Recently I was helping someone figure out a situation in their life. As they revealed their anxieties and fears, I began to feel anxious about the situation. I was wrestling inwardly with questions of self-doubt and feeling anxious myself about their situation. An anxious presence is not helpful when you are trying to help someone who is anxious.
Edwin Friedman, a family systems therapist coined the term “non-anxious presence,” It describes someone who is able to stay calm in the storm of anxiety around him or her.
When we receive the opportunity to listen to a loved one or offer perspective to someone who is feeling anxious, how can we be such a non-anxious presence for them?
How Other People Feel Our Presence
Other people feel our presence in one of two ways—enmeshment or detachment.
Enmeshment is when a person does not have clear boundaries when engaging with someone. Their life and situation drag you into it in an unhealthy way. You begin to experience some of the feelings such as fear and anxiety experienced by the person you are helping. Such enmeshment can also mask itself as compassion and empathy.
Detachment is when a person has too much emotional space between themselves and the one they are helping. It can even appear unloving or uncaring. Sometimes detachment is concealed by the appearance of objectivity. One thinks they are trying to help by being removed from the situation or person. But it can simply be selfishness.
Enmeshment and detachment are visible in all kinds of relationships—at home, at work, with friends, or in ministry. In childhood, it can look like absent fathers, overbearing mothers, and the like. Both enmeshment and detachment can create various kinds of anxieties in a relationship.
Enmeshment creates an anxious presence while detachment creates an anxious absence. But to really help someone we must strive to be a non-anxious presence.
Becoming a Non-anxious Presence
Firstly, recognise your anxieties or fears when you are trying to help someone. Acknowledge these feelings to yourself without indulging or dismissing them. Do not underestimate how difficult people or situations have a personal impact on you (Phil 2:27-28, 2 Cor. 11:28-29). Sometimes it can help to receive counsel from someone who has more experience and who notices our tendency towards enmeshment or detachment.
Secondly, invite the Holy Spirit to guide you and prayerfully depend on God. Watch out for behavioural tendencies to give pat answers or quick fixes to problems. Instead, discern what God is doing in this person’s heart or the situation. How does God want you to serve this person at this moment? What is God doing in their life and how can you be a part of it?
Thirdly, understand that often our role is to listen to people rather than solve problems. Be eager to come alongside them, carry their burdens, and be quick to listen and slow to speak. It is better to be a patient, silent listener than put pressure on yourself to provide a profound insight into the problem. In these moments, trust that God is working and resist the tendency to derail his work in someone by nursing your anxiety.
Finally, realise and accept that we all have a range of unhealthy enmeshment and detachment styles in all relationships. Then go to Jesus in faith, ask for his rest, learn from him, and ask him to help you live for him.
Jesus is the ultimate non-anxious presence in our lives. In the Gospels, he faces chaotic situations and meets difficult people without letting anything take control of his feelings. As we enjoy his non-anxious presence in our lives, we can become a non-anxious presence in the lives of others (John 14:27, 16:33).
