When There's Nothing You Can Do

By Christen Cerrito

People know pain in so many ways. We suffer over and over again. We grieve. We despair. We try to survive.

There are a lot of people I love carrying really heavy things right now, and I keep seeing them land in that familiar place of “I don’t know what to do.”

I see people my age announcing cancer. Miscarriages. Infertility. Struggles with addiction. Recovery. Job loss. Pain. It really is a lot. Life really can feel so heavy.

As I witness my loved ones carrying these burdens, I keep noticing something beautiful underneath it all. As loved ones, we offer to stay with them.

We make the phone calls. We show up to hospitals. We send beautiful things and words to each other. We hold each other. We pray for each other. We sit beside each other when there is absolutely nothing we can say that will change what is happening.

There's a bittersweet kind of magic in seeing so much pain among people we love who would give anything to make it all go away, while also seeing how deeply we show up for one another through it.

There’s something about that kind of support that feels deeply human to me.

Sometimes we can’t fix things for someone else. We can't take the pain from their body. We can't undo what happened. We can't make someone want to live. We can't give someone the thing they desperately want. We can't always find the right words because sometimes there aren't any.

These are the times when words aren’t needed and solutions aren’t expected. These are the times when presence says more than any words could. These are the times when presence feels more validating than problem solving.

Sometimes being there is enough. Sometimes the thing that makes it a little more bearable for someone we love is simply showing up.

We are so accustomed to trying to fix things.

The hardest part about witnessing someone we love in pain isn’t that we don’t want them to be in pain. It’s sitting with what we feel in response.

A lot of people learned to be emotionally responsible for others as a coping skill. It helped them feel safe. Maybe consoling a parent prevented further outbursts. Maybe caring for siblings meant feeling less alone. Maybe keeping everyone else okay meant things felt a little more predictable.

Regardless of how this emotional responsibility developed, it can become a form of hypervigilance that comes back to the question: how can I make this situation feel more comfortable?

That makes sense in childhood. It can be about survival. But as we enter adulthood, there are going to be times when there really is no answer to that question. There’s nothing that will make it “comfortable” and we have to be available to sit in that discomfort. Otherwise, we can drive ourselves crazy looking for solutions that never come, and eventually that helplessness can turn into despair.

So think about the last time someone vented to you. What did you do? Did you immediately offer solutions? If so, what was going on inside of you?

Did you feel a tight chest?

A knot in your stomach?

Did it remind you of a time when something similar happened to you?

Suddenly, the experience of someone else has become something personal that is affecting you. And the person you’re trying to comfort can feel that shift.

Maybe they didn’t come to you for solutions. Maybe they just wanted to feel less alone in their pain. They wanted to feel validated. Seen. Heard.

What they might really need from us in these moments is presence.

I know it can feel preposterous to just sit with someone in these moments and say nothing. Suggest nothing. Fix nothing.

But these challenges are not ours to commandeer. Our loved ones are capable of navigating their challenges themselves. We have to trust them. We have to respect them.

That’s why they might get defensive at our suggestions. That’s why they might disagree with the solutions we offer. That’s why something we say with the best intentions can still feel all wrong to them. Because at that point we might be operating from our own fear. We’re biased by our own experiences and by how badly we want things to be okay.

Letting someone know their feelings make sense and that they don’t have to be okay for us to stay with them can be much more comforting. When we do this, we let them know they are still safe with us without having to figure it all out. We let them know they can sit in their own discomfort because we are willing to sit in it with them.

Remember solutions don’t always erase the feelings.

Pregnancy after miscarriage doesn’t erase the grief of the loss.

Remission after cancer doesn’t erase the experience of it.

Recovery after addiction doesn’t erase the pain that existed underneath it.

Getting another job doesn’t erase the fears that came with losing the last one.

The feelings can remain long after we find solutions. Even when things get better, there can still be grief. Fear. Anger. Confusion. There can still be an entire experience that needs to be felt, honored, and witnessed.

This can be another reason we get so caught up in trying to fix things. A solution gives us something tangible to hold onto. It makes us feel like we’re moving forward. But emotions don’t always move at the same pace as our circumstances.

So the question becomes: how can we become comfortable with the uncomfortable?

We don't have to find meaning in someone's miscarriage. We don't have to find the right advice for someone's illness. We don't have to know how somebody is going to survive what they're going through. We don't even have to make them feel better.

We have to become resourced enough within ourselves to stay present so we can care without carrying.

You might be thinking: care without carrying? What does that even mean?

It means recognizing where you end and someone else begins.

It means regularly tending to our own emotions. By taking care of ourselves first, we can be more available for other people. We can listen without commandeering. We can support someone without taking responsibility for their story. We can hold space without pushing our own agenda.

And this doesn’t mean we stop helping each other. It doesn’t mean we become detached from the people we love or tell them their problems are theirs to figure out. We still make the phone calls. We still show up. We still offer the ride, bring the meal, research the doctor, or sit beside them on the floor when that’s what they need.

We just don’t have to become responsible for making it all okay.

There’s a big difference between staying with someone through something and trying to take it on for them. One says, “I’m here with you.” The other says, “I need to figure this out for you.”

That’s what feels bittersweetly beautiful to me.

There's something almost contradictory about witnessing horrible things happen and, at the same time, witnessing enormous amounts of love between people.

Even though someone is suffering and I wish none of it were happening, I can still show up for them. I can still let them know they aren’t alone. I can remind them that there are people willing to sit beside them while they figure out what comes next.

It’s not a solution. But it’s not nothing.

Maybe that’s all that’s needed when someone tells us, “I don’t know what to do.” Instead of being focused on what we want to change for them, we can focus on what we can actually offer.

Because loving someone and showing up for them the way they need gives them something a solution alone can't. When we feel loved and supported in our worst moments, we feel a little more capable of facing whatever comes next. We know we have somewhere safe to fall apart. Somewhere we don’t have to pretend we’re okay.

Maybe they still won't know what to do about their situation. That’s okay. Maybe the only thing they needed to do in that moment was let someone in.

There are going to be things in life we cannot make better for the people we love. I’m still sitting with that reality right now. But that doesn’t make us powerless. We can choose how we show up in the face of it.

That’s what seeing my own loved ones in pain has been showing me lately. In some of the heaviest moments of our lives, I’m witnessing just how deeply people show up for one another. How quickly we reach for each other when someone we love is hurting. There’s something about that that makes the heaviness feel a little less lonely.

Loving someone doesn’t mean turning their darkness into light. It means letting our light exist beside their darkness.