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Bearing witness to the struggles of someone experiencing
the darkness of grief—having empathy—is the deepest
form of emotional and spiritual interaction you can
have with another human being. If you can hear another
person’s words of pain and loss, not from a place of
clinical distance but from a place of an open heart,
then you can bring a fully alive human presence to bear
on the other human being’s experiences. Overcoming
any tendency to judge will allow you to be taught by
the griever. This active empathy will naturally create an
environment in which healing can and will occur.
Entering into and bearing witness to the anguish of
raw grief can be overwhelming, for to actually be able
to enter into another person’s experience so completely
that she is able to feel your companionship is the
embodiment of the highest degree of emotional and
spiritual refinement. To truly join the mourner in the
place of her helplessness requires that we as caregivers
visit our own grief and experience our transformed
hearts.
Doing Your Own Work First
The supporting cradle of empathy evolves from the
collage of feelings we have come to encounter in our
own personal journeys into grief. You may find that
if you haven’t felt a particular feeling, or if you are
unwilling or unable to reencounter it, your capacity to
be present to another person will be inhibited. You may
even see the loss as something that has happened to
“her” and not to “you” and thus lose your openness,
your compassionate presence. Your empathy with her
struggles will be a feeble attempt at embracing the
feelings, not a truly empathetic experience.
That is why bearing witness to the struggle of those
in grief is such a demanding ministry. You have to do
your own work first to acquaint yourself in depth with
your soul-based emotions. Only then, because you have
authentically felt, will you “know what it feels like.” You
will have an anchor in your own soul for what a grief
BearingW i tn e ss
Bearing Witness
Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D., C.T., www.centerforloss.com
experience may feel like to a fellow human being. Since
you have been there, you can enter into struggles such
as discovering a reason to go on living, redefining one’s
worldview, and searching for meaning in life and living.
A natural inhibition in the willingness to enter into
the wilderness of grief is that we are often hesitant, or
literally afraid, of reopening our own wounds. Instead
of being able to companion a fellow struggler, we may
be overwhelmed by the conscious recreation of our
own painful feelings. So, instead of being open to the
presence of the pain of the loss, we may deny people their
experiences (“It could be worse”); we may problem-solve
To truly join the mourner in the place
of her helplessness requires that we
as caregivers visit our own grief and
experience our transformed hearts.
or technique people (“Here’s what to do so you can let
go”); or we may minimize or compare experiences (“You
think you have it bad? Let me tell you what happened
to someone else”).
To be able to enter into the wilderness with a person in
the depths of grief, therefore, requires the embracing
of our own heartfelt emotions, not in the sense of
mastering them, but in allowing them to flow through
us. Then, and only then, are we able to give the most
precious gift—our compassionate companionship.
Expressing Compassion
Bearing witness to the struggles of people in grief is about
having compassion. Compassion is from the words cum
pation, meaning “to suffer with,” “to undergo with,”
“to share solidarity with.” Compassion embraces our
common humanity, our feelings of togetherness, and
our experiences of kinship. This word compassion has