How to Survive Watching Someone You Love Suffer: The Gita Answers
Riya Kumari | Apr 28, 2025, 23:52 IST
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
You know that feeling when someone you love is hurting and you, being the big emotional marshmallow you are, think you’re supposed to do something? Like... leap into action, save the day, slap a motivational poster on their forehead? Yeah, no. Turns out the ancient wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita — you know, that chill little life manual written several millennia before Pinterest quotes were a thing — basically says: Stay calm. Do your duty. Don’t dissolve into emotional Jell-O.
There’s a particular kind of helplessness that doesn’t get enough screen time in our lives. It’s not the helplessness of losing a job or getting ghosted or finding out your favorite pizza place just shut down. It’s the helplessness of sitting across from someone you love — someone who’s cracking under the weight of life — and realizing that there’s nothing you can do to make it stop. You can't fix it. You can't fast-forward it. You can't even carry it for them. You're just... there. Watching. Feeling useless and desperate, wondering if loving them harder might somehow be enough. (Spoiler: it's not.)
Love Doesn't Mean Absorbing Their Pain
Look, I get it. The movies taught us that if you really love someone, you suffer with them. You sync up your sadness like it’s some kind of tragic Wi-Fi. But real love isn’t about syncing up pain. It's about holding space for someone without trying to climb into their body and live their heartbreak for them.
The Gita is brutally clear: pain belongs to the person experiencing it. You can't steal it. You can’t split it fifty-fifty like a bad group project. Trying to carry their suffering for them doesn’t help them heal — it just means now two people are miserable. You don't owe the world your brokenness as proof of your loyalty. Staying whole for them is actually a greater act of love.
You’re Not Their Savior (And That’s Good News)
The worst (and weirdly, most arrogant) lie your mind will tell you is that it’s your job to save them. If you just say the right words, if you just show up enough, if you just love them more fiercely, you can rescue them. Except you can’t. And you’re not supposed to.
The Gita spells it out: You have a right to your actions, but not to the fruits of your actions. Meaning, you can show up. You can be kind, strong, patient. But how it plays out? That’s not in your hands. Trying to save them isn’t noble; it’s controlling. Love isn’t about rerouting someone’s suffering into a nicer, more digestible version. It’s about trusting that they have a path — even if that path looks like hell right now. Even if it kills you to watch.
Pain Isn’t a Mistake
Modern life will do backflips to convince you that pain is an error in the system. That suffering is a glitch we should be able to patch over with therapy, green smoothies, or inspirational podcasts. But the Gita doesn’t treat suffering like a bug. It treats it like a feature. Pain breaks you open. It sandblasts the ego. It drags you, kicking and screaming, into parts of yourself you wouldn't have visited otherwise. Sometimes pain is the only thing loud enough to wake you up.
So when someone you love is suffering, you don’t have to pretend it's beautiful. It’s awful. It’s unfair. It’s gut-wrenching. But it’s also not random. It’s not meaningless. It’s doing work that you can't see yet. And no, you can’t speed it up. And yes, you have to trust it anyway.
Your Job: Be Steady, Not Dramatic
When the people you love are spiraling, it’s tempting to spiral right along with them. (Solidarity, right?) But panic doesn't cure pain. Adding your meltdown to the situation just creates two sinking ships. What people actually need in their darkest moments isn’t more noise. They need steadiness.
The Gita calls it sthitaprajna — stable wisdom. It's the ability to stand tall while the world shakes around you. It doesn’t mean being emotionally numb. It means being anchored enough that your presence feels like a safe harbor, not another wave crashing over them. Real love is boring sometimes. It’s being calm when everything in you wants to scream. It’s sitting quietly when there’s nothing smart left to say. It’s being reliable when everything else feels terrifyingly unstable.
Attachment Isn't Love
We confuse attachment and love because they feel similar at first: intense, overwhelming, magnetic. But attachment is secretly a deal with fear. It says, I can’t be okay unless you’re okay. I need you to heal so I can breathe again. That’s not love. That’s bargaining.
Real love is bigger. It doesn’t shrink or shatter when pain shows up. Real love says, I will love you through this, even if you’re unrecognizable for a while. Even if you don’t come back the same. Even if you don’t come back at all. It’s terrifying, honestly. But it’s also the only kind of love that actually frees both people involved.
If You Forget Everything Else, Remember This:
When someone you love suffers, your instincts will scream at you to do something.
Fix it. Solve it. Drag them out of the fire with your bare hands. But real wisdom — Gita wisdom — whispers something else: Stay. Witness. Hold space. Don’t drown with them. Don’t yank them out before they’re ready. Just love them right through the middle of it.
Because sometimes, the bravest thing you can do for someone you love is not saving them... but believing, fiercely and quietly, that they can survive it themselves. And sometimes, that's the love that actually saves them after all.
Love Doesn't Mean Absorbing Their Pain
The Gita is brutally clear: pain belongs to the person experiencing it. You can't steal it. You can’t split it fifty-fifty like a bad group project. Trying to carry their suffering for them doesn’t help them heal — it just means now two people are miserable. You don't owe the world your brokenness as proof of your loyalty. Staying whole for them is actually a greater act of love.
You’re Not Their Savior (And That’s Good News)
The Gita spells it out: You have a right to your actions, but not to the fruits of your actions. Meaning, you can show up. You can be kind, strong, patient. But how it plays out? That’s not in your hands. Trying to save them isn’t noble; it’s controlling. Love isn’t about rerouting someone’s suffering into a nicer, more digestible version. It’s about trusting that they have a path — even if that path looks like hell right now. Even if it kills you to watch.
Pain Isn’t a Mistake
So when someone you love is suffering, you don’t have to pretend it's beautiful. It’s awful. It’s unfair. It’s gut-wrenching. But it’s also not random. It’s not meaningless. It’s doing work that you can't see yet. And no, you can’t speed it up. And yes, you have to trust it anyway.
Your Job: Be Steady, Not Dramatic
The Gita calls it sthitaprajna — stable wisdom. It's the ability to stand tall while the world shakes around you. It doesn’t mean being emotionally numb. It means being anchored enough that your presence feels like a safe harbor, not another wave crashing over them. Real love is boring sometimes. It’s being calm when everything in you wants to scream. It’s sitting quietly when there’s nothing smart left to say. It’s being reliable when everything else feels terrifyingly unstable.
Attachment Isn't Love
Real love is bigger. It doesn’t shrink or shatter when pain shows up. Real love says, I will love you through this, even if you’re unrecognizable for a while. Even if you don’t come back the same. Even if you don’t come back at all. It’s terrifying, honestly. But it’s also the only kind of love that actually frees both people involved.
If You Forget Everything Else, Remember This:
Fix it. Solve it. Drag them out of the fire with your bare hands. But real wisdom — Gita wisdom — whispers something else: Stay. Witness. Hold space. Don’t drown with them. Don’t yank them out before they’re ready. Just love them right through the middle of it.
Because sometimes, the bravest thing you can do for someone you love is not saving them... but believing, fiercely and quietly, that they can survive it themselves. And sometimes, that's the love that actually saves them after all.