I love the word "understanding." Most of us just want someone to understand us. Of course, no one can actually do that fully because there is no way for us to explain how we feel using mere words and that is all we have to work with. The last thing we want to hear when we hurt is "I know exactly how you feel," because no one can really do that, but it feels wonderful when they listen and try to understand all that is possible and just accept the feelings where they are without understanding. 

Being understood is the major reason it helps to talk when we are in grief. If we can find a sense of being understood we can move on. If we cannot do so we tend to park and, over time our grieving can become an obsession that dominates our lives.

The need for understanding is also what makes it hurt so deeply when we are not understood. When people, in an effort to help, end up trying to explain our pain away it hurts and often makes us angry. We want someone to understand how big the hurt is. We do not want someone to trivialize it with meaningless explanations. 

I met two sisters who proclaimed to the audience that their mother was the most negative person who ever lived. They said she remembered every hurt in her life and proclaimed each one loud and long. I caught them in the hotel lobby after the meeting and asked them what the mother said most often. They said, "The thing she says most often and the thing that hurts us the most is, that her life stopped the day her son died. She still has us, and our brother died sixty-one years ago." I asked them to try something. I suggested that, the next time the mother said those words, they reach over and touch her and say, "How did that make you feel? The chances are great that no one let her tell how she felt sixty-one years ago and she is still trying to get feelings understood that have now been buried by the years. Even at this late date, it will help her if someone simply understands.

Unfortunately, there are far more explainers out there than there are “understanders.” I talk a lot about finding "safe" people. When I say that I really mean finding someone who will hush and understand. The reason we urge people to talk through their grief is, we know that if they can find someone to understand, it will prove to be the thing that brings the most healing to broken hearts. One good source of understanding could be the response area at the end of each blog. Most of the folks who read these bogs are also searching for understanding. 

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