THE ART OF QUIET COMEBACKS: Part 20. Walking With People Through Their Brokenness

 Part 20. Walking With People Through Their Brokenness

A series about starting over gently, honestly, and without apology

Life happens to all of us; it doesn’t pause to consider age, unmoved by gender, blind to skin color, unimpressed by status, unshaken by talents, unbound by background, and unconcerned with where you live. Irrespective of who you are, life happens.

There comes a moment in life when someone around us gradually begins to crack under the severe weight of struggles. Sometimes those struggles are quiet struggles, and sometimes they can be loud. Whether quiet or loud, struggles are struggles, and whatever weight a man carries on his shoulder can break him if not properly attended to, it’s just a matter of time.

Just as weights are, the breaking of someone can be loud, a crisis, a collapse, or even a confession. On the other hand, when some people go through a season of brokenness, it can be quiet, almost invisible, hidden behind practical smiles and the usual word “I’m fine.” Brokenness is a season that rarely announces itself. It can whisper, it can leak, and it can show up in the pauses between words, even in the heaviness behind the eyes. Brokenness can show up in the silence that suddenly feels unfamiliar. The silence that suddenly feels unsafe.

Dear reader, if you have once been broken, then you ought to see differently. Your eyes should not only see, they should also discern. You should be able to sense what’s really happening, not just what’s visible. Your ear should hear the silence behind someone’s smile. You will notice the trembling hiding deep within the “I’m fine.” You recognize the ache brooding behind someone’s strength. This is one gift brokenness leaves in the lives of those who have once been broken. However, the cares of life have blinded this gift in some persons. What a pity. We should never allow responsibilities, bills/financial pressure, work stress, family needs, health concerns, projects, deadlines, expectations, the constant “to-do-list” of living blocks the clarity of that gift. Be sensitive to the needs of people around you.

Mistakes We Often Make with the Brokenness of Others?

1.     Too quick to diagnose.

One major mistake we often make is trying to diagnose people too quickly without listening to them, and that gets us caught in the web of wrong diagnosis. You may know someone is going through something, but that may not be the primary cause of their brokenness. When you’re too quick to diagnose and your diagnosis is wrong, you may just end up adding more blows to that broken heart. That person will feel unseen and misinterpreted, and that may end up causing more harm because the person can become more withdrawn, nursing the feeling that he/she is not understood. Such people may find it difficult to open-up to you even when they’re smiling with you. The first thing someone going through brokenness needs is not diagnosis.

2.     Trying to rescue without the full knowledge of what’s going on.

Sometimes we rush into “Operation Rescue” without allowing the person open-up. We hear a little from the person and hurriedly jump into action. We don’t give the person the opportunity to speak and speak until he/she has emptied all the venom paralyzing him/her. We don’t realize that allowing the person to talk can be therapeutic on its own. We just hear a little and quickly jump into the conversation, cutting the person short. We start sharing our own experience, portraying ourselves as heroes. We start saying statements like “If you’re talking like this, what do you expect me to say?” It’s okay to let the person know you’ve gone through the same situation or even worse, but that should be after you have completely listened to all they have to say. When we listen completely, we will understand how to tell the truth of our story clearly, without confusion or complication. Sometimes, we may even end up realizing our story isn’t necessary in that scenario.

Dear reader, always allow people that are hurting or going through a season of brokenness to spill all that’s going on deep within them. Sometimes when they stop talking, you may even need to ask if they have more to say. Don’t think you will forget what you want to say to them and because of that cut them short. You can jot down your thoughts while they speak.

3.   Listening to them without trying to see from their perspective. 

Many of us give the listening ear because we know it’s necessary, but while allowing them to talk, we refuse to see from their perspective just because we’re holding onto our own perspective. That is simply listening without hearing. You’re listening for your turn to speak instead of listening to understand. Handling issues is just like the earth rotating on its axis and revolving in its orbit, two people in different places can experience day and night at the same time. You’re both living on the earth, but what you’re experiencing is different because of your different locations within the earth. Two people can look at the same thing and see something entirely different, depending on the angle of your view. If you want to help someone going through brokenness, you must first drop your perspective of that situation, no matter how tangible it is and try to view that same situation from their own perspective. That will help you see what they’re seeing and have an idea of what they’re feeling. Then, you can pick up your perspective and weigh both. Sometimes, putting both perspectives together will birth the perfect solution because it’ll help you see the full picture that person isn’t seeing. Seeing their perspective will help you know how best to handle the situation, but when you refuse to see things from their perspective, you’ll end up imposing your perspective which may not have the full view, and that way, you end up raising someone with a half-baked healing. 

Many times, you lose the person’s trust when you fail to see from their own perspective. Dear reader, the fact that you’re trying to help doesn’t mean you know it all. The fact that you or someone you know have gone through the same situation, or something similar, or something worse doesn’t mean you’re the all-knowing. People react differently to the same situation. Learn to see things from the perspective of others, that will put you in a better position because you’ll have a more robust view of the situation.

4.     Rearranging the story of people so it makes sense to us.

Many times, just because we’ve seen the struggles people go through, we feel we largely know them. When it comes to our notice that such people are currently in a season of brokenness, we quickly put one plus one together; rearranging their struggles in such a way that it links up with brokenness. This may seem effective and may end up true for some, but the truth is, your arrangement of the person’s story might not be the actual cause of what’s going on. It may be something different, or it may even be the same thing you’re thinking about but from a different perspective. Stop analyzing people without first hearing from them. We behave and speak to such persons via our line of thoughts birthed from the rearrangement of their story we already calculated. That approach may just be speaking to something different from what the person is currently going through. It’s like pouring water on a rock and expecting the rock to absorb it.

In this situation, some people will not open-up. The feeling that you think you largely know them even when you don’t, can get some people upset, and for some, it can drown them deeper into their brokenness.

The fact that this worked for someone doesn’t mean it’ll work for another. 

Sometimes, the approach we use can lead to a half-baked healing, and healing is not healing when it is half baked. We need to be mindful of our approach, especially when people are in their vulnerable state.

Remember, JS Havilah cares about you, yes, you!

Part 21 of THE ART OF QUIET COMEBACKS is quietly on its way.

Come back for every installment.
Come back to remember you are not alone.
Come back, not to catch up, but to catch your breath.

Still becoming,

JS Havilah