How Do You Help an Upset Person?
When you want to help someone who is upset, asking questions is an excellent strategy, but as my teacher Lawrence West said, the wrong questions can actually make a person feel worse.
Effective questions assist a person in achieving a win, a realization, a shift in context, expansion, relief from an upset, release of negative energy, etc.
Ineffective questions tend to make a person more upset and feel smaller, less safe, less likely to want to communicate and less hopeful that the issue can be resolved.
3 TYPES OF QUESTIONS TO AVOID
DON'T ASK:
1. ACCUSING QUESTIONS:
Don't ask questions that contain or imply an accusation.
2. ASSUMING QUESTIONS:
Don't ask questions that contain or imply an assumption.
3. "WHY" QUESTIONS:
"Why" questions can confuse a person and send them down a rabbit hole of "maybe answers" that lead nowhere. Why questions are risky because they can leave a person in doubt and still wondering why; in most cases; it's safer to avoid them.
Example of 1:
ACCUSING QUESTION: What did you do to cause this problem?
NON-ACCUSING QUESTION: What are your thoughts about what happened?
Example of 2:
ASSUMING QUESTION: What mistake did you make?
NON-ASSUMING QUESTION: Do you think a mistake was made?
Example of 3:
WHY QUESTION: Why did you respond that way?
WHAT/HOW QUESTION: What was your response?
MORE INEFFECTIVE QUESTIONS
Why are you making such a big deal about this?
You look sad...are you OK?
You have an angry look on your face. Who upset you?
What are you afraid of?
Why won't you let me help you?
Is there any reason to over-react this way?
What are you hiding?
Why do you think that happened?
MORE EFFECTIVE QUESTIONS
How are you?
What have you observed about this situation?
What is your attention on at this moment?
Is there anything you'd like to say?
What is your attitude about this?
What are you feeling right now?
What happened today?
Has something like this happened before?
When you use effective questions, an upset person can answer more easily and get past an upset quickly. They can readily release negative energy, feel bigger, happier, lighter, and freer in a surprisingly short amount of time.
Effective questions don't accuse, assume, or ask why, and as a result, they can bring about a recovery in a person's state of mind and/or emotional state surprisingly fast!
© Jayne Johnson & The Clearing Sight Inc, June 2017