Please welcome, first time Pink Posse Poster, Scott Shepard to the stage! ::crowd goes wild:: One lucky day, Scott popped up in the Pink community and has been blessing us with his wisdom, charm and understanding ever since. Scott, like many other of our Pink Community members, wears many hats. But above all, Scott provides a shoulder to lean on and words of love and kindness to any soul who is in need. May you soak in all of Scott's love and brilliance from his writings. -- Megan Monique

I know how you feel

One of most inappropriate comments that is made, usually with all good intentions, is the statement, "I know how you feel." Somehow we think that if we have gone through a similar or even identical experience as someone else, we must know how they feel. So if you have cancer and I have or had cancer, I can immediately say that I know how you feel. The cancer becomes a shortcut. You lost your job and I did too - "I know how you feel."

When I worked in a hospital, we had volunteers come in who had experienced breast cancer and were there to help breast cancer patients. One of the first things I would tell them is to not say that they knew how someone felt. Not only is that not automatically true, I would tell them, but also the saying of that statement often times actually minimizes what the other person is experiencing and blocks developing a relationship where you might actually gain some idea of what is going on with that person. I would tell them the only thing that they "knew" for sure is how they felt when they went through it. They could share what their experience, but if they wanted to know what the other person was feeling they were going to have to listen.

Holding space and listening

We all need to be listened to. And we all need to listen to each other and get away from always fixing each other. How many times have you shared a story of something you were going through and the person you were sharing it with immediately shared a story of what they -- or a friend or aunt, etc. -- similarly experienced? Your dear confidante may not be listening to you anymore. We do this to each other all of the time.

So how do we "fix" this? How do we hold space for our loved ones' experiences without instantly projecting our own? An important statement to try (which is actually demonstrated much better than spoken) is, "I don't KNOW how you feel, but I CARE how you feel." Relationships take time. Let's try not to use an event as a shortcut. Let's be willing to listen. Let's not assume that the other person is in the same place we were when we went through it.

I care how you feel

Expressing this sentiment means you don't have to have gone through the exact same experience to be able to be of help to a person. Sometime we limit each other in that regard: "You can't help me unless you've gone through the same experience." When we feel that way, we may be blocking the development of the relationship. Conversely, we also may limit ourselves: "I can't help her because I never lost a child." Personally, I have helped people who were dying, or who had lost a child, or who were dealing with an illness I never had. We help each other by caring. . . caring enough to listen, to support, and even to challenge sometimes. The actual building of the relationship helps much more than some great insight or magic bullet. Take the time. Let's not assume or rule each other out as a helpers!

The line I often used in the hospital with patients was, "I can't feel what you're feeling but I care what you're feeling and I'll get on the road with you as best as I can. Maybe we'll laugh, maybe we'll cry and maybe we'll get lost on this road -- but we will be together. And if I"m holding your hand, you're holding mine. So we're helping each other." I've always liked that image of being on the road with each other. We earn it though by taking the time and listening.