The Sunday Mail
Brian Ngosi
You can’t share someone’s pain.
Life has ups and downs.
People often focus on the good times and forget that tough times will come too. It’s important to be ready for hard times.
Smiling is easy, but dealing with pain is what really matters.
Pain can be different for everyone, but how you handle it makes a difference. Support from others can help during tough times.
Pain is complex, from what causes it to how it affects you.
Society should have support systems to help people through hard times.
How people react to tough situations matters. Saying you understand someone’s pain isn’t true. It’s better to be honest than pretend to understand.
Coping with loss takes time and support. No one can feel exactly what someone else is feeling.
I have often heard people say to someone in a bad situation that they know how it feels, which is a lie in its entirety.
While offering sympathy, there is no need to pretend as that will hurt more.
Someone in tears is told it will be fine when the truth is life will never be the same. The loss of a loved one will need coping mechanisms to live without them, not that they can ever be replaced.
One day I felt excruciating pain, that is when I realised no one can experience the other person’s pain.
The loss of a loved one is never the same, even if you also lost someone the pain cannot be compared or equated. Different people mean different things in a person’s life, a sibling may miss their brother or sister more than their parent.
The fact that you went through something with the same title will not qualify you to think and say you know how it feels.
Find peace in allowing the person to face their reality, accept it and adjust accordingly.
There is nothing wrong in giving space and time for someone to heal in the best way they know how. Support should go as far as it supports the person not chock them.
Each experience is unique and the moment you trivialize or generalise it you make the pain worse.
Some experiences are more painful than death especially where one is a victim.
Mentioning stories that you think are worse off than what one will be experiencing does not help the situation.
When you downplay the victim’s pain it only works to empower the perpetrator and that hurts the aggrieved person more.
When hurt there, is no need to find fault without addressing the issue.
Speaking into a situation without facts of the case accounts for greater pain.
Pain is subject to how the victim values the subject matter.
It can play out to be minor to you but mean life to the victim hence you will not identify with the pain.
As long as someone feels hurt that should ring the alarm for immediate help. Gauging pain from where you are standing when you are not the victim is the last option anyone should take.
When giving advice or consolation let it all be done from the victim’s standpoint.
Have the wisdom to understand and sympathize without comparing the pain to what you know, heard or experienced.
There are known remedies for different life situations but pain is not a one-size-fits-all all experience.
Always make it clear that your advice and suggestions should best suit how the aggrieved person takes it, not that it should work as it worked the last time you faced a similar situation.
One known cause of suicidal tendencies is when one feels their pain is not understood.
The next time you get to someone who is down, battered and bruised give a hand but done determines the speed of recovery.
What is important is for one to be taking the right direction in the best frame of mind.
No one should feel alone and neglected in this crowded world.
Much of the time is not about being there with them but giving space for someone to understand their situation and accept that there is hope for a better tomorrow faced with their new realities.
Meaning is derived from how one perceives their situation, Paul Matavire described nature such that people argued he was not a blind man, Elliot Mujaji a Paralympian sprinted faster than many with all limbs.
Protect society by paying a watchful eye to the pain in each individual and treat all cases as serious cases based on the victim.
What you can see or know is not how it goes down each person’s spine.
Be supportive without downplaying the pain one feels bearing in mind that pain is so personal that it cannot be compared.
Brian Ngosi is a personal productivity coach and motivational writer. He can be contacted on: [email protected], Facebook #BN_inspired or WhatsApp+263772440383
