 I'm not a terrible person, but every time someone in my life is going through something really awful or grieving, I feel like one. I don't know what to say and it seems like I'm always saying too much or not enough. What is the best thing to say to someone who is grieving? Here's some free therapy. I find that sometimes saying less is actually saying more. I think that sometimes we try too hard to say the right thing when sometimes people in our lives that are going through something hard just need our presence, just need maybe a warm meal, just need us to sit next to them, just need to know that we're there if they need us and sometimes that can be enough. All emotions are meant to be felt, feelings are meant to be felt, you know, we're meant to feel and I think that's really not what our culture teaches us. It teaches us that, you know, we should be happy or there's something wrong. We should be joyful or let's figure out how to get back to that space as quickly as possible. And I think it's really important as a culture that we start to pay attention to how often we do things or jump in to fix when actually we're doing that because of our own anxiety. Like I'm not okay that you're not okay because it makes me uncomfortable. And so I'm not saying that we're doing it maliciously but a lot of times I'm trying to fix it for you actually because I'm trying to fix it for me. So what about some things that people maybe shouldn't say? Like there's definitely those things that people are like, oh that's actually not helpful. You know, this person is always with you, maybe everything happens for a reason is a big one I hear people say. I'm like feeling of experience in my body actually even as you're saying it like. This person is in grief, this person is in pain that feels, you know, indescribable. It's one breath at a time but I want them here with me. I don't want to hear that right now. That's not actually helpful, right? Right. Sometimes if you don't know what to say rather than reach for the little quip the little like everything happens for a reason or like they're in a better place now or all these like hallmark card type things rather than go there just say I don't know what to say. Yes. This is the thing. This is really hard. Yeah. I imagine this is really painful. I imagine this is really tough. I'm with you. I don't I don't even know what to say. I have no words right? And just naming that I think can be the best thing sometimes. Now this doesn't even have to be death. This can be somebody is struggling with anything, right? They lost their job. They got a bad grade. Like I don't care what it is, but if I'm swooping in to fix it, I'm actually robbing you of an opportunity to learn something about yourself, to potentially grow more, right? To reach kind of new, I wanted to say depths but really heights of self understanding and like experience of emotion. You know, I've lost people and I know for sure I have been deeply changed forever by the experience of that loss to the extent that I don't take life for granted maybe in the way that I did before losing that person. And on the other side of that loss, I have seen how much resilience and how much expansion came through the experience of that. And so I think a lot of times we want to quickly make things go away for the other person. The best thing we can offer all of the people in our lives is just our presence not needing to fix whatever it is. Something that a friend of mine or maybe it was my mom said that really stuck with me is people are really there for you in the moment of losing someone. And that's great. And also what happens six months, eight months, a year later, when everybody else has gone back to their lives and for you, it's still a cute for you. It's still like right there in your face. But I have made it a point to put in my phone and my calendar important dates. I actually reach out to them and I tell them I'm thinking about you, you know, I know this is a hard time or holidays, right? Any kind of monumental thing that somebody, especially in the first couple of years is going to notice that someone's not there. I think that's actually a really great time to step up because it's letting them know that we're always thinking about them, that we're there through all of it and not just like we're going to show up and then we're going to disappear and go back to our lives. You just reminded me of something, you know, our friend who we lost a couple of years ago, his brother was going through his appointment book and he found all of his birthdays and he called me on my birthday said, I know this would have been one less call that you would have gotten on your birthday and I wanted to make sure I'm going to get a push off. I wanted to make sure that you heard from someone and know that he was thinking about you and I just love that. I love the idea that you're sharing and I love that, yeah, we can support people in that way, you know, not just in the moment of grieving someone but that it continues.