The Gift of Presence
“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”
These days I am feeling the depth of my friendships. I can count my closest friends on two hands – you know who you are. Then there is this broader circle of women who I also call my friends – childhood friends, old colleagues, neighbours, and women who subscribe to my blog, who have taken my life story workshops, and who I have connected with through Instagram and Facebook. You are part of my tribe. Some of you are my weird sisters.
The depth of your friendship has been so pronounced these last weeks as I cope with the death of my mother. You have sent me prayers, poems, blessings, quotes, and videos. But more than anything you have gifted me with your presence, holding space for me by letting me know you are there for me when I need you.
Thankfully, what you have not given me is advice.
That doesn’t mean I haven’t been given advice but that advice has come from outside my friend circle. And I get it. As Parker Palmer shared a few years ago in an On Being essay, “advice-giving comes naturally to our species and is mostly done with good intent. But…the driver behind a lot of advice has as much to do with self-interest as interest in the other’s needs — and some advice can end up doing more harm than good”.
I am just easing back into blogging this week and writing a 1,000 word blog post feels daunting, but I did want to share with you some thoughts on the gift of presence and the perils of advice. And so this week I will pass on some of Parker Palmer’s reflections from the On Being essay he wrote in 2016. His words, and these are his words, not mine, resonate with me.
Palmer writes about receiving a call from a man who’d recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His caller emailed his bad news to a few family members and friends, one of whom had come over right away. “How are you feeling?” his friend asked. “Well, as I said in my email, I’m feeling amazingly at peace with all this. I’m not worried about what lies ahead.”
The friend replied, “Look, you need to get a second opinion. At the same time, you should start exploring complementary medicine. You should also sign up for a meditation program, and I know a good book that can get you started down that path.”
Palmer asked his caller how that response had made him feel. “I’m sure my friend meant well,” he said, “but his advice left me less at peace.”
Palmer asked his caller how he would have felt if his friend had simply said, “How great that you’re at peace! Tell me more.” “That would have been wonderful,” his caller replied. “But everyone I talked to had advice for me, including a relative who said I needed to join her church before it was too late.”
Palmer asked how he’d been feeling recently — he said he’d been feeling afraid. “Do you want to talk about your fear?” Palmer asked. His caller talked while Palmer listened and asked a few more questions. When they were done, the caller shared that some measure of peace had returned. It was a peace that had come from within him, not from anything Palmer had said. Palmer simply helped clear some rubble that blocked the caller’s access to his own soul.
Palmer writes that the human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard, and companioned exactly as it is. He shares that when we make that kind of deep bow to the soul of a suffering person, our respect reinforces the soul’s healing resources; the only resources that can help the sufferer make it through.
He continues by saying that “many of us “helper” types are as much concerned with being seen as good helpers as we are with serving the soul-deep needs of the person who needs help. Witnessing and companioning take time and patience, which we often lack — especially when we’re in the presence of suffering so painful we can barely stand to be there. I equate this capacity with aging and wisdom, I know it is something that has taken me a long time to learn - and I am still itching to give advice at times!
He ends his essay by sharing a profound personal experience that touches me deeply every time I read it. It is about a friend who provided him with the companionship he needed during a time he was suffering from a deep depression. Palmer writes,
“During my depression, there was one friend who truly helped. With my permission, Bill came to my house every day around 4:00 PM, sat me down in an easy chair, and massaged my feet. He rarely said a word. But somehow he found the one place in my body where I could feel a sense of connection with another person, relieving my awful sense of isolation while bearing silent witness to my condition.
By offering me this quiet companionship for a couple of months, day in and day out, Bill helped save my life. Unafraid to accompany me in my suffering, he made me less afraid of myself. He was present — simply and fully present — in the same way one needs to be at the bedside of a dying person.”
It’s at such a bedside where we finally learn that we have no “fix” or “save” to offer those who suffer deeply, Palmer says. We have something better: our gift of self in the form of personal presence and attention, the kind that invites the other’s soul to show up.
I appreciate that my friends have extended that same gift to me.