A Guide to Emotional Pep Talks

If you're anything like two of my favorite people in the world, you may be stymied by a confident, emotional, successful person needing a pep talk. You may not feel comfortable giving one - even when asked directly - since you've never needed (or even wanted) one in your life. You may feel ill-equipped to even provide one, and then shy away from a valuable opportunity to connect with someone you love who's suffering, just because you're afraid to do it wrong.

If that sounds like you, I've got your back.

Here's my guide to providing an emotional pep talk to help someone (who is generally totally capable of handling a little sadness) out of a dark hole of their own feelings.

Step 1: Start with listening and try some repeating, paraphrasing, or questions to make sure you understand how they're feeling. This may mean letting the person cry (which can be uncomfortable, but you can do it!) or talk for a while before jumping in to try and fix it with your pep talk. Nothing ruins an emotional pep talk like someone trying to comfort or make you feel better before you've had a chance to say what's wrong.

Repeating or paraphrasing may sound like "you're feeling overwhelmed" or "this is really upsetting to you" or "you're unhappy about what the insurance company is doing to you." Remember to not accuse your sad person with your tone of voice. Be empathetic, caring, and deeply curious about what they're actually feeling (so you can get it right).

Questions, if you ask them, should be about feelings and causes and might sound something like "are you mad or frustrated or both?" or "is it the anxiety that's bothering you most?" or "what else are you feeling about the insurance?"

This step can continue throughout the rest of the pep talk, but be careful not to ask too many nitty-gritty or hair-splitting questions. The details matter less than the big picture.

Step 2: Be with your upset person. That means being fully present, 100% attuned to them for this conversation. No phones, no stray ideas, no long stories of your own. Give them the gift of your full attention. (Sometimes that alone is enough to get them out of a funk.) Be supportive and recognize their need for your full attention. Be sure to turn your body toward them, look them in the eyes, and even touch them if it makes sense.

This step continues throughout the rest of the pep talk.

Step 3: Acknowledge their pain. Even if you don't agree with it or think it's ridiculous. Remember, you're here to be supportive and lift them up, and your judgment of their pain or suffering isn't going to do that.

This sounds like "I know you're having a hard time right now" or "I can see this is really getting you down" or "it sucks to have to call insurance a hundred times!" or even simply, "You're hurting, and that's no fun."

Step 4: Normalize and/or accept the suffering. Remind your sad person that what they're going through is normal -- everyone gets down sometimes -- and that it's OK to feel sad or overwhelmed or whatever it is they're feeling. Accepting their big emotions (even if they scare you a little) will help them feel calmer and less out of control. And when they feel less out of control, they're going to come back to feeling more rational and less in need of the pep talk.

This sounds like "you get to be scared" or "you're feeling like an idiot, and that's normal" or "we all get confused/anxious/disappointed sometimes."

Step 5: Remind them that this, too, shall pass. They won't always be sad. Things won't always look this bleak. If they've been stressed, tired, or sick, remind them that their body isn't functioning at its top speed, but it will recover.

This sounds like "even though you're having a tough time right now, it won't always be this way" or "you're in a rough patch right now, but it will get better" or "remember when you felt like this before and it passed?"

Don't skip to this step right away or it will feel like you are blowing off your sad person. Also, combining this step with any of the next ones is even more powerful. (All of the step 6 options can be used in whatever order makes the most sense in the moment.)

Step 6a: Acknowledge strengths. What is your sad person good at? What do you know about their heart? This is a good time to bring out strengths that will help them through this tough time and also to praise them for being awesome people.

This sounds like "you're a fighter" or "you feel things so deeply" or "you're an incredible person" or "you light the room up when you walk in" or anything wonderful like that. The praise will help lighten the person, but it needs to be sincere and opening with something like "here's what I know about you..." can help them feel seen in a much bigger way.

Step 6b: Provide meaning. (You should always do 6a, but it doesn't necessarily need to come before 6b.) If you can, connect their suffering to a bigger picture or a value of theirs you know is important.

This might sound like "you're struggling right now so you can know yourself better" or "this is all part of your journey" or "missing your mom this much shows how much you care about her." This is not a required step because it can be a doozy if there's no obvious bigger purpose at work.

Step 6c: Reframe or use a metaphor. If you see another way to look at the problem or a metaphor that will help them see another way, share it. (Not a terrible idea to ask if they're open to hearing another way of looking at it first, though.)

This might sound like "this reminds me of the time I crashed my bike" or "your job has been like water pushing on a dam for months and now it's finally broken" or "you've only been at this a few weeks - we would never expect the kids to pick something up so quickly."

Be careful of taking over and using too much of your own story - it's not a contest to see who has been most sad or to compare what they're going through to something in your own experience. But if it will shed some light or help them feel better, it's worth a shot.

Step 7: Champion them. With honesty and love, acknowledge your sad person's true essence or shining attributes and share how much you believe in them. (This is similar to acknowledging strengths, but there's something about sharing your belief in them that helps connect them to their own strength.)

This sounds something like "I know you can do this" or "you are the strongest person I know" or "I have faith that you'll get there" or "I can hold this space for you until you can hold it again yourself." Or simply: "I believe in you."

Extra points if you deliver this part when looking them deeply in the eyes and being insistent. Don't let them shy away or refuse to accept the deep compliment you're paying them.

Optional Step 8: Lighten the mood. If you feel your sad person turning a corner, use a well-considered joke or physical gesture to lighten the mood. You could even say "hey! I think I just gave my very first pep talk ever. How'd I do?" But only do this if you feel the other person's energy lightening or dissipating. There's nothing like being stuck in a deep feeling and having someone crack a joke because they're uncomfortable with what you're feeling.

Putting this all together, let's pretend that your confident, emotional, successful person just, say, crashed the car into the closed garage door and has a lot of feelings. Here's how an emotional pep talk might go:

"I can see you're really upset about the car - is it just the car, or is there something more? You feel like an idiot? For crashing into the garage? I'm sorry this is so hard for you - it's clearly bringing up a lot of feelings. But it's totally normal to feel like an idiot with something like this. You're NOT an idiot. And you'll probably wake up tomorrow feeling better about the whole thing. But right now, it's ok to feel like an idiot. And it's ok to feel worried about the cost. The important thing is that you're ok and nobody got hurt. We'll figure it out and we'll get through it together. You're a great driver - this was a fluke! - and this changes nothing about how I see you. Remember the time I got the car stuck on the beach? This is kind of like that. And you weren't half as hard on me as you're being on yourself right now. I love you. A broken garage door won't change that - in fact, it changes very little except the look of the garage, which, let's be honest, needed a little refresh anyway -- and everything's going to be ok. You'll be ok. We'll be ok. We've got this."

Remember, the kind of pep talk that gets the salespeople cold calling and hitting all their numbers at the end of the month probably won't work for your confident, emotional, successful person. But giving them your attention, support, and care will.