Please, Don't Ask Me How I Am, Unless ...
Beginning a healing conversation
How are you?
We ask that question all the time. It's usually a polite little greeting, just another way of saying hello. But we may not realize that this innocent-sounding greeting can cause stress for people who are going through difficult times. In these instances, it's important for us to be aware that when we ask that question, we need to consider if we're really willing to hear whatever the answer might be.
I had an unforgettable conversation with a woman whose mother was very ill. Maria's father had died a few months earlier, and her mother was at the point in her illness where she had signed a living will and was refusing life support. Maria's brother didn't agree with this decision. Maria was spending her days holding her brother's hand and comforting her mother. In the midst of all this, people were asking her, "How are you?"
"What goes through your mind is this," Maria explained. "You really want to know how I am? I'll tell you how I am. I feel like I'm losing it most of the time! I want to scream at my brother, scream at the doctors. I feel sad and empty. I've got to deal with medical policies, insurance, hospital administrators, my family, my mom, and somewhere in there my so-called normal life. So tell me, just how do I answer this question? Do I tell you how I really am? Or do I do what most of us do and smile or grimace a little and sigh, 'Oh, I'm fine, holding up.' Do I just keep the conversation flowing past any sticky points of emotional meltdown?"
Maria continued explaining how difficult it was for her to know what to say when people wanted to know how she was doing. "I know they mean well, but do you know what often happens? If I start to tell them how I really am, they interrupt and try to make me feel better by telling me their stories. Sometimes they want my sympathy for them. Sometimes they give me advice. Sometimes they try to take over and fix things. Sometimes they say, 'Oh,' and change the subject.
"What's hard is that I figure it's OK to say 'I'm fine' to the folks I don't really know, because I don't feel it would be fair to burden them with the truth. But with close friends, I'd like to be straight. Instead, sometimes I feel that it's my job to keep them from feeling too bad about what's happening with me. Most days, I say as little as possible and figure that no one really wants to know how I am. It would be too depressing, and they'd feel that they'd either have to walk away or try to fix things for me. All I really want is for people to listen to me. Not to fix. Not to advise. Not to tell me their stories yet. To be a harbor where I can bring my boat in and toss about and eventually settle down for a while."
Sometimes people want to talk and unload all the overwhelming, scary, frustrating stuff that's happening. Sometimes people would rather share a little silence with you. Other times it's nice for them to be able to say, "Right now I don't really want to talk about it-maybe later-but thanks for asking."
Struggling with "How are you?" can present an overwhelming number of choices of what to say and what not to say. It sounds like such a little thing, to avoid asking someone such an open-ended, all-encompassing question like "How are you?" To signal that you are open to hearing back from them something more than a weary "Fine," you can try "Do you want to talk about anything that happened today?" Or "Is there anything I can do to support you after the day you've had today?" Or "I don't know what to say right now, but I'd like you to know I care about you. Is there anything you want to talk about?"
People in difficult situations appreciate it when you don't ask them to give you the big picture. That's why asking them a question about how things are at this moment is easier than asking them how they are. Focusing in on the smaller picture enables them to tell you, "Well, at this moment, I'm OK; yesterday was rough, though." Or they could respond by saying something as straightforward as "Right now I could use a nap and a neck rub."
Another way to make an opening connection is to just let them know you care and that you aren't seeking information at all. You can tell them: "You've been in my thoughts." Or "I wish I were there to give you a hug, help you pack, take you where you need to go." Or "I've been trying to think of a way to support you. Would this help ...?"
Once the conversation is open, you might wonder what to say next. Remember that conversation isn't always a back-and-forth exchange, taking turns to talk and listen. It's not just about you being quiet so that then you can say what you've been thinking about while the other person was talking. Healing conversations are about pausing to tune in to what others need or want to say and what, if anything, they are able to hear from you at that moment. Healing conversations also make room for comfortably sharing silence.
There's another factor to consider when you want to take a healing conversation to the next level. Consider your relationship to the person. Sometimes the fact that you know each other well may make the person feel more comfortable in being blunt with you. Oddly enough, sometimes it will make the person feel too vulnerable. Don't assume you know which way someone else will feel. When you don't know someone well, you may actually be able to provide what is needed most: compassionate listening without judgment. If you are uncertain of how deep to get into a conversation with someone you don't know well, just pause and acknowledge, "I don't know you very well, but I'd like to do whatever I can to support you, even though I'm not sure what that would be. I'm willing to try." If you know the person well, you might take the conversation to the next level by reflecting what you sense your friend is feeling, not just what was said.
When people are having a rough time, usually the first question we ask them is "How are you?" because we think it's a way to open up the conversation and to show that we care. Here's another way to look at it: if you are trying to comfort people who are dealing with difficult situations, they will bless you for not making the "How are you?" question the first one. Ask about their work or their family or about almost anything else to give them a little relief from once again explaining what a rough time they are having getting through this trying experience. They want to be treated like whole individuals, not just as people in a challenging situation that is taking over their identity. Perhaps after listening carefully for a while, you may not even have to ask how they are because they will have told you in their own way.
Using the Rule of Six
Asking for help
Come on, now, how difficult can it be to ask for help? For some of us, it's difficult. For others, it's nearly impossible.
Most of us feel good when we can help others by doing things for them or saying things to comfort them or finding someone who can support them even better than we can. But when it comes to asking for help for ourselves, some of us find that doing so is almost more traumatic than the problems we're experiencing.
Years ago, two friends were working on a project together. They were walking around the block during a break. They were talking about dealing with the upsets in their lives-moving, career changes, divorce, health problems, and living on their own. One of them, like many of us, was so reluctant to ask for help that when help finally came, it was often too little too late. By then she'd be so desperate that she'd trust just about anyone and usually would wind up asking the wrong people to help her. Then there would be an extra price to pay for broken promises or unfulfilled expectations. So once again she would convince herself that it was less painful to go it on her own. She had been explaining her reluctance to ask for help when her friend, Dayashakti, a well-known spiritual teacher, asked her whom she was turning to for help.
Before she could complete her answer, Dayashakti stopped her and said, "You need to know about the Rule of Six," and proceeded to teach her an invaluable concept. The Rule of Six works like this. You have to ask six people for help. Not just one. Six! The first person you ask may be busy. The second may not want to get involved. The third may not be able to take care of your whole request. (By now, many of us would quit asking and decide, "I'll just do it myself.") The fourth person may refer you to someone else. The fifth can't do what you ask but can help in other ways. The sixth may be the one who, when you are good and ready to give up, simply says, "Sure, no problem, anything else I can do?"
Here are some commonsense guidelines for applying the Rule of Six:
Not everyone you ask can actually help you.
Not everyone you ask can help you in a way that you would find satisfactory.
People you ask may offer to do only part of what you ask or may instead offer something you haven't asked for.
People you ask may recommend someone else to assist you who would be better suited to the task.
Asking several people for help may give you a range of options you wouldn't have had if you'd asked only one person to help you.
You are probably thinking, "That's it?" Just try it. See how easy, or hard, it is for you to graciously ask six people to help you. Try not to bail out when the first person isn't available or turns you down. It's so much easier not to ask than to be turned down or to deal with the awkwardness of people not doing what you'd asked but doing something else that they think will help.
Another reason many of us don't ask others for help is that we are thinking, "What can I ever do for them?" We don't want to be in other people's debt. What if we can't help them when they need us? Or we worry that asking for help may haunt us one day because now they'll be "expecting" something from us. We'd rather not take the risk of asking because we feel vulnerable about receiving help from others, about crossing a threshold of intimacy beyond which they might get to see a different side of us.
Here's what we forget: we forget how good we feel when we get to take others to the hospital when they need a ride, look after their dogs, pick up their kids, mow their (hilly!) lawns while they recover from surgery, or help track down financial, medical, or legal advisers to help them cope. We enjoy feeling that we have made a difference, yet we hesitate to allow others to do the same for us.
Friends who patiently taught me how to ask for and receive help have hammered one key point into my head: asking for help is merely a sign of being human. They are right. On the days when friends and clients know you are going through rough times, they may feel closer to you because, for a change, you don't seem to have it all together. You actually show that you need others. It turns out that when we don't ask for help, we think we are sparing people the trouble of doing something for us. In fact, if we would just ask them or accept their unsolicited offers, we would be giving them a gift-of letting them have the pleasure of making a difference in their own unique way. That's something my sister taught me one summer.
Doctors told me to find someone to stay with me for a few days after having foot surgery because I wouldn't be able to walk. It was summer, and the first two people I asked had vacation plans. The third could come down during the day but couldn't stay overnight. The fourth could come if the surgery could be rescheduled. The fifth was my sister, who agreed to rearrange her family life-including kids, dogs, horses, job, and husband in Vermont-to be with me for forty-eight hours in Massachusetts.
There is no one I would rather have had helping me recover from surgery than my sister. She is an incredibly gifted nurse who knows a lot about pain and healing. At first, it was hard for me, her big sis, who had never needed to ask her for any help, to ask her to fix me something to eat or to get me an ice bag. Little things. I felt so helpless. Yet she said it was her pleasure to make me comfortable. She makes her living doing these sorts of things for complete strangers. What a difference it was, she said, for her to be able to do it for her only sister. I'd never thought about it that way.
Another thing that happened, because I "let" my sister help me, was that she got a break from her loving yet understandably demanding family. For the first time in years, she got to sit on a deck outside and read a book that wasn't for school or work but for the sheer pleasure of it. At one point out there on the deck, with books in our hands, we looked up and smiled at how lovely it was to share silence and be reading together like we did when we were kids. She also had time to herself to reflect on her busy life and to make some decisions about changing the way she and her family spend their time. Getting away from home to take care of me gave her a chance to think about taking better care of herself.
These moments with my sister were precious enough in themselves. However, I could have spoiled the joy she had in giving to me if I had tried to reciprocate right away. When people do things for you, it's not necessary to immediately do something for them. When you do that, you unintentionally take away their pleasure in having done something nice for you. It's fine to return a favor down the road. But when we immediately turn around and say to the person who's just helped us, "Now let me help you," it's usually because we feel a little too vulnerable, a little too close to someone. We shut down the "intimate" connection by trying to return the favor right away, rather than graciously accepting what has been given. Learning how to receive others' help is a gift in itself-to them and to us.
Just Listen
After a sudden loss
The warmth of his voice came through softly on the telephone. We hadn't seen each other in months. He had helped loosen the knots tied inside me after I'd been injured in several car crashes, forcing me to face up to the realities of my life.
He'd called today to apologize. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I told you I'd sent that report to your insurance company so you could be reimbursed for the massage therapy. Well, my wife had a miscarriage. She was typing the bills-it just never got sent."
"Darrel," I said, "this must be a difficult time. How old was the baby?"
"Eleven weeks," he said without pausing, almost surprised that I had said anything. "The doctors told us that the child had a lot of problems and, well, I guess God knew what he was doing.
"It's hard to believe," he continued.
Continues...
Excerpted from Healing Conversations by Nance Guilmartin Excerpted by permission.
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