Bear With-ness: Presence Over Platitudes
Recently, I was invited to speak at The Center for Spiritual Living during their Mental Health Awareness Month series. They were reflecting on The Amen Effect by Rabbi Sharon Brous, and each speaker was asked to choose a chapter and speak to it from personal experience. I knew immediately I needed to speak about presence. I focused on chapter seven, titled “Bear With-ness,” which centers on a simple but challenging truth: stay close, even when you can’t fix someone’s pain. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t come with a gold star or—as my wife lovingly says—a “star in your crown.” But it is love. And it can change everything.
This idea reminded me of one of my favorite stories, The Lord of the Rings. Now, I’m not a fantasy expert by any stretch, but I’ve always been drawn to tales of long journeys and loyal friendships. And there’s no friendship quite like Frodo and Sam.
Frodo is the one chosen to carry the ring. It is a heavy, dangerous burden that wears him down physically, mentally and spiritually over time. Sam isn’t the hero of the story. He isn’t magical. He doesn’t lead armies or take down dragons single-handedly or give stirring speeches. What he does is stay. Through snow, shadow, and sorrow, Sam stays. There’s a moment near the end when Frodo can’t go any further. He’s collapsed on the side of a mountain, broken by the weight of it all. And Sam kneels beside him and says, “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.” Then he picks Frodo up and carries him up the last stretch.
I think about that line a lot, especially in my work as a therapist, and honestly just as a human being trying to show up for others. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.” That’s presence. Not offering answers, not trying to rush someone out of their grief—but saying, “You don’t have to go through this alone.” There’s a kind of healing that only happens when someone stays. Not when they try to cheer us up or distract us, but when they sit with us, hold space, and let our pain be seen. That’s how I understood Rabbi Brous’s “Bearing With-ness”.
Although presence is powerful, it’s not always comfortable or easy. It asks us to let go of the need to fix, to be wise, to say the right thing. This has been hard for me at times as a clinician. I often find myself wanting to take the pain away from those that sit across from me, look me in the eyes, and bare their souls’ pain. Presence has likely been the most important skill for me to hold, though it seems the least intellectual or clinically impressive at times. It asks us to stay when there’s nothing we can do but show up.
My charge to the welcoming members of Center for Spiritual Living two Sundays ago, and my challenge to you is to sit with this question: Who in your life needs that kind of presence right now? Is there someone going through something heavy? Someone holding grief, fear, uncertainty? Is there an individual in your life that just needs someone to sit beside them, even in silence? You don’t have to be a hero to do that. But if you ask me, that kind of presence? Even that sitting-in-the-silence-of-an-old-minivan-whirring-through-the-scorching-heat-of-a-desert-summer kind of showing up and holding the space? That, I find to be heroic.
We are not always meant to fix things. But I believe we are always meant to love. And we love when we are fully present.
Interested in listening to Ryan’s talk? It is posted here.