Please listen
If you ask me to listen to you and I start giving you advice,
I have not done what you asked.
If you ask me to listen to you and I begin to tell you why you shouldn’t feel that way,
I am trampling on your feelings.
If you ask me to listen to you and I feel I have to do something to solve your problem,
I have failed you, strange as that may seem.
Listen! All you are asking is that I listen.
Don’t talk or do – just hear you.
If I do something for you that you can and need to do for yourself,
I contribute to your fear and inadequacy.
But when I accept as a simple fact that you feel what you feel, no matter how seemingly irrational,
Then you can stop trying to convince me and get about the business of understanding what’s behind those feelings.
And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and you don’t need advice.
Feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them. So I’ll listen, and just hear you.
