Therapy is great if you can get it. Books help. Podcasts help. There's an entire industry built around credentialed people with frameworks and methodologies and letters after their names.
But I didn't get saved by a framework. I got saved by a guy named Dave who brought a lawn chair to my garage when I was falling apart and just sat there. Didn't say anything useful. Didn't quote anyone. Didn't have a plan. Just showed up with a chair and a beer and the unspoken agreement that we were going to be in the same space until I was less not-okay.
That's it. That was the intervention.
We overcomplicate help. We think we need the right words, the right training, the right moment. We don't. We need presence. The willingness to be in the room with someone's pain without trying to fix it, solve it, reframe it, or fast-forward past it.
Most people who are drowning don't need a lifeguard. They need someone who won't leave the beach.
You don't need a degree to sit with someone. You don't need answers. You need a chair and the willingness to not be somewhere else.
Sometimes that's the whole thing.
