When I ask you to listen to me, and you start giving me 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 to, or do - just hear me. I can do things 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 this business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.
When that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.
Irrational feelings make more sense when I 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