Pattern 1
You're telling them not to feel that way.
"It's not that bad." "Just look on the bright side." "You'll get over it." You mean to help. But it lands like a dismissal.
The moment.
Someone tells you they had a bad day, or that something is bothering them, or that they're scared about something. You feel their discomfort. You want to help. And almost before you think about it, you're saying something that's meant to make it better.
The problem: the other person wasn't asking you to make it better. They were asking you to see them. By trying to fix it, you've told them their feeling is something to solve rather than something to acknowledge.
Why it's tempting.
Watching someone you care about suffer is uncomfortable. Solving feels useful. Most of us were raised to believe that the right thing to do with a problem is to fix it. So we fix. Reflexively.
The trouble is that feelings don't usually respond to fixes. If a friend is upset about a breakup, they don't need you to point out that other people have it worse. They need you to sit with them in the hard thing for a minute.
The practice.
When someone shares something painful, your one job is to name back what you heard. Not to fix it. Not to evaluate whether the feeling is justified. Just to say: I see you feeling this.
Concretely: before you respond, identify the feeling. Sad. Scared. Frustrated. Embarrassed. Lonely. Then reflect it back in your own words.
"That sounds really frustrating."
"It makes sense that you're upset about this."
"I can hear how much this is bothering you."
That's the whole move. You don't have to agree that their feeling is the right one. You just have to show them that you heard it. Once they've felt heard, they'll often solve the thing themselves.