#121: The art of supporting without solving.
Why the best advice isn’t advice at all.
The Luminist is a reader-supported publication that illuminates the pain, the pleasure, and the paradox on the path to technicolor living. Subscribe below to receive posts about how loss teaches us to get the most out of life (along with silly gifs) in your inbox every Saturday.
“The thing about advice is no one tells you the same thing twice.”
On a chilly Virginia evening, I settled in to watch the newest Bridget Jones movie, where our beloved heroine faces an unexpected yet familiar challenge: widowhood.
Cue a montage of friends and family giving Bridget heartfelt and completely contradictory advice.
“Don’t wallow in it, darling.”
“You have to let yourself grieve, Bridge!”
“Put the children first.”
“Sod the children, put your own oxygen mask on first.”
“Come back to work.”
(Then of course there are the racier bits of advice dispensed by Hugh Grant, but this is a family newsletter so we’ll leave it at that.)
Watching Bridget's face crumple under the weight of all this "help," I saw myself after Mike died. Many had an opinion about my situation, while few actually understood it.
Then comes this perfect moment: Bridget remembers a conversation with her late father, a sparkly-eyed Jim Broadbent propped up in his hospital bed, eating a smuggled-in sausage.
They were discussing her recent widowhood when he simply asked: “Can you survive?”
She mumbled, “I think so. I have to. I’m trying.”
He looked at her with pure love, “It’s not enough to survive, you’ve got to LIVE… Promise me you’ll live, Bridget.”
Back in the present, Bridget pulls out the last dusty volume of her infamous diary and sits herself down. She’s been ‘surviving’ for four years now. She turns the literal page, and writes:
Bridget Jones, it’s time to live.
We wish our advice had this kind of impact.
World-shifting, life-changing, spurring people forward. That’s why we give it so freely, isn’t it?
When someone we love is struggling, we panic. We throw anything we can at them — advice, books, therapist numbers — like tossing random tools into a burning building. Here, try this wrench! Maybe this rake? How about this spatula?
We offer up what we’d do in their situation, what we saw a friend do in their situation, what our mom told us would be the best thing to do in their situation, this thing we read about how a complete stranger handled their situation.
I've done it myself. I've also been on the receiving end, nodding politely while thinking, “I hope you feel better after this useless lecture, because I sure won’t.”
The truth is, we're not carbon copies following identical scripts. We're messy, singular humans facing specific challenges with our own quirky capabilities. Your solution can't possibly be my solution because you aren't me. And in fact, right now the last thing I need is a “solution”.
After Mike died, some people tried to solve my widowhood, as if they could also make the earth stop turning. But I had one friend who simply sat with me and asked, "What do you need today?"
Some days I sobbed about how the kids would grow up without their dad. Some days I laughed about Kendall trying to make pancakes and creating something closer to cement. Some days I just shrugged because I had no earthly idea what I needed.
Didn’t matter. It just felt good that they never tried to solve my grief, solve ME. They just held space for it all.
Bridget’s dad didn’t try to fix her either.
First, he asked her a question, one that cut to the heart: Can you survive?
A yes-or-no question that was paradoxically open-ended. It got her thinking about what she was made of and the road ahead. When we're stuck in a fog of emotion, a thoughtful question can be like a lighthouse. It doesn't drag us to shore; it just helps us see where we are.
Bridget's father then told her what he believed: that she was capable of more than just survival. He didn't tell her how to live or what living should look like. He just reminded her that life was still waiting, whenever she was ready.
It was a question followed by faith, not instructions.
Next time someone you love is struggling, resist the urge to become their life coach. Ask a question that creates space. Listen to the answer without planning your response. Then tell them what you believe: not about what they should do, but about who they are.
You might not change their life in that moment. But you'll help them remember that they're the author of their own story — even when they've temporarily lost the plot.
To supporting over solving,
P.S. I recently wrote a post about bold encouragement, which feels like the perfect counter-balance to this post.
"We're messy, singular humans facing specific challenges with our own quirky capabilities" - what you offer here is gold Sue. Thank you! One to book mark
Wise words here. Even well-meaning advice can fall flat, especially when you're having a hard time. Asking questions is so much more effective.