When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice,
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!
Advice is cheap: twenty cents will get you both:
Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself. I'm 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,
no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince
you and get about 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.
Ray Houghton, M.D.
Berkeley, CA
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