Your friend is far away and you don’t know how to support them? In such situations it can be difficult to find the right words or approach a person.
How to Support a Loved One from a Distance
Your main task, if you want to help and calm a person with words from a distance, is to make them understand that they are important to you and that you accept them in any emotional state. To do this, follow these tips.
Offer to Call
If you have the opportunity to talk, offer to call. But we don’t recommend calling if you don’t like phone calls or even are afraid of them. In this situation, you will feel tension, which is unnecessary when you want to support a friend.
Today, communicating with voice messages and video calls is as simple as betting via https://22bet.com/. This will give the person the feeling that you are there. A familiar voice will be calmer on the soul. And you, in turn, will be able to hear the person’s real emotions, which are sometimes difficult to understand through correspondence.
Listen
The best support is to allow a person to speak out and talk about their experiences. In difficult times, you want to be heard, so be patient and don’t interrupt. Allow the person to gather their thoughts without rushing, think for a long time, cry, and speak incoherently. It’s hard to trust a person with your experiences when he is in a hurry to interrupt you.
Ask: “Do You Need Advice or Comfort?”
All people need different support: some expect you to solve the problem, while others want to be pitied. There are often situations when you just want to be heard, and you are given unsolicited advice. At such moments, you feel misunderstood.
To avoid such disagreements, ask your friend this simple question. It won’t offend the person but, on the contrary, will show him that it’s important for you to provide such support so that after the conversation it becomes easier.
If the person replied that he needs your advice, then you can safely recommend ways to solve the problem.
Express Your Feelings
If the person doesn’t need recommendations for solving the problem, then show him that you are on the same emotional wave with him.
Express your feelings and emotions that arose during the story. Here are some words to support a person from a distance:
- “This is really unfair.”
- “The situation is really unpleasant, I’m sorry that you ran into it.”
- “I was also offended by this story.”
Give the person feedback in the form of emotions so that he sees that you heard his story, imbued with it, and empathize.
Thank
Thank the person for sharing their problem with you. Show that you appreciate his sincerity, because not everyone can discuss their experiences.
Say something like this: “Thank you for sharing your experiences with me. I appreciate your sincerity. It’s important for me to realize that I am for you the person you can come to in a difficult moment.”
It’s hard for people to share their emotions. Many have thoughts that they will not be understood, pushed away, will not want to communicate anymore, and so on. But these words of gratitude will help the person realize that he is your close friend. In response, he will also be grateful to you because not all people know how or even want to support others.
How to Support a Person in the Event of the Loss of a Loved One
Be There
There are no words that could stop suffering. Grief is enormous, and it will take as much strength, words, and feelings as it should. All that can be done for a loved one is to listen to him. He is experiencing a loss, and the most effective thing is to give him the opportunity to talk about it over and over again, adapting to what happened.
The grieving person may feel lost, the most lonely in the world, not needed by anyone with his grief. To help him feel better, it’s worth showing that you are ready to be with him and talk about anything.
Remember That Grieving Is a Multi-Stage Process
A person who has faced a loss will have to go through five stages, first described by the American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Living through the stages often takes a year. All this year, the grieving person will experience a wide range of feelings: sadness, shame, fear, guilt, and others.
Be Prepared for Any Emotional State
For the one who supports a friend going through a loss, anger can be the most difficult stage. At this moment, the person in grief is angry at the whole world, at everything, and everyone in it. If the spark of his anger hits you, it’s worth remembering that it doesn’t apply to you, that he doesn’t think so. Enduring him in this state or at least acknowledging his right to it is a great support.
Give Yourself Breaks
Don’t forget about yourself. Otherwise, sooner or later you will get angry or simply get tired. Providing support to another should come from a resourceful state, not at the expense of your own well-being. Take breaks in communication, get distracted by activities that inspire you.
How to Support Someone With Depression
When it comes to depression, the first question to ask yourself is whether it’s a mental illness or a temporary decline in strength? If you notice one or more of these symptoms in a friend, this is a cause for concern:
- Intense experience of suffering.
- Low mood for a long period of time.
- Desire for limited contact.
- Loss of interests, meaning, motivation.
- Complaints of memory loss.
- Difficulty in constructing complete phrases and sentences.
What to do if you notice signs of depression in a loved one? The best solution would be to gently try to draw your friend’s attention to their condition and suggest that they seek professional psychological help.
Depression is characterized by the fact that a person loses their will and desire for life. The world loses its colors and tastes for them. Any activity becomes a burden. Remember that pulling them out of this state is not only not your responsibility but also beyond your power. But here’s what else you can do:
- Help them establish sleep, nutrition, rest, and physical activity routines.
- Perhaps your gentle, friendly reminder questions like “Have you eaten lunch today?” or “It’s late, time to sleep.Aren’t you staying up too late?” will help your friend not neglect such important points for stabilizing their condition.
- Find and recommend a good specialist.
Words of Support in Case of Illness
People often get lost when faced with their own illness or the illness of a loved one. At such moments, they are overwhelmed by anxious thoughts about the insecurity of the world, the lack of control over the situation, and sad consequences.
You want to resist this anxiety with all your might: “Everything will be fine!”, “Don’t panic,” and “You need to pull yourself together.” Unfortunately, these phrases will not be beneficial in such a situation. They are born from the desire to regain control, to suppress fear.
However, support in this form is unlikely to be perceived and will not be beneficial. Here’s what effective attempts to help consist of:
- Help your friend accept what happened. Words like these will be helpful: “I’m sorry this happened to you, and I can hardly understand how you feel. But I’m here and ready to listen to you”; “Whatever you feel is normal”; “What can I do to ease your condition?”
- Offer concrete help. If you have the time and opportunity to provide specific help, offer it. For example, a person with an illness may not have the strength to look for information or doctors.
How to Support a Loved One From a Distance
Support can be different depending on the circumstances. When you are close and connected by the same people,locations, problems, encouragement comes naturally. To support a person from a distance, you should be interested in their life, the events happening in it.
If they are facing a difficult decision or event, it’s worth including stimulating support:
- “I know you have a tough exam coming up. You can do it! Remember how you did it before?”
- “Don’t be nervous! Imagine how we will remember this in a year!”
But support slogans may not be enough. If a friend has lost faith in their own strength, it’s worth resorting to personal support; remind them of their strengths and past victories:
- “I know perfectly well how good you are at this! Remember…”
- “You helped me a lot with this then… You are especially good at it. Remember that.”
If a friend is stuck in fears and negative ideas about the future, figurative support will come to the rescue: when figuratively, through associations and detailed descriptions, we describe the desired feelings, a turn of events. In other words, shift the focus from negative to positive:
- “Just imagine: soon it will be over and you will feel relief. Then you can…”
- “Soon your lungs will be filled with the air of freedom, you will finally be able to get started on what “…you will finally be able to get started on what you have been putting off.”
- “It may not be all bad as you imagined. She probably meant…”
Mistakes to Avoid When Trying to Be Supportive
Rushing in to Save the Day
Often, we, as unprofessional “helpers,” can confuse the role of a supportive friend with an active rescuer. This role promises disappointment: in return, we expect the person to start acting the way we advised them to.
If, for some reason, they don’t do this, we may experience negative feelings about it. “He doesn’t want to be saved, so he’s just wasting my resources,” we might reason. To avoid these thoughts, as well as not waste your energy in vain, support should be provided only upon request, and not be a forced act of kindness.
Taking on Too Much Responsibility
Taking on too much, even more than the other person asks for, is again taking on the role of a rescuer. This can lead to your friend feeling obligated.
Saying the Wrong Thing
For example, instead of offering support, you might lecture them about life or give irrelevant advice. Here’s what toxic “support” sounds like: “If you had told me earlier, I would have…” or “It’s no use crying over spilled milk” or “Well, you should have been more careful!”
The Bottom Line
To maintain closeness from a distance, you don’t have to be in constant contact. It’s enough for both parties to feel that they have someone to turn to for support in difficult times.
