Now, during the first year of the global pandemic, the common response to all of this suffering and struggles was to “give that person some grace.” It was repeated often by many different people. Yet, as we enter our third year of living with COVID, and we begin to feel like this could be the new normal, I wonder if we truly understand what this phrase actually means and whether or not it is still the right phrase for where we are right now.
Traditionally, the giving of grace to another person was to forgive them, unconditionally. It was to allow them the ability to make mistakes without punishment and then to respond with forgiveness. However during the pandemic, this often translated into a common perspective of giving someone a pass on their poor behavior or outbursts related to their struggling. It did not often come with the element of support or understanding which is a critical component of forgiveness.
Building on this recognition, I believe one problem with the common usage of “give them some grace” is that the struggles people are experiencing now are not based on someone making a mistake that needs forgiveness. Instead, it is based on them feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed by life and work.
Brene’ Brown, Brene in her book, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (Random House, 2021) explains that there is a difference between being stressed and being overwhelmed. As she explains, “We feel stressed when we evaluate environmental demands as beyond our ability to cope successfully. This includes elements of unpredictability, uncontrollability, and feeling overloaded…. Stressful situations cause both physiological (body) and psychological (mind and emotion) reactions.” On the other hand, “Overwhelmed means an extreme level of stress, an emotional and/or cognitive intensity to the point of feeling unable to function.” Jon Kabat-Zinn, the American professor emeritus of medicine and the creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center of Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, describes overwhelmed as the all-too-common feeling “that our lives are somehow unfolding faster than the nervous system and psyche are able to manage well.”
So, how do we move forward together when life is hard and difficult? What can we do to support people who are quietly suffering and quietly quitting? I think the answer can be best summarized by the phrase, quiet compassion.
The word compassion literally means “to suffer together.” It is the feeling that arises when one is confronted with another’s suffering and feels motivated to relieve that suffering. Compassion is greater than just empathy. While empathy is the feeling of another’s pain, compassion is taking action to relieve the suffering of others. I believe that quiet compassion is the sum of multiple choices and actions. And each choice and the resulting action builds upon the other until the cumulative effect is quiet compassion.
The first step to offering quiet compassion is to engage in active listening, rather than active fixing. Now, traditionally, active listening is defined as a way of listening and responding that improves mutual understanding. This includes paraphrasing to show understanding, non-verbal clues, and verbal affirmations.
However, in real life, most people who engage in active listening move rapidly into active advice giving and active problem solving. Instead of following the old Stephen Covey adage, i.e. “seek first to understand, second to be understood,” most people translate his insight into seek first to define the problem, and second to fix the problem. While this may be advantageous and feel good for the listener, it is not always the best course of action for the person who is struggling with difficult challenges.
I think the better course of action begins with listening to connect and validate. With quiet compassion as the goal, we must seek to be 100% present to another person and “to suffer together” with them, referencing the original definition of compassion. As part of this process, we must center ourselves as listeners by breathing mindfully, being present to what is before us, and to being more aware of what is happening within us as we listen to someone who is dealing with dynamic complexity.
Furthermore, the goal of this kind of listening, notes Parker Palmer, American author, educator and activist, is to choose not to give advice or to “fix” people from the outside in, but rather to support people in removing the obstacles that prevent them from discovering their own, inner wisdom. By helping them to discover their own inner truth and resources, a person can determine what is the best path forward to solve their own problems. In short, people rediscover agency, namely the feeling that they can control their own actions and the resulting consequences in a healthy and safe manner.
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