Anyone who has loved in their life knows that love can be very challenging at times. Love is most challenging, in my opinion, when the person you love is enduring a challenging time. To love a person who is struggling is very challenging. How can we do that?
First, it is important to understand your loved one's struggle as much as you can. Sometimes understanding the struggle is almost impossible particularly if your loved one struggles from a physical, social or mental health challenge that is unusual, unique or difficult to understand. This kind of understanding is exasperated if there are not social agencies, good information or experts that can help. These kinds of mysterious struggles are very difficult to understand and makes support for loved ones who experience these struggles even more difficult. In general, however, to understand a loved one's challenge well via research, experts, observation and listening is the first step to loving these challenged loved ones well.
Once you understand their challenges, you have many choices as to how to help your loved one. To begin with, it's important to know what you won't do. Struggling loved ones can stress you out and frustrate you which can lead to less than positive love and support. Writing out a "do-not-go-there list" can help you to avoid the kinds of words and actions that do anything but love your loved one well. After that begin to make a list of what you can do to love your family member well. Ways to help include being present, helping to create an environment where your loved one is happy, looking for ways to help your loved one be healthy and supporting your loved one's additional needs, wants and desires.
Again, it takes extra energy and a positive mindset to care for a loved one when they are struggling, so it's important that you are as healthy and positively energized as possible.
Loving is not always easy, but the more we can understand the challenges that exist when loving is difficult, the better we can support our loved ones and contribute to a strong, positive loving foundation.