ShareGodLove.com » Could you just listen?

Could you just listen? August 10, 2007

Posted by Han in : Human Relationship , trackback

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

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me 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 problem, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

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

Advise is cheap; 20 cents will get “Dear Abby” in the same paper.

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 do 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 this business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling. When that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advise.

Non-rational feelings make more 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.

~ Author Unknown