Laverne, a woman in her 90s, was chatting with her daughter Bonnie when I checked in on her one morning.  She’d recovered well from the pneumonia that had landed her in the hospital, and she was expecting to discharge back to her independent living apartment later that day. 

Laverne greets me warmly, remembering our previous visits, and introduces me to Bonnie.

“Bonnie flew all the way from New York to make sure I was OK, and to help me get settled back in to my apartment.  She’s a famous mystery writer!”

“That’s wonderful!  I don’t mean to interrupt your conversation, I just wanted to offer my good wishes for your transition home.”

“No, please join us,” Laverne requests, pointing to an empty chair.  “We were talking about whether I’ll be making the trip down to Arizona to spend the winter at my condo there.  I’ve spent every winter there for the past 25 years, but I haven’t decided whether I’m going this year.”

“Mom,” Bonnie interjects, “I think you’re just tired from being in here.  A few days of rest at home and you’ll feel better, and once you’re down in Arizona you’ll be glad you went.”

“I don’t know, it feels like a lot of work.  And I’ve been thinking about this since before I got sick.  I think I might actually enjoy spending the winter up here.  Like I said, I haven’t decided yet.”

Bonnie presses on.  “You’re getting around well, even without your walker.  You can get all the help you need during the trip.  I’m sure it will go smoothly.”

Laverne fixes Bonnie with a firm glance.  “You have no idea what it’s like to live in this body.”

“No, but your mind is sharp, and from what you’ve told me you shouldn’t have trouble making the trip.”

“You have no idea what I haven’t told you.”  Silence descends, and both Laverne’s and Bonnie’s eyes brim with tears.

After letting the silence settle for a moment, I gently probe.  “Laverne, is there anything you’d like to share about what it’s like to live in your body?”

She draws in her breath.  “My mind’s still sharp all right, the problem is … this thing,” she says, gesturing with both hands up and down the length of her body.  “It doesn’t work anymore, and it’s exhausting to live in it.” 

Bonnie’s face softens as she listens intently, and Laverne resumes.  “I guess I’ve got one of those bodies that just keeps on living, but I’m so tired.  I’ve made arrangements to move to assisted living when I need it, and to skilled nursing after that, but I’d be perfectly happy if I didn’t wake up tomorrow morning.”

Bonnie startles, and Laverne reassures her.  “Don’t worry, I’d never take my own life.  Besides, even that feels like too much work right now.  I’m content just taking each day as it comes, not making plans beyond the next day.  That’s why I can’t even think about Arizona.”

With the tension broken, I thank Laverne for her heartfelt sharing and leave mother and daughter to carry on from there.

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“I know how you feel.”

This unfortunate saying often emerges after someone shares from their heart.  We mean well—we want the other person to feel understood, we want to establish common ground.  But the honest response, if the feelings are complex, is “No, you don’t”—our personalities and experiences are too unique for anyone to know what life feels like for another person.  Many might hesitate to respond so bluntly, but Laverne, at least with Bonnie, did not, and her “You have no idea” responses moved the conversation to a new and helpful level of candor.

“I know how you feel,” or its equivalent, can be such a reflexive response that it flies out of our mouths without thinking.  However, it often has the opposite of our intended effect:  the person does not feel listened to, and it can shut down any further desire to share their feelings.  We often compound this error by sharing experiences of our own that we see as similar, but this usually just reveals how much our experience differs from theirs.  Worse, it turns the focus of attention from their sharing to our own—the ultimate invalidation.

Due to my own bad habits in this regard, I’ve had to work very intentionally to let go of “I know how you feel”—with friends and family as well as patients—and instead invite them to tell me more about how they feel, in their own words.  For people seeking to be understood, this invitation is more validating than anything we could share from our own experience.  Once someone feels well listened to, sharing a related experience might be helpful indeed, but until then it takes things in the wrong direction.

Rewiring these impulses has been among my greatest challenges in becoming a chaplain, but also among my most valuable learnings for work and life.  My new habits get reinforced regularly as I engage with people about whom I could never say “I know how you feel.”  People suffering the effects of a stroke, relearning how to speak or walk.  People living on the streets, struggling with addiction.  People hearing the news that they have at most a few days to live.  The best thing I can do for them is give them the chance to share what it’s like from their perspective.  And I learn so much from what I hear …

Which is a good thing, because while I may never have to deal with any of these particular situations, I am certainly growing older.  I’m just beginning to get a sense of how it feels to live in an older body, so I treasure hearing about what it’s like from people like Laverne.  I have been blessed many times by wise elders sharing their perspectives as they near end of life, and I eagerly seek out as many of these conversations as I can.  What they have to tell us isn’t always easy to hear, but they help me make sense of my own aging process, and I leave each conversation feeling a little bit better prepared for the journey ahead.