The Art of Just Being There

The other day I met up with my friend M. to watch the sunset at Big Surf in El Palmar. We hadn’t seen each other all summer, so there was a lot to catch up on. Turns out she’d been feeling a lot like me lately — low morale, that quiet flatness toward life. Not depressed exactly, just waking up without much appetite for the day, feeling weighed down by joyless to-do lists while a hum of discontent runs in the background.

It felt so good to talk to someone who gets it. Someone who didn’t try to cheer me up or argue me out of how I felt. Just someone who met me where I was and said, “yup, same.”

Because sometimes that’s all we need — not to be pulled toward some imaginary brighter place, but to be met here. In this moment. Exactly as we are.

I realised again how deeply important that is: to really listen to someone, instead of trying to fix them. Even when it’s well-intentioned — offering comfort, perspective, hope — it can quietly imply:

 “How you feel right now isn’t acceptable.” or “Your sadness makes me uncomfortable.” or “You should see it from my angle.”

And then we start editing ourselves. We share less, because what’s the point if the other person’s just waiting to reframe your reality?

M. and I laughed about how ridiculous it feels — to live by the Atlantic, have friends, health, no kids (by choice), a dog, enough money to get by — and still there’s this quiet discontent. It feels embarrassing to admit, we admitted to each other.  Even as I write this, I’m tempted to offer explanations, context, excuses. Because I really shouldn’t feel this way. I ought to know better, and just be grateful. But sitting with her, there was such relief in simply saying: “This is how I feel right now.”  Without analysis. Without sugarcoating. Without putting into perspective or downplaying. Just naming what is.

I remember this incident almost ten years ago when my first dog, Mia, was hit by a car and died instantly. A close friend tried to comfort me by saying, “But it wasn’t your fault.” But it was. She wasn’t leashed, and she ran across the road unexpectedly. I knew my friend meant well, but her words only made me feel more alone. Denying my reality — even out of love — disoriented me. What I needed wasn’t consolation. I was inconsolable. Peter Levine (psychologist and trauma expert) once said, “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” Indeed, what I needed was a witness to just sit with me in the rawness — the guilt, the grief, the reckoning — not spin it into something else. That matters more than we realise.

Then there are the times when I’ve been on the other side — like recently, with a friend whose mother is very ill. I could feel his despair, his body tense, tears right behind his eyes. Every part of me wanted to help, to ease his pain somehow. But words and ‘doing’ felt useless and hollow. So I just sat beside him. One hand over his heart, the other on his back. No advice. Just breathing together. Just presence.

And maybe that’s what most of us really need — even if we don’t know how to ask for it. We don’t always need words. We just need a witness.

Of course, I’ve failed miserably at this, too. Years ago, when my brother-in-law’s best friend died in a car crash, I never reached out. Not because I didn’t care — I cried too — but I just didn’t know how. I told myself it wasn’t my place, that he wouldn’t want it. But silence can be its own kind of avoidance.

Sometimes silence is compassion. Other times, it’s cowardice.

Being there for someone is about sitting in the discomfort together. Letting reality breathe instead of rushing to edit it. That’s real empathy.

And maybe that’s where healing begins — in that quiet space where no one’s trying to fix you.  Where someone simply says:

“I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.”