What’s the best way to help a friend in need?

To mark World Suicide Prevention Day last Friday, my friends and colleagues concluded an inspiring, week-long series of sessions in which they explored questions on finding connection, recognizing warning signs, self-love, resilience and, most importantly, how to help others. For me, a key takeaway from these sessions was the difficulty of talking about suicide without relating to it.

The paradox is that those who can relate to having suicidal thoughts are the best qualified to truly understand present sufferers, and therefore truly help them. But according to this logic, we end up relying on those in recovery to help those in present pain ⁠ — which can be immensely triggering because it forces those in recovery to relive their trauma. In the worst cases, this can cause some kind of psychological regression and undo their emotional rehabilitation.

The challenge is to show empathy towards sufferers while maintaining our own mental health; helping our friends in a way both selfless and self-preserving in order to provide advice that is both sensitive and rational. And even where suicidal thoughts are not concerned, empathy should dictate how we help friends in need.

Helping others up close and personal is a challenge, but doing so brings us closer in touch with our own emotions and, ultimately, makes us more human. When I returned to Punjab for the first time in years to get a first-hand witness of the work of my charity, the RoundGlass Foundation, I was unprepared for the shock of helping on site, having previously done so from a distance as a donator. There’s something raw and disarming about staring hardship in the face — something statistics and reports cannot convey, no matter how staggering — and experiencing outreach on a physical, visceral, really real level.

Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is not something you can really do while keeping your distance from the problems they are experiencing: empathy has to be authentic in order to be helpful. Physical presence, conscious listening, and emotional intuition: those are the best ways to help a friend in need.

Physical presence
Show your friend that you are comfortable with their pain. Show them that suffering doesn’t make them less valuable as a person. Show them they can trust you to be there at their lowest point.

Conscious listening
Conscious listening is about responding to the speaker’s emotions; being in tune with their physical and verbal reactions; thinking of yourself as a mirror. It’s rarely the best idea to offer unsolicited advice — no matter how well-intentioned — as you risk sounding paternalistic and authoritative. This makes your friend less likely to follow your advice, as they no longer view you on equal footing and feel that you don’t trust them to make mature decisions for themselves. A more healing approach would be to simply let them speak, even if you disagree with their decisions. Let your friend lead the conversation.

Emotional intuition
Just because you shouldn’t jump to conclusions or put words in your friend’s mouth doesn’t mean you shouldn’t infer quietly in your mind. What is this person like at their best? What do they want from life when they’re at their happiest? Help them picture that brighter future for themselves, without prescribing any timeline for their improvement. Let them have control over their own recovery.

Helping others is what makes us people; it’s the reason why societies exist; why languages emerge; why friendships are forged. So don’t shy away from that greatest of all acts of kindness. Show your friends you love them. Show them you care. Learn about their suffering and let them open up honestly. If all of us do this, we’ll get that much closer to global Wholistic Wellbeing.