Did you know that you have a treasure to offer everyone? This includes your nearest and dearest, your children, your parents, your students, and your employer, writes Linda Kavelin-Popov.

This treasure is being a spiritual companion – one who listens without judgment, or the need to offer a quick fix, to patiently ask questions that help others to open up and empty their cups of sorrow, confusion, anger, or even hopelessness.

At the bottom of the cup there is always a pearl of truth that sustains the soul. Simply using the magic word, “What” while responding to someone is a sign you are listening.

If someone says, “I had the best time on my holiday!”, rather than just saying “Great!”, take the next step and ask, “What made it the best?” If someone says, “I can’t stand that job anymore!” a spiritual companion doesn’t say, “Why don’t you just quit?”

They ask, “What can’t you stand?” Meeting the person where they are and offering sacred curiosity to listen with focus and concentration (and mostly silence!) to their story, is a gift all too rare.

Even if you only have three minutes to listen, the quality of your attention comes from focused concentration -- being fully present. If we don’t listen, we miss a valuable opportunity to be of service, to make a difference. With these two virtues you can walk intimately with another without taking on their feelings.

 I learned this as a hospice spiritual care director at a hospice, where people came to die with dignity. Often, the nurses or doctors asked me to go and “do that thing you do,” for a patient who was upset or agitated. While others tried to calm them down, I simply offered sacred curiosity. One woman with dementia was yelling (and swearing) at the top of her voice. I went into her room and yelled to her volume, “What’s going on in here?” She said, “What kind of a f***ing place is this?” 

 I said, “What about this f’ing place?” using her same words.

She looked surprised, and said, “They won’t feed the #!!!! Dogs!” “What?” I yelled with indignation. “They won’t feed them?” The nurse who had tried to calm her asked her to “calm down” and told her, “this is a clean place. There are no dogs.” -– the worst thing you can do when someone is riled up. Meet them where they are, always with holy curiosity, and they will calm down naturally.

 As soon as she felt understood, she began to cry and thank me. I asked her “What are those tears?” “The dogs are hungry”, she sobbed. “What should we do?” I asked her.  “Can we feed them?” she asked. She started acting as though she was handing out food, and I joined her.

When the person seems finished, bring the companioning to a close by giving them a virtues acknowledgment. “I see your compassion to feed the dogs.” It restores their soul in that moment.

She thanked me and got quietly back into bed. Spiritual companionship -- meeting someone right where they are, with silence or with words that validate them, is a secret that is little known or understood. When you mirror a virtue you see in them, it’s pure magic.