The reason we should never say “I Know How You Feel” in response to someone else’s reaction to death is because you can never really know how someone else feels. Even if you have had a similar experience, you still bring your unique self, personal knowledge, opinions, and emotions to the event that has caused your feelings. For example, if you take a group of widows, the false assumption is that they would know how each other feels because they all had a spouse die. But what if one widow had a loving relationship with her spouse and another had a stormy relationship with her spouse?  Clearly the feelings that one widow carries forward after the death of her spouse will be different from the other widow. Here’s where it gets trickier: even if you take two widows, both of whom had warm relationships with their spouses, do either of them know how the other feels? Still NO!  Why? Because every relationship that has ever existed between people is unique. And even though there may be some similarities each relationship remains unique. By saying “I know how you feel” you rob them of their uniqueness and right to grieve their way. Even though we know that the person saying it means no harm, widows still felt hurt when others don’t really understand their grief. Another concern is that when someone says “I Know You Feel,” it’s as if the conversation has shifted and is now about the other person and again we can feel robbed of our unique loss. When you put people who’ve had parallel experiences together and they start comparing notes, they accidently form the idea that the others know how they feel. The bond of being a griever in a society which doesn’t deal well with grief and grievers is an understandable connection but really doesn’t always match to the uniqueness of individual relationships. In our Private Facebook community (The Sisterhood of Widows – Private Group for Widows) we understand each other’s uniqueness.  We also understand that no matter what others say it’s healthy to talk about our grief. What can you Say? The best thing to say when you identify with some of the feelings someone is sharing is, “I hear what you are saying and although I don’t know how you feel, I can relate to what you said”. That will be much better received and make more of a meaningful connection than “I Know How You Feel.” To Our Shared Journey,                                                                                       Mary Francis is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist® Certified Law of Attraction Facilitator, Early Intervention Field Traumatology (EIFT) Author/Founder of “The Sisterhood of Widows”