Coach as Instrument: What to do when there’s nothing we can do?

This Week's Attunement 

“So what can we really do for each other except--just love each other and be each other's witness?
— James Baldwin

On a recent morning run through my neighborhood, I rounded a corner and was startled by what appeared to be a doe and her two fawns (I live in a residential neighborhood only about a mile from the edge of Washington DC. Not exactly a rural area.)

As I gazed upon these lovely, wild, gentle creatures, I worried about their well-being. Where would they find food? Would they be safe? Will this mother be able to care for her offspring?

As I watched them pass and continued running, I found myself crying. Crying for all the mothers that fear for their children. For all the nature being destroyed or truncated or paved over. For all the suffering in the world that I am helpless to prevent.

And I thought, “What are we to do when there’s nothing we can do?”
You might be thinking, “Well, there’s always something we can do, isn’t there?” It can be calming to think so (to believe that we can always “do something” to make things better so we’ll feel better.)

AND in the face of the death of a loved one or the suffering of a nation and its citizenry amidst war or the fear and desperation of emigrants fleeing violent regimes, there may be little or nothing we can do to alleviate those pains.
So again, what are we to do when there’s nothing we can do?

Perhaps, we can stay with our experience of distress and helplessness. Perhaps, we can honor the experience, however painful, of another, by not looking away or trying to make ourselves feel better.

When there is nothing we can do, we can find the infinite, whole, spacious spirit within us and bear witness to what Buddhists refer to as “the ten thousand joys and the thousand sorrows” of life around us. Because when we bear witness to the joy and suffering of another, we stay connected to ourselves and them.

What does this have to do with coaching?

Sometimes the most beneficial thing we can “do” for our clients is simply to bear witness to them. To be present with them in their experience without trying to fix, change, or solve.