Please, Just Listen.

When I ask you to listen to me and instead you start giving advice,
you have not done what I asked, nor heard what I desire.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me
why I shouldn't feel what I am feeling,
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, please!

All I ask is that you listen.  Not talk, nor "do"--just hear me.
Advice is cheap when not asked for.  Fifty cents gets me "Dear Abby"
and the astrology forecast in the same paper.
I can do that for myself.

I am not helpless.
Maybe discouraged or faltering
--but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and must do for myself,
you contribute to my seeming fearful, weak, or inadequate.
I may feel these things. 
Don't act as though my feelings are facts.

When you accept that I feel what I feel, no matter how irrational
it seems, I can quit trying to convince you and instead begin to
understand what is behind what I am saying and doing--or what I
am feeling.

When that is clear, chances are so will the answers be, and I won't need advice.
Or I will then be ready to hear it!

Perhaps that is why for some people prayer works.
God is mute and doesn't give advice or to to fix what we must do ourselves.

So please.  Listen.  Just hear me.
And if you wish to speak, let's plan on your turn.
I promise.
I will listen too.



anonymous