How to show up for people in pain 🕊
↩️UNFOLLOW University — September 8, 2023
Happy Friday,
We have a pain problem. In a culture obsessed with optimism, our avoidance of suffering surpasses our understanding of it. Instead of enduring pain, most of us prefer to disregard it. This uncertainty with discomfort and grief in our personal lives only compounds when it comes to co-workers.
The result?
Staying busy feels better than stopping to mourn. 🏃🏽♂️
Having pity in private is safer than supporting someone in public. 🤐
Sending a text message is easier than delivering a meal. 💬
Typing the prayer emoji on social media is quicker than praying with someone in person. 🙏🏽
It’s a luxury to choose if or how you experience pain - your own and someone else’s. What happens when that’s not an option?
Today, I’m traveling to Virginia to remember and celebrate my dear friend, Johanna Calfee. As a reporter, entrepreneur, designer, real estate agent, investor and mother of 3, she fit so much into 42 years of life.
Forever a journalist, Jo refused to be a hero or a headline. Last week, she became both.
I met Johanna, I always called her “Jo”, 21 years ago while working with her husband, Daryl. Without his friendship and partnership, this newsletter would not exist. Like Daryl, Jo was really good at lots of things. But with so many gifts of her own, her greatest talent was encouraging the gifts of others.
Over the last 4 years, she reluctantly taught an entire community how to have rebellious hope in the face of obvious adversity. She called it the “sideways gift” - the silver lining between pain and beauty that invites us to learn more about ourselves by letting go of our plans.
“I do not feel strong or brave or anything close to a warrior,” she said 3 years ago while fighting for 2 lives - her own and her unborn baby’s. “It’s time to trust what I can no longer control. What I never had control over in the first place.”
Though Jo was well-known, loved and admired, she rejected the idea of being or feeling just one thing. She was scared and strong, grateful and grieving. Jo was full of faith and afraid of what was ahead.
Strong leaders always walk with a limp.
“Life is beautiful and messy,” she said. “I’ve learned to show up for other people in pain.”
Jo taught us how to hope. How to show up for others like we want others to show up for us. How to be human by allowing our weakness to be a witness to His power. How to hold on to big promises even in hard places.
Jo did more than write good stories. She lived a good story.
🤯 Radical Truth
We don’t choose our pain but we always pick our path.
Suffering won’t always make sense. But suffering always gives us a chance to make a choice. Will pain cause me to stretch or shrink? Expand or retreat? A leader who doesn’t show up for others is not a leader worth following.
My response to pain is the only thing I can control. Just like fear is the prerequisite for courage, pain creates the opportunity for hope. We’ve been thinking about hope all wrong.
“Hope is a function of struggle - we develop hope not during the easy or comfortable times but through adversity and discomfort.” - Brené Brown
To lead with courage is to traffic in hope. Hope is not a feeling. Hope is not optimism. Hope is the process of taking action against problems, not making positive predictions. This means I can have hope even when I don’t feel hopeful. I can learn, think and know hope even when I can’t see it.
Jo learned an involuntary lesson on hope that changed her life. Jo learned how to show up for others in pain. Let her hard-won truth become a treasure for someone in your family, team or community this week.
How to show up for people in pain:
Don’t try to make sense of their suffering. Suffering isn’t always a test, a punishment or something to celebrate (no matter how sadistic your worldview).
Do offer your presence. Hands that serve are more powerful than lips that pray. There is no substitute for physical presence. Pray with your feet. Get on the plane, go to the funeral, stop by the house or schedule the coffee.
Don’t try to fix them or fast forward through the grief. Pain and grief are inefficient, illogical and non-linear. The new “normal” will be different for everyone in their own time. When we are powerless to reverse pain, we would be wise to respect it.
Do give people permission to process grief uniquely. Instead of expectations and information, give the gift of vulnerability. By being open with yourself and your time, you encourage interdependency. They may not know what they need. When in doubt, it’s OK to ask.
Don’t treat people like patients, survivors or victims. They are more than a bad diagnosis or a tragic event. Save the self-help books, miracle cures and tragic stories for your own journey.
Do acknowledge them as humans managing problems, not problems that need managing. Oftentimes, when people are in pain we protect ourselves from potentially saying the wrong thing by building moats around awkward topics. But the most honest way to honor someone who has experienced pain is to share both sorrow for their loss and gratitude for their life. Hope lives at the intersection.
Don’t give unsolicited advice. All advice is autobiographical and biased towards self-reflection instead of support for others. Unless you’ve walked the path, stop being a life coach and start being a compassionate friend.
Do empathy. Compassion means to “suffer with.” It’s not included in most corporate handbooks but it’s actually the root of real empathy. Compassion is accepting the person and their pain as-is. Empathy is how we respond to their experience and make space for understanding their emotions.
Whether it’s a co-worker or a close friend, showing up can be uncomfortable but it’s rarely complicated. People in hard places still need to eat, sleep, plan, work, rest, laugh and live. Serving their needs is part of sharing their pain.
Jo summed it up well: “Community is healing. The connection that runs through all of us is real.”
Jo’s courageous legacy is living proof.
⚡️Courageous Question
How can I serve someone in pain by meeting a practical need today?
🗣 Wonderful Words
“Living a life of comfort is not what living life as a Christ follower is about. That’s not where hope lives.”
🙏🏽 Prayer Package
God, your greatest promise wasn’t a plan or a path. Your greatest promise was a person - Jesus - who lives in us. He is my living hope and the only reason I can have rebellious hope. Because he shared in our suffering I can share in his eternal healing. In times when my anguish outweighs my answers, when nothing makes sense, stay close to me. In weakness and crises, comfort me. Help me to trust you when I don’t understand you. Amen.
🎵 Living Hope - Phil Wickham 🕊
🛠 Practical Tool
My grief for Jo will have a permanent place in my heart. But hope is a process and healing still happens in hard places. I will see her again - fully healed and whole.
Jo always had a heart for helping, serving and seeing the stories of others - no matter how beautiful or messy. She faithfully supported the anti-trafficking nonprofit Freedom 4/24, leading trips to India and Thailand and also working as their Communications & Marketing Director.
Would you join me in making a donation to support their efforts to bring restoration and hope to some of the most vulnerable people?
Daryl and Jo Calfee, Chris Carol, Alisha and Adrian Parker at the Freedom 4/24 Gala (2016)
If you’re new to UNFOLLOW University you can learn more about me here or check out my previous posts.
See you next UNFOLLOW Friday!
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Every Friday I’ll send you 5 courageous ideas to help you redesign your work life by making better career decisions:
🤯 Radical Truth - A story from me
⚡️ Courageous Question - A challenge for you
🗣 Wonderful Words - A quote worth remembering
🙏🏽 Prayer Package - A moment of meditation
🛠 Practical Tool - An actionable resource
