Within a minute you had a suggestion. Then another. Then a question that was really a suggestion.
They nodded politely and the conversation got slightly flatter.
Afterward you felt you had been helpful and also somehow further away from them than before they told you.
You were not trying to fix them. You were trying to make it stop hurting.
DOCTOR: STOP BLADDER LEAKS (NO KEGELS!)
Kegel was the worst mistake of my life. —Why?
Because not only can Kegel balls spread disease because of their porous, hard-to-clean surface, but I actually got one trapped inside of me.
…which forced me to call 911. It was awful!
—The result? Heaven!
Now I’m no longer afraid to wear light pants, dance, or be intimate with my husband.
Better yet, the doctor who uncovered this secret also posted a video, that’s free for the next few days, where she shows you what to do.
Don’t wait:
🔍 NOTICE WHAT HAPPENS IN YOUR BODY FIRST
There is a moment before the advice where something in you tightens.
Someone you love is in pain and there is nothing to do, and that gap is very uncomfortable to stand in.
There may be a part of you that reaches for solutions because being helpless beside someone's suffering feels like a failure of love.
You can see it in the speed. The suggestion arriving before they have finished the sentence.
The way you feel the conversation needs a result to have been worth having.
The way you move to planning when the feeling in the room gets heavy.
A person who learned that she is valuable when she is useful will offer usefulness even where it was not what was wanted.
The advice is sincere. It is also an exit from the discomfort.
🕯️ THIS IS NOT A FAILURE OF EMPATHY
It is empathy with nowhere to put itself.
You feel their pain accurately. The reaching is what you do with the feeling, because sitting still with it was never modeled as a thing that counts.
That is not coldness or managing. That is love moving toward the only action it knows.
And what gets missed is small and very large. Most people who tell you something hard are not looking for a plan.
They are checking whether they have to be alone in it.
🌤️ YOU MAY JUST STAY
No plan. No reframe. No silver lining offered at the end.
You might say that sounds really hard, and then let the silence be there without rescuing it.
Nothing gets solved. Something else happens instead.
They find out they are not alone, which is usually what they came for.
🤝 WHAT IS YOUR FIRST INSTINCT?
💛 In prosperity and kindness,
Charmayne
