their proverbial pom–poms and cheer with great positive, hopeful, and energetic words as though their sorrow is simply a matter of choice, easily resolved by cheering up and adjusting their attitude.
Does God make good things come of pain and sorrow? Yes.
But telling someone, “Don’t worry, everything happens for a reason” invalidates their pain.
Does someone’s current suffering offer a treasure trove of potential for healing or growth? Of course.
But telling them about their potential for a better future only heaps guilt onto their present.
After all, they are not who they ought to be, right? Isn’t that kind of what that says? They’ll become a better person if they only choose to believe and become it? Ouch.
“The greatest suffering”, says Mother Theresa, “is to feel alone, unwanted, unloved.”
Telling people to “look on the bright side” or even to look forward into the one-day when they’ll be better for it, all demonstrates to them that they are not acceptable in their current state. Even to say, “it’s okay to be sad, just don’t stay there” serves as an ominous warning that they’d better “get over it or else”.
Now, is there a place for “spurring each other on to good works”? Of course.
But when someone is in the depths of sorrow and grief is not the time for cheer squads and strategies.
When someone is overwhelmed in a sea of emotion, often what saves them is not a heavy tablet of commandments or action steps, but a lifeline of empathy, love, and acceptance that naturally draws them back to the boat on their own.
Accept them. As they are. In the sea, crying and messy and not ready to come out.
Their potential may be there, and you may even have the blessing of distance to see it. But when it comes to encouraging someone in the depths of overwhelm and despair, that potential is none of your business. Let God be the one to plant it in their heart and shape it into being. Your job, for now, is just to love them as they are.
BE with them in it.
Jesus wept. His friend Lazarus had just died, and Jesus was going to raise him up. Everything was going to be just fine. But instead of telling everyone to stop their crying and get over it, he entered into the moment with them, met them in their grief, and wept with them.
He didn’t have to.
There was no ‘need’, if we just look to the circumstance which was about to work out great. But I wonder if the need in that moment was perhaps not His, but that of the mourners. Perhaps he was just loving his friends by empathizing. Listening to their outcry. Feeling along with them. Even sitting in it with them. That’s such a Jesus thing to do.
And it’s a super powerful way of demonstrating love and encouraging others.
Here’s a non-bible example. Have you ever seen the movie Inside Out? There is a scene where the little girl is overwhelmed with the grief of missing her old life (a timely and relevant example given our current pandemic isolation). The character (which is also the emotion inside the girl) named Joy, has tried all the pom-pom waving exuberance at her disposal in order to cheer the girl up, but to no avail. The girl will not be cheered out of her misery. This is the moment where Sadness (another character / emotion inside the girl) is about to reveal her superpower.
Sadness activates the emotional control board, setting it to acknowledge the sadness everyone has been so determined to suppress. As the sorrow is allowed to color the girl’s memories, and she is permitted to feel the misery, an amazing thing starts to happen. The girl begins to feel better. Why? Because she is first allowed to experience the sadness (instead of feeling obligated to “cheer up” or ‘get over it’), and then as her parents listen (without correcting or berating as the girl fully expects to happen), she feels understood, heard, and loved.
THIS is what ministers to us in deepest sorrow. Being allowed to feel sad, and then heard and loved in it. Not verses. Not answers. Empathy. Acceptance. Listening.
Here's that video clip:
To understand what’s encouraging, let’s first look at what’s NOT encouraging. These are some common ways people try to encourage others, but which accidentally accomplish exactly the opposite.
Encouraging Answers
It’s been said that people don’t care what you know until they know you care. And it’s true.
When someone shares a struggle and answers immediately come to mind that will solve all their problems, that’s the moment to put a big deep bite mark in our tongues. All those answers we think we know are actually just about us. They are whispers from our ego about how smart and experienced and wise we are, and not at all about the person who is sharing their heart.
Those ‘answers’ also betray our beliefs about what it means to feel sad or fearful or discouraged. Our desire to ‘fix’ someone experiencing difficult emotions reveals our belief that difficult emotions are the result of being somehow wrong or broken, that the person experiencing them is somehow off track, and that they will be ‘fixed’ when they no longer feel negative emotions. It’s a North American thing. To us, happy is the ideal while unhappiness is something to flee.
Note to self: When the answers whisper their need to be released, stop it. When someone is sharing their heart, they don’t’ need answers, they need ears to hear them, and a compassionate friend who will love and accept them even while they experience messy or difficult emotions.
Encouraging Scripture
For the Christian, Jesus is ultimately the answer, yes. But common sense needs to be applied too.
This one point alone could be developed into a book, but for now, let’s just keep it super simple:
Jesus and his word are good for edifying, encouraging, directing, and comforting, however, just because something is good doesn’t mean it’s good for everything or every time.
After all, “There is a time to be quiet and a time to speak.” Ecclesiastes 3:7
The Christian does need to be affirmed and strengthened in their faith, they do need to pour out their complaints to the Lord, and they do need to remember that God is sovereign and good even in their suffering.
But.
Just because every Christian needs to have faith in their suffering, does not mean every Christian who is on the listening end of a conversation is now assigned the task of holy orator. Sometimes, the divine assignment is to shut up. Much more often than we realize. When encouraging others, the first person we should apply scripture to is ourselves.
“Be quick to listen, slow to speak.” James 1:19
When we forget to listen, and prematurely break out the scriptural Band-Aids to ‘fix’ our friends, we unintentionally add to the pain rather than lessening it. Worse, we hurt people in the name of Jesus, which has a weird way of compounding the pain.
Encouraging Stories From Your Life
“I can relate!” We’re dying to say it, aren’t we? Someone shares their heart and two or three life stories come to mind that show how we understand their pain. Plus, as a bonus, we can share what we learned in that trial, how we got through it, and voila! The person will be encouraged!
Unfortunately, relating to someone else by sharing our own story – particularly when it takes the place of listening -makes it about us. It robs others of the space to share, undercuts their own story which is unfolding in real time, and becomes a soapbox for us to stand on and “teach” from.
By prematurely sharing our story, we send the message that the person needs to be fixed, and needs to do what we did, think what we thought, and become what we are. It’s kind of insulting, actually. Plus, since we’re speaking instead of listening, we’re sending the additional message that what we have to say is much more important than anything they have to say. Bummer.
How to Encourage Effectively
Listen
Listening does not mean hearing sounds with your ears or having the ability to understand the language someone is speaking. Effective listening does two things: First, it shuts up. Then, it engages empathy. (Notice that neither involves speaking)
Listening feels powerless and useless sometimes, I know. But sometimes it’s the most powerful thing you can do. I could share multiple stories of how someone’s act of just shutting up and allowing me to speak – and then letting those words hang in the air uncorrected and un-accosted – has transformed my life.
I could also share multiple stories where that kind of listening – the kind that has left bite marks on my tongue – has powerfully impacted others.
It’s happened a number of times, for example, that women have sat across from me, pouring out their hearts to me about their marriages and how betrayed and rejected and lonely they felt. Each time, I was careful not to pepper them with questions, make suggestions, or offer any opinion at all. My divine assignment in such a moment was to shut up and listen.
As I did, something amazing happened. Each time, the woman across from me exhaled and sighed relief in the silence that followed her statements. She did not have to defend her feelings or debate the validity of her perceptions. She was allowed to exist, messy, troubled, and sad, and sit in it without strategy or correction. This was powerful for them. I watched their eyes moisten and shoulders relax, almost like they could finally put down their defensive weaponry and just exist and process in peace. Listening disarmed them. Validated them. Lent them a moment of peace and safety in which to feel freely.
That’s a powerful thing, and a deeply moving act of love.
Accept Them (Their Potential is None of Your Business)
This is much harder than it sounds. Loving someone naturally means we want the best for them. We want them to feel happy, to heal, to grow, to make progress. We see the best in them, and all the potential of who they are. We even see the potential of the dark and troubling circumstance they’re in.
Unfortunately, this can cause some of the deepest hurts when we speak.
People suffering with depression will tell you one of the most grating, demeaning, frustrating things is to have people wave their proverbial pom–poms and cheer with great positive, hopeful, and energetic words as though their sorrow is simply a matter of choice, easily resolved by cheering up and adjusting their attitude.
Does God make good things come of pain and sorrow? Yes.
But telling someone, “Don’t worry, everything happens for a reason” invalidates their pain.
Does someone’s current suffering offer a treasure trove of potential for healing or growth? Of course.
But telling them about their potential for a better future only heaps guilt onto their present.
After all, they are not who they ought to be, right? Isn’t that kind of what that says? They’ll become a better person if they only choose to believe and become it? Ouch.
“The greatest suffering”, says Mother Theresa, “is to feel alone, unwanted, unloved.”
Telling people to “look on the bright side” or even to look forward into the one-day when they’ll be better for it, all demonstrates to them that they are not acceptable in their current state. Even to say, “it’s okay to be sad, just don’t stay there” serves as an ominous warning that they’d better “get over it or else”.
Now, is there a place for “spurring each other on to good works”? Of course.
But when someone is in the depths of sorrow and grief is not the time for cheer squads and strategies.
When someone is overwhelmed in a sea of emotion, often what saves them is not a heavy tablet of commandments or action steps, but a lifeline of empathy, love, and acceptance that naturally draws them back to the boat on their own.
Accept them. As they are. In the sea, crying and messy and not ready to come out.
Their potential may be there, and you may even have the blessing of distance to see it. But when it comes to encouraging someone in the depths of overwhelm and despair, that potential is none of your business. Let God be the one to plant it in their heart and shape it into being. Your job, for now, is just to love them as they are.
BE with them in it.
Jesus wept. His friend Lazarus had just died, and Jesus was going to raise him up. Everything was going to be just fine. But instead of telling everyone to stop their crying and get over it, he entered into the moment with them, met them in their grief, and wept with them.
He didn’t have to.
There was no ‘need’, if we just look to the circumstance which was about to work out great. But I wonder if the need in that moment was perhaps not His, but that of the mourners. Perhaps he was just loving his friends by empathizing. Listening to their outcry. Feeling along with them. Even sitting in it with them. That’s such a Jesus thing to do.
And it’s a super powerful way of demonstrating love and encouraging others.
Here’s a non-bible example. Have you ever seen the movie Inside Out? There is a scene where the little girl is overwhelmed with the grief of missing her old life (a timely and relevant example given our current pandemic isolation). The character (which is also the emotion inside the girl) named Joy, has tried all the pom-pom waving exuberance at her disposal in order to cheer the girl up, but to no avail. The girl will not be cheered out of her misery. This is the moment where Sadness (another character / emotion inside the girl) is about to reveal her superpower.
Sadness activates the emotional control board, setting it to acknowledge the sadness everyone has been so determined to suppress. As the sorrow is allowed to color the girl’s memories, and she is permitted to feel the misery, an amazing thing starts to happen. The girl begins to feel better. Why? Because she is first allowed to experience the sadness (instead of feeling obligated to “cheer up” or ‘get over it’), and then as her parents listen (without correcting or berating as the girl fully expects to happen), she feels understood, heard, and loved.
THIS is what ministers to us in deepest sorrow. Being allowed to feel sad, and then heard and loved in it. Not verses. Not answers. Empathy. Acceptance. Listening.
Here's that video clip:
To close, I want to add that I’m not saying strategies, positivity, and teaching are bad, wrong, or across-the-board discouraging.
Not at all.
I do think we tend to gravitate toward them as a first step though, when trying to encourage people in a state of emotional overwhelm. They have a place, but these are not first steps. First, our focus needs to be on the person (listen, accept, let go of our need to ‘fix’ them). As the person feels the feelings and processes over time, and as they become ready for taking steps, THEN we can get to the doing of tasks.
As North Americans, we tend to want to short circuit that process and skip right to the ‘five steps’ part of it.
But the heart is slower than that. And more needy of gentleness and time.
And mostly, we can't get to that growth piece anyway until we feel safe and loved and accepted.
Small wonder God made love the greatest commandment.
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