Listen

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving me advice, you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell my why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

LISTEN!  All I asked was that you listen, not talk to or do – just hear me.

Advice is cheap; a buck twenty-five gets you the same paper filled with it.

And I can do for myself, I’m not helpless; maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fears and inadequacy.

But, when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and can get to the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling, and when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.

So please listen and just hear me.

And if you want to talk wait a minute for your turn – and I’ll listen to you.