- Hello YouTube communicators. In this video I'm going to
teach you how to comfort a friend or a family member or
a colleague who is suffering, who's upset, who's in
need of your comfort. In the last video I talked about
what empathy is in general, but in this video I'm going
to to tell you specifically what to say in order to give someone the kind of emotional
support and comfort they need when they're really in a bad place. I'm Bruce Lambert from
HowCommunicationWorks.com, so lets get started. We all have friends that
suffer, that are upset. They may have all sorts of
things, they may be sick, they may have gotten a bad diagnosis, they may have had a death in their family, they may have had a bad career outcome, they may have gone through a break up, all sorts of the bad stuff
that just happens every day, they could have just had
a bad day in traffic. But in any of those cases, to be a good friend, we want
to be able to comfort people. And there are some specific things that research and social science has shown are better than others, in
terms of comforting people. And I want to go through
them step by step. The first thing you want to do is just express a desire to help. Tell your friend that you want to help. It's not always clear, just say, "I really want to help
you get through this." That can be helpful. Express positive regard for
the other person, meaning, tell them that you like them. They may be feeling really
down about themselves, so you just want to tell them
good things about themselves. "You know I care about you so
much" or "I love you so much" "I'm just so concerned about you", "You're such a good and kind person." Express concern, care and interest. This is just more of the same,
just make sure they know, "I'm really interested in
what's happening to you, I can see that you're troubled,
I'm so concerned about you and you know how much I care about you." Tell them that you're available. Being present is such a big
part of comforting people. You want to just come out and say, "I'm here for you. If you need
to talk, I'm here for you." "You can call me, you can text me, you can come on over whenever you want. I'm here, I'm available if
you need someone to talk to." You want to express solidarity
with the other person also, let them know that they're not going to go through this alone. I sometimes tell my kids
or people that I care about that I can't control the weather, or I can't control the seas,
the seas might be very stormy, but you're not in that boat alone. We're in the boat together. I think that hearing that a
close friend or family member or someone that loves
you is in it with you, can really make a person feel better. Then of course just acknowledge,
express acknowledgement and comprehension and so on, and condolence for the bad
things that are happening. This is just really as simple as saying, "I'm so sorry for what's happening to you" "I know how much this meant to you" "I know how much you loved that person" "I know how much the
relationship meant to you" "I know how much that
promotion meant to you" So just simply acknowledging the depth of the pain and sorrow that your friend or family member is experiencing,
is really comforting. The next main thing you want to do is legitimize the other person's feelings. This means telling them that
their feelings are okay. Because a lot of times when we're upset, we're actually not sure that
we have the right to be upset. We always question whether
maybe our feelings aren't valid, so it's so useful and comforting when people tell us that
our feeling are okay. We want to say that the
other person's feelings, your friend's feelings,
they're reasonable, they're normal, they're appropriate. You could say something like,
"of course you're frightened, anyone would be in this situation, this is a really scary situation." Acknowledge their plight
or their circumstances, so you can talk about the
bad thing that happened. Give them the acknowledgement,
something like, "Oh it totally sucks to
work so hard and so long towards a goal and then
not be able to achieve it." Absolve them of blame. People might feel like it's their fault that this bad thing happened to them. That they're somehow to blame for their own bad circumstances. And I guess, sometimes they might be. But when we're comforting someone, we don't want to say that to them. We want to sort of absolve them of blame. Say "well you didn't do
anything to deserve this, there's no reason for
you to feel bad or guilty about how you're reacting,
it's not your fault." Reassure the person that it's
okay to express their feelings one of the mechanisms
by which comfort people, is creating a space for them
to express their feelings. One of the things we really want to do is let them know it's okay
to express their feelings. Many of us are taught that some feelings are good
and some feelings are bad. That some feelings are okay to express and some feelings need
to be kept to ourselves, or bottled up and not expressed at all. But when we comfort someone, we want to let them know that's not true, they can express any
emotion that they want. We say things like, "there are
no right or wrong feelings" "We can't control how we feel" "No matter how you're
feeling, it's okay with me; I'll still love you, I won't judge you." The other mechanism by
which we comfort people, the actual way that the comforting works, is that we allow people to
re-appraise their own situation. One of the ways we do that is by encouraging them to
elaborate on their feelings and tell the story behind their feelings. Why are they feeling the way they are? This can help people come to
terms with their own feelings, and even understand their own feelings. Just because our feelings are our own and we feel them
viscerally, it doesn't mean that we always understand
our own feelings. Sometimes we need to have a
conversation with a close friend before we even know what we're feeling. If you're that close friend,
you want to encourage people to elaborate on their feelings and tell us the story behind them. So you just say things like, "Can you tell me how you've been feeling?" "I'm just so interested to
learn how you've been feeling." Ask open ended questions
about the particular feelings, "How have those feelings of anxiety been? Has that gotten worse? Or
are you feeling better?" "Are you still as sad as you
were last time we talked?" Things like that... well
that's a close ended question. You could say something like, "how are you feeling since we talked? How are those of feelings of sadness? What's the worst part about
what you're going through now?" One thing you can do, and
this is a common bit of advice we get about comforting people, is to reflect and restate what you hear. If you do nothing else, this strategy alone can
be incredibly powerful. To simply observe what
people are telling you, observe how they're holding themselves, observe their non-verbal behavior, and listen closely to what they say, and just reflect it back to them. This lets them know you're hearing them, it lets them know you're paying attention, and this alone can be comforting. So you can say something
like, "From what I can tell, you're still really sad about
the end of that relationship, and you're not sure how you're
ever going to get over it." And you can say this even after
they just finished saying, "I'm so sad, I don't think I'm
ever going to get over it." You just reflect back, and
if you do it sincerely, it won't sound like a tactic, it won't sound like a trick or a game, people will really feel heard,
in my experience at least. Another way we can
encourage elaboration is to offer hypotheses about how
the person might be feeling. People don't know necessarily
how they're feeling, or why they're feeling that way, so we can explore it with them. This is a really sincere and friendly and comforting thing to do. So we can say something like, "Could it be you feel guilty
that you didn't do more to help your friend when she was sick?" This is a way of
exploring with your friend the way they might be feeling,
why they're feeling so upset. And you could be wrong, and
of course if you are wrong, your friend will tell you, and you say, "Oh, I got that wrong, didn't I? I thought you were feeling that way." They won't blame you if you're sincere and authentic in your expressions. And of course just use what
communication theorists call "back channel cues",
which is just say stuff, "Yeah, mmn hmmm, oh, mmn hmmm, yeah." This is just to let them know you're still present,
you're still listening. You could also ask open-ended
questions about problem, but you don't want the person to feel like you're interrogating them; you don't want to give
them the third degree. You just say, "well what happened next?" or, "how did that make you
feel?" or something like, "what's been the hardest part
of this whole situation?" All of these are inviting elaboration. You want them to tell their story, you want to listen
attentively, and affirm them. Affirm your concern for them, affirm that you've heard what they've say, explore the feelings with them and give them a chance to
figure it out on their own. That's it. Those are some simple tips, what to actually say, in
order to comfort people. If you like this kind of video, than hit like, hit subscribe,
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still figuring out what you want to hear about most and what you want to learn about most, so your comments are enormously
important and useful to me. So go down below and tell me
what you liked about this video or what you disliked, what you agreed with,
what you disagree with, how you comfort your friends and so on. Please take these techniques and try them with your own friends and family and come on back and let
me know how they work. Thanks a lot for watching,
we'll see you next time.
