"Think of a time when someone didn't solve your problem but somehow made it easier to carry. What exactly did they do?"
Think of a time when someone didn't solve your problem but somehow made it easier to carry. What exactly did they do?
Whatever they did, the word for it is assuage. And it's a word that speaks to one of the most human things we do for each other.
To assuage means to make an unpleasant feeling less intense — to relieve, to soothe, to ease. You can assuage grief, guilt, hunger, fear, or anxiety. The word comes from the Old French assouagier, from the Latin ad (to) + suavis (sweet, pleasant). To make toward the sweet. To soften something sharp.
Assuage is distinct from solve, fix, or eliminate. When you assuage something, you don't make it disappear. You make it manageable. You don't cure the wound — you dress it. You don't end the grief — you sit with the person in it. You don't eliminate the fear — you hold someone's hand while they feel it.
In a culture obsessed with solutions, assuaging can look like not enough. "Is there anything I can do?" we ask — meaning: can I fix this? And when the answer is no, we don't know what to offer. But assuaging is always available. A presence. A meal. A message that says: I'm thinking of you. I haven't forgotten. I'm not going anywhere.
Some things can only be assuaged, not solved. Grief. The slow progress of recovery. The uncertainty of a waiting period. The loneliness of a long transition. These are not problems that yield to solutions. They need the quiet, steady offering of something that makes them a little less sharp.
And assuaging works on yourself too. You can assuage your own anxiety — not by telling yourself it doesn't exist, but by being gentle with yourself in the middle of it. Breathing. Warmth. Small comforts. The soft toward the sweet.
Here's your question: Who in your life might be carrying something right now that can't be fixed — and is there something you could do or say that might assuage it, even a little?
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