When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, you have not done what I have asked.
When I ask you to listen to me and you begin telling me why I shouldn’t feel the way I feel, 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, as strange as that may seem.
Listen!
All I asked was that you listen. No Talk. Or do.
Just hear me. Advice is cheap: 35 cents will get me both Dear Abby and editorials in the same newspaper.
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 fear 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 about the business of understanding what’s behind this feeling.
And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious, and I don’t need advice. Thoughts and feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.
So please, listen. And give me the most precious gift you have to give!
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