What American Culture Gets Wrong About Grief — Matthew Whoolery

 

Airdate: July 23, 2025

Julie Rose: What is the right thing to say to somebody who's grieving?

Matthew Whoolery: And I finally just went, "What am I doing? I'm sitting back when this person's suffering," and so I, I went to him and had a conversation with him. I said, "What do you want someone to say?" He said, "I don't care what you say, just come. Be there."

Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy, a show about sticking with moments that challenge us even when they're uncomfortable. And you're probably wondering, "Why would anybody choose to be uncomfortable?" But I know from personal experience, and you probably do too, that sometimes a little discomfort has benefits if we can stay open and curious about it. And that's what we're here to explore, so let's get Uncomfy.

Julie Rose: Why are we so uncomfortable being around people who are sad or suffering? My guest today thinks American culture plays a role in this. He's from the United States, but he's lived and taught in many other countries, including Egypt, India, and currently Bulgaria, where he is Professor of Psychology at the American University there. Matthew Whoolery is his name, and he is with me now. Professor, hi.

Matthew Whoolery: Hi, thanks for having me.

Julie Rose: I love to start with a story. Can you share a story from your own experience of cultural differences dealing with sadness and suffering?

Matthew Whoolery: Yeah, absolutely. One story that comes to mind, I was living in Egypt at the time, and, uh, my father was ill. I had actually gone back to the States to see him. I, I knew it was either there for the funeral or there to see him. So, I'd, I'd come back to Egypt and I got a call, uh, that he had passed away, and I was just sitting in my office at work when I got the call, and, uh, they have a very, Egyptians, Arabs in general have a very different view of privacy, so if you didn't lock your office door, people will walk right into it. It's such an unusually, unusual thing. Their, privacy is just not a thing, right? Um, so right after I get this phone call, I'm sad, I'm crying, I, I, I have a student walk straight into my office. She asked me what's wrong, and I told her what happened. Within about five minutes, I, I, I think there were probably six students in my office, some brought food, something to drink, but they all sat with me, they cried with me. They, they were so quick to sort of embrace that moment and embrace me in that moment of struggle and suffering. I jokingly told my American students sometimes that story, and I said, "What would you do if you came into my office and I was crying?" "They'd be like, "Oh, I'd say, 'Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Okay, uh, sorry. Excuse me,' and they'd run," you know, and it, because it would freak them out. And it's not because they don't care, it's just that they don't know what to do. They don't have a script for dealing with the suffering of other people; my, my Egyptian students did.

Julie Rose: Yeah. Why do you think your Egyptian students had a script or, or behaved differently in that moment than your American students would've?

Matthew Whoolery: One of the ideas that they have is that when people struggle, you do it together with other people. So, if you had a spouse die, for example, or a child die, you will just expect to be surrounded by people. Maybe, maybe you'll get tired of it, too, but you'll be surrounded by people for definitely the first week, uh, and then after a certain number of days, and then after a month, and then after six months and after a year, you come together again with people. So, people don't suffer quietly alone, so they just, they don't see somebody suffering and think, "Oh, I'm uncomfortable. I don't know what to say," they just, they join right in. Um, it's, it's really different.

Julie Rose: Do you think there's no discomfort in that? It's such a, it's such a foreign way to think about this. I mean, I think all of us have experienced, I've, I've lost both of my parents, and, in both instances, I actually, like, uh, certainly in the initial moments when you're finding out, you know, to have, like, some close loved ones around, my siblings, you know, that was really important to not just be totally alone. But most recently, after my mother died, I, I actually, like, took a week off work and kind of just hibernated at my house and watched TV and sort of slept and kind of, and, and for me, that actually, it was, you know, people would show up at my door and I'd be like, "Oh, thank you," and then I'm like, "Please, go away."

Matthew Whoolery: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Julie Rose: So, you know, so I guess I'm thinking about, um, you know, the, why some of these cultural, and personality, I guess, differences might play in here, but what do you think, do you think that your Egyptian students, um, were meeting a need of their own? Do you think that they had, uh, do you think that they just had no discomfort?

Matthew Whoolery: I would guess that they would say they didn't have discomfort in that moment, or that wasn't, I mean, it's an interesting, uh, let me see if I can say one side thing and, and, and see how it relates. But Americans, when we greet each other, we say, "How are you doing?" We refer to each other's inner state a lot, right, and we refer to our own inner state a lot. "How are you? Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Are you getting what you want out of life?" I had a Japanese student who said when she first moved to the States, she thought Americans were very self-oriented, very, they thought about themselves, they talked about themselves, they focused on themselves. And once she was in the States for five years, her family started complaining that she was becoming too American, and what they meant was she was thinking about herself a lot, not even just being selfish, but just noticing yourself a lot. And she said, "Yeah, and I'm anxious and depressed like everybody else now." Hmm, um, so I would say that for Egyptians, for Arabs in general, they're very oriented toward other people, so whether they're comfortable in that moment or not, I don't think they probably thought about that. I don't think they thought, "Oh, I'm uncomfortable." They saw me, they saw a need, and they just joined in. Uh, I think Americans are a lot more, we are taught from a very young age, and every time we say, "How are you doing?" We're taught to reference ourselves. "How am I feeling? How am I doing in this moment?" When maybe that just doesn't have to be the thing you think about.

Julie Rose: Are you actually, um, asserting here, Professor Whoolery, that being self, as self-focused as Americans are actually contributes to feeling sad, feeling depressed, feeling anxious?

Matthew Whoolery: So, I would say that everybody in the world gets sad, feels depressed, feels anxious; though, those are pretty universal life experiences. It's what that means to you. So, if you're an American and what you're oriented toward in your life is you and your own feelings of being happy or satisfied or content with your life or whatever it might be, then feeling sad or feeling down is gonna feel like the whole world is sad and down because the whole world is kind of you. I'd say in, in the cultures that I have lived in, India would be like this as well, you aren't just a single person in the world; you are other people, other people are you, so how the world is refers to a lot of people, and how a lot of people are doing. So, if I'm sad, that's part of my world that's sad, but there's a lot of my world that involves a lot of other people and interrelationships with other people. I think the, the hard thing for Americans is that we're taught and we kind of believe that our whole world is ours and that I'm separate from everybody else and so my suffering is my own. If I'm sad you don't know what my sadness is, you, you aren't me and my experience is happening in my own psyche, inside my own body or my own mind, and it's not, you're not experiencing it. In fact, Americans hate it when we say things like, "I know how you feel," 'cause we're like, "Well, no, you can't know how I feel." Indians, for example, would, you would totally assume, "If you care about me, of course you know how I feel. When I'm sad, you're sad with me. We, we have that emotion together." So, if you say to me, "I know how you feel," it's, it's a, it's a recognition that we are part of each other and that when I'm sad, you're sad, when I'm happy, you're happy.

Julie Rose: And so, I mean, of course my students there knew how I felt. I mean, maybe they had never had a parent die, but they loved me, they cared about me, and so of course they were sad when I'm sad. When I'm hurt, it hurts them.

Matthew Whoolery: When I'm happy, they're happy with me, so then emotions aren't so uncomfortable. They, they're just, yeah, they're just part of what we do with, with each other.

Julie Rose: Yeah. Do you remember how you felt in that foreign situation then where it wasn't what you were expecting your students to do because you're an American and had, you know, had been most recently and in the United States probably?

Matthew Whoolery: For sure.

Julie Rose: What, what was the effect on you, then, at that point?

Matthew Whoolery: Oh, I, I'd say that you just feel loved. I mean, you feel like you matter to people.

Julie Rose: Were you less sad, do you think?

Matthew Whoolery: No, I don't know that it affected whether I, I, I don't know how it changed the way I felt necessarily, like, whether I felt more sad or less sad. I don't know that it relieved anything, but it binded me to the people around me; I wasn't alone in it. And I'm like you, I'm a bit of a loner, a bit of an introvert, and so I often, I'm like, "Something's going wrong. I just wanna be left alone." Um, but when you're in cultures that don't do that, they don't leave you alone, but you realize in the end how much American culture, I mean, what did, the Surgeon General said something like, you know, "Loneliness and isolation are an, a national epidemic," and I think that is true. But even here in Bulgaria, um, it's not, loneliness is not an epidemic. People are connected to each other, they spend time together, people outdoors all the time, sitting in cafes together, sitting on park benches together. Uh, I, I don't even know how to describe how different that is, but it's just a world different.

Julie Rose: So, Matthew Whoolery, what, um, what do you take away from this beyond just the academic interest here? Um, obviously you, you benefited personally from, from this response to your suffering in that particular instance. I'm curious to know if you have extended that to others then, and what that's felt on the other side and kind of what that's changed for you about the way you behave.

Matthew Whoolery: Yeah. One, I think I'm, I'm just less likely to see people as separate, essentially separate from me, different from me. You know, I'm a professor, I spend a lot of my days sitting with students in a classroom or in my office and having these conversations, and I don't really see them as somebody essentially separate from me. I don't see them as a different person than me, I see them as me, and I'm them, they're me.

Julie Rose: Wait, hang on, hang on, hang on. Okay, okay, so I mean, are you talking, like, in a metaphysical sense, like, we're all part of the same matter? Are you talking, like, radical empathy? What do you mean?

Matthew Whoolery: Well, I mean, "radical empathy" might, might be a way to put it, but that, uh, calling it "radical empathy" still means more like it's this individual experience I'm having toward you, which is still separate, right? One of the metaphors that I could give you that, that works for me, a grove of Aspen trees, you, you know that they're a single organism, so sometimes people say, "Well, if one tree gets sick, all the other trees do." Well, that's one tree, it's one organism. It has different upshoots above the ground that you could call a different tree, and you're not wrong; they are kind of a different tree, but ultimately, it's, it's one thing.

Julie Rose: Is that a spiritual thing? Like, are you thinking they're, we're part of the same family type thing or..?

Matthew Whoolery: I'd see it, I know it sounds, it sounds strange 'cause it sounds mystical, or it sounds like it must be mystical. I, I mean it quite literally: I don't think that we're separate from each other. I think we're one organism and we're different sort of upshoots of that organism. You know, for Westerners, if I feel really close to somebody, I'm a little embarrassed almost to say, "Oh, I feel really close to you, or I feel like we're connected to each other." Well, Indians would say, "Well, of course you are. You're even more than connected, you are each other on some level, and the closer you get to the truth, the more you see yourself as one with others rather than as separate beings."

Julie Rose: I think I can relate to that in some isolated instances, maybe in, in a couple of friendship relationships, in a, you know, in sort of family relationships, maybe even occasionally in a, in a church setting, like you were describing, maybe spiritual, um, but, but then, so what does that, what do you, what does that then mean as you encounter other people's sadness or suffering?

Matthew Whoolery: It just means it's my suffering and my struggle, too. So, to encounter another person in pain or struggling or sad is to, to be a part of it. Just to consider yourself to be, like, it's your business. You know, that they're struggling or that they're suffering, that they're in need is a call on me. It, it's not just like I can sit back and say, "Oh, that must be hard for them." It's a call for me to action, it's call for me to do something.

Julie Rose: I mean, is it take a meal? Is it, is it asking? I think sometimes when people are suffering, I'm a little afraid to ask, like, "Well, tell me what's hurt, what's hurting?" You know, or, "Tell me why you're sad," or, right? Like, tell me,

Matthew Whoolery: I think people, yeah,

Julie Rose: you know?

Matthew Whoolery: People I think are a little surprised sometimes 'cause I'll say, even to students of mine, they'll be like, "I'm really sick," and I'll say, "Okay, you know, is there anything you need? Can I buy you groceries? Can I bring you dinner?" And a lot of times they'll say, "No." Sometimes, I'll, you know, encourage them to be able to feel like they can say, "Yes,” and then I show up with dinner at their house or, um, go grocery shopping for them so that they have that. I had a student who was really sick, and so I got, you know, Gatorade and chicken noodle soup and some things like that and took that by, and people are always surprised by it, but I don't, I don't know that I think it's that surprising or that, it's not heroic or anything, it's just acknowledging the real truth. The real truth is that we, we are one with each other and so we, we look out for each other.

Julie Rose: And so, if, if those of us like this, that actually sounds really lovely and I can see the merit in what you're describing, and I've certainly experienced also the, the consequences of the isolation, the self-focus that we have here in the United States. I'm as depressed and anxious, maybe more so, than the, than the best of them. So, um, what, what would be, like, a culturally appropriate way for me in America? Like, what's a step I could take that would help me to, help me to start to see the world in the way that you have learned to see it because you've lived in these other places?

Matthew Whoolery: Yeah, well, I, I had a friend when I was in the States in one of my, I'm kind of in and out of the States, so in one of my times living in the States who went through a really dark personal tragedy, and I remember I had that same thing. I'd been living in the States for a while, I was like, "I don't know what to say. I mean, I've never been through that before. I don't know what to do." And I finally just went, "What am I doing? I'm sitting back when this person's suffering," and so I, I went to him and had a conversation with him. I said, "I, I just didn't know what to say. I mean, what, what do you want someone to say?" He said, "I don't care what you say, just come. Be there." Because of course nobody was talking to him, and he was alone, and he was lonely, and he was sad, and he was mourning, and everybody just stayed away. So, I realized in that moment, just go, you know? Don't ask; just do it. Um, you know, we, we often have this thing where you, you're visiting somebody, you're like, "Oh, let us know if there's anything you can do." I, I don't know that we necessarily mean it, and, and I know that they don't usually feel like they can tell you. Um, I, I don't ask that question in that same way. I think you just do it. You say, "I'm showing up." You know, may, maybe it's somebody who's just had a baby or something, and you say,  "It's super hard when you have a baby to, like, manage all the stuff in your house. I'm coming, I'm bringing food, I'm also gonna clean your kitchen, and I'm," and they'll say, "No, no, no, no," and you go, "Oh, I'm, I'm coming. Just, that's the way this is gonna work," and they will appreciate it so much. I think sometimes we have to just, um, break some of our own cultural rules a little bit and break past that sense of separation.

Julie Rose: Matthew Whoolery is a cultural psychologist and professor of psychology currently living in Bulgaria, working at the American University. Professor Whoolery, thank you so much for sharing your insights today.

Matthew Whoolery: My pleasure.

Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. So how do you cope with the discomfort of suffering, whether it's your own or others? I am thinking a little differently about this having heard Professor Whoolery's ideas. I'd love to hear what you think. Send an email to uncomfy@byu.edu. Tell me a story about a time when someone responded to your suffering in a way that was productive and maybe a little surprising, or that you tried something that was outside of your comfort zone in order to be there for someone else. Again, that email is uncomfy@byu.edu. Uncomfy is a BYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Hyobin Kim and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. Can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.​