Over at Create Mixed Media, I wrote an article about first aid for creative wounds. Not the physical ones, the psychological ones, the ones that seem to hurt more and longer.
What can you do to help a friend whose creativity has been hurt? It’s tricky, but here are four reactions that work for me.
1. Listen. Really listen while the person tells the story of anger or hurt. Don’t interrupt, and don’t start to plan what you are going to say. Just listen.
2. When your friend finishes the story, show you have listened by paraphrasing back your friend’s emotion. “That’s horrible! Having your cat stolen is sad and crazy. I can see how upset you are.”
3. Empathize
Empathy makes friends feel supported, not guilty. “What? You let your cat out at night? What sort of an idiot does that? No wonder the cat got stolen.” This is not the time to teach accountability. Better response: “You must be heartbroken. Can I help you look for your cat?”
Don’t top your friends story. “I know just how you feel. I had my dog and cat stolen the night my house burned down.” That makes your friend stop her own emotions and take care of yours, denying that she is in pain and asking after your situation.
Never say, “I know just how you feel.” You know how you feel, not how your friend feels. Telling your friend you know how she feels cuts off the conversation. It switches the emphasis to you.
4. Ask your friend what she would like you to do to help. Please don’t fix. “Fixing” is the reflexive offering of advice when none has been asked for, or is called for. When we see someone in pain, the instinct to fix may be huge, particularly if you are an extrovert or an expert in the area of the problem.
Fixing isn’t helpful. It doesn’t address what your friend wants or needs. It assumes you know the answer to her problem and you are taking over the job of steering the other person’s life. Without any permission except your own.
Fixing doesn’t work because it creates a new problem–your friend feels obligated to make you feel good by taking your advice, which is often not suited for your friend’s problem.
Fixing is meant to be helpful, but here comes that perspective problem again. What looks helpful to you, makes you look condescending–after all, here is your friend in pain, and you have the easy fix that s/he wasn’t clever enough to figure out. Ouch.
Fixing puts your friend in a bad position. If she tells you that your idea won’t work, she risks making you angry. Who wants that on top of her current problem? If she takes your advice and it doesn’t work, well, it was her decision to follow your advice. No one wins.
It might be a better to ask your friend what kind of help she wants. Offer encouragement. Offer support. No fixing needed.
So is this blog post fixing? Nope. It’s just information. What you do with it is up to you.
—Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach, who studied “not fixing” as a major skill in coaching school.
Nice post and very true. Being the rescuer/hero usually doesn’t pan out because people want to remain in control of their own decisions and destinies.
So true. Decisions and destinies are closely linked.
Thank you so much for writing this! I have friends that are so offended, to the point of getting mad, when I don’t want to heed their advice. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I think I will send this to them. Tee hee hee, they will probably be mad again.
There are some astonishing examples on FB, and even on this blog. When I ask for suggestions or help, I often don’t get as much advice as when I post a story. I think it has to do with the emotional impact and identification. But on a friendship basis, most people don’t want advice, they want to tell a story.