The Sacred Art of Sitting with Hard Emotions: A Love Letter to True Companioning

When someone you love is drowning in grief, your first instinct might be to throw them a life preserver.

But what if the most loving thing we could do is simply wade into the water beside them?

"What Should I Say?"

This is the question that finds me most often, carried in whispered conversations and worried texts from friends who love someone in pain.

When you ask me this, I can feel your heart behind the words. You hope there's a phrase gentle enough to soothe the ache, something that shows your care without fumbling in the sacred space of someone else's loss.

The truth is, I don't have the right words for them, because no one does. And maybe that's not the point.

This isn’t about perfect phrases. It’s about presence. And presence has its own language.

What if instead of searching for words, we simply showed them they matter?

"I Can't Imagine Your Pain"

I hear this tender offering everywhere: "I can't imagine what you're going through."

But here's what I've noticed—when you say you can't imagine their pain, you're already imagining it. You're picturing how you might fall apart, how lost you'd feel, how the world might stop making sense. Your heart is doing exactly what hearts do: it's reaching toward theirs.

Perhaps what you mean is: "I can imagine what you're feeling, and it makes complete sense that you're in so much pain."

This small shift changes everything. Instead of distancing ourselves from their reality, we honor it. Instead of making their grief feel foreign, we remind them it’s deeply, achingly human.

The Tender Burden of "If You Need Anything..."

"Let me know if you need anything."

These words carry such good intention, but listen to what we're actually asking of someone whose world has just shattered. First, they need to figure out what they need, then remember that you offered to help, then work up the courage to reach out to you to ask for that help, and then actually do that (reach out, that is) and all the while worry that you might not be available.

When someone is barely surviving each day, this well-meaning offer can feel like several more things to manage.

Often, the kindest thing isn't waiting to be asked—it's quietly tending to what's right in front of you.

What Actually Matters: Care, Not Words

The grievers I've walked beside don't remember the perfect things people said. They remember the person who:

• Sat with them in the dark without trying to turn on the lights

• Sent a "thinking of you" text with no expectation of a response

• Mowed their lawn without knocking to chat about it first

• Left groceries on the porch with a simple note

• Showed up with coffee and didn't ask how they were doing

• Called on the hard anniversaries months later when everyone else had moved on

These aren't grand gestures. They're quiet acts of love that say: "I see you. You matter. You're not alone." They’re holy reminders that love can show up quietly.

Imagine Bringing a Flashlight and a Ladder…

The Flashlight: I’m not afraid of your dark

Your imaginary flashlight isn't meant to shine on the griever—they don't need to be examined or fixed. It's for illuminating those big, terrifying emotions that everyone else is tiptoeing around.

When you're not afraid of their anger, their despair, their confusion, or their rage, you give them permission to feel it all. You become the rare person who won't try to talk them out of their reality or rush them toward "healing."

Your calm presence in their storm says more than any words ever could.

The Ladder: Meeting them where they actually are today…in this moment.

The ladder matters because grief doesn’t live on a single level.

Some days, the person you love is deep in the underworld of loss. Other days, they might find themselves a little lighter, able to laugh at something silly.

The ladder lets us climb up or down—not to pull them anywhere, but to meet them exactly where they are today.

Not where we think they should be. Not where society says they should be. But right here, in the holy mess of their real experience.

Like the Moon moving through her phases, grief has its own rhythm and timing. Some days invite sitting in the depths. Some invite celebrating a moment of relief. Some invite talking about anything except the loss.

All of it is sacred ground.

The Revolutionary Act of Witnessing:

In a world obsessed with fixing, stopping trying to fix is quietly revolutionary.

When we sit with pain without minimizing it, without rushing it, without spiritually bypassing it, we offer something rare: the experience of being fully known and still completely loved.

This isn't just about helping them through their current loss. You're teaching them that all parts of themselves—the messy, angry, confused, devastated parts—are worthy of acceptance.

Permission to Feel it All

Your steady presence becomes a sanctuary where grief doesn't have to perform or look pretty or follow anyone else's timeline. Where someone can have a terrible day followed by a good day followed by seventeen terrible days, and none of it needs to be explained or justified.

In a culture that demands we "get over it," you offer the radical gift of time and space to "get through it."

The Ripple Effect

When we companion someone this way, we don’t just help them survive their loss—we show them how to hold the full spectrum of human experience.

How to love someone without trying to change them.

And perhaps most beautifully, you give them the template to accompany others when the time comes. Sacred witnessing becomes a gift that keeps giving, creating ripples of authentic care in a world that desperately needs it.

A Sacred Invitation: Permission Slips for Your Heart

If you're reading this and recognizing yourself—the one who carries others' pain in your chest, who lies awake wondering if you're doing enough, who second-guesses every gesture of care—your tender heart might need some companioning too.

Perhaps you've been so focused on supporting others that you've forgotten to tend the griever within yourself. Maybe you need permission to feel your own overwhelming emotions, to rest in your uncertainty, to trust that your imperfect presence is enough.

What if you gave yourself the same gentle witness you offer others?

I've created something for hearts like yours—Your grief. Your timeline. Your way. Permission slips for your soul. This tender workbook and audio companion offers gentle invitations to honor your own process, to sit with your own hard emotions, and to remember that you too deserve the sanctuary of self-compassion.

Sometimes the one who needs companioning most is you.

[Step into this gentle space when your heart feels ready]

My invitation to you would be to stop looking for the perfect words, and start showing up with your whole heart.

In a world full of fixers, be a witness.

In a culture of quick solutions, offer lasting presence.

It's not what you say that matters—it's who you choose to be in their darkness that they'll remember long after the words fade away.