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We're often in situations of wanting to help and be kind to others, but of not knowing quite what
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they might be in need of. We'd like to deepen our connection to them and be of service, and
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yet lack a real grasp of what we could plausibly offer them; their minds seem impenetrable, their
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problems opaque. At such moments, we would do well to remember that we all possess a superpower,
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a capacity to give people something we can be sure they fundamentally require, founded on a
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primordial and basic insight into human nature: that all of us are in deep need of reassurance.
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Life is a more or less ongoing emergency for everyone. We are invariably haunted
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by doubts about our value, by concerns for our future, by shapeless anxiety and dread
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about things we've done, by feelings of guilt and embarrassment about ourselves.
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Everyday brings new threats to our integrity and except for very rare moments when we and
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the world feel solid, there is almost always a background throb of unwellness in our minds.
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It doesn't matter whether they are old or young, accomplished or starting out, at the top of the
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tree or struggling to get by, we can count on one thing about anyone we meet: they'll be beset by a
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sense of insecurity and, beneath some excellent camouflage, to a greater or lesser extent,
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of desperation. That means that, more than they perhaps even realise, they'll be longing for
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someone to say something soothing to them, a word or two to make them feel that they have a right to exist,
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that we have some faith in them, that we know things aren't always easy for them and that – in a
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vague but real way – we're on their side. It could be a very small, and barely perceptible remark,
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but it's effect might be critical: that something fascinating they said sticks in our minds,
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that we know the past few months might not have been simple for them,
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that we've found ourselves thinking of them since our last meeting, that we've noticed and
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admire the way they go about things, that they deserve a break and are, we can see,
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carrying so much. It's easy to mistake the work of reassurance with flattery. But flattery involves
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a lie to gain advantage, whereas reassurance involves revealing genuine affection – which we
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normally leave out from embarrassment – in order to bolster someone's ability to endure. We flatter
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in order to extract benefit, we reassure in order to help. Furthermore, the flatterer tells their
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prey about their strengths; the reassurer does something infinitely more valuable:
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they hint that they have seen the weaknesses, but have only tolerance and compassion for them
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on the basis of sharing fully in comparable ones themselves. 'I think you're going to be fine';
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'everyone goes through things like these' 'you have nothing to be ashamed of…' The words we
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need to say to reassure aren't new, they can be the most apparently banal of sentences,
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but we need to keep hearing them because our minds are extremely bad at holding on to their
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nourishing truths. They are, furthermore, lines that are a great deal more valuable and
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inclined to stick if someone else addresses them to us than if we try to rehearse them
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by ourselves. In 1425, the Florentine artist Masaccio painted a rendition of Adam and Eve's
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expulsion from the Garden of Eden on the walls of Florence's Church of Santa Maria del Carmine.
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We need not believe in any of the supernatural aspects of Genesis to be profoundly moved by the
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horror stricken faces of the banished couple. And if we are so, it is because what we see is
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a version of an agony that is essentially universal – for all of us have effectively
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been cast out of the realm of comfort and plenty and obliged to dwell in the lands of uncertainty,
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humiliation and grief. All of us are beset by woes, all of us are worried to the core,
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longing for rest and in urgent need of forbearance and gentleness. Part of the responsibility of
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living in a time that broadly no longer believes in divine reassurance is that we are each of us
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given a role to play in delivering part of that reassurance ourselves, to our fellow sufferers,
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in ordinary moments of our ordinary lives. We cannot generally know the precise details
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of other people's travails, but we can always be sure of a few vital things from the outset:
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that they are at some level in a mood of pain and self-suspicion, that certain very big
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things will not have gone right, that there will be intensities of loneliness, anxiety
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and shame at play, and that it could hence make a very big difference indeed if we were able to say
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something, however modest and even unoriginal, to bring a little reassurance into their day.
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