Tell me if this is familiar. You are frustrated about something, so you call up a friend. Thirty seconds into your story he goes, “I know. This happened to me too. Just last month …” And you spend the next ten minutes listening to your friend’s story.

People often mistake someone sharing their bad day as an invitation to talk about theirs. They call it being supportive. But if you are really having an awful day, it doesn’t help knowing that someone has had worse.

Anger, sadness, pain, fear and disappointment are all parts of life. They are life. But a common reaction is to suppress them or forget about them. This natural tendency to shy away from the negative makes it difficult for many people to be supportive.

Just like being supportive is not about shifting focus to you, it is also not about negating a person’s experience. “Oh! It’s nothing.” “You are just overreacting.” Who are we to judge that a person’s emotion is wrong? Yes, it may not be what you would have felt, but this was never about you.

Being supportive is not about fixing things. Solutions are useful if the office printer is jammed. But, “You should get a new dog”, does not lessen the grief of a lost pet.

Giving support is not about offering random things. I once did badly in a college exam. Filled with disappointment, I was packing my bag to go home. A well-meaning friend offered me food saying, “Eat at least a little bit before you leave”. I felt like screaming, “I am angry and disappointed, not dying of malnutrition.”

Being supportive is less about giving and more about receiving. It starts by you being there. You choose to be with whatever the person is offering. You listen to their story without the filter of your own prejudices. In fact, you accept the story in spite of what you believe to be true.

Being supportive is a choice. Choose to give someone the freedom to be who they are in the moment. Be with them and listen to them. And if you don’t know what to do, just say, “I am here for you.”