Listening

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, you
have not done what I ask,
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 to talk or do -just
hear me.
Advice is cheap: 50 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Bill
Graham in the newspaper.
And I can do that for myself. I am 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
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.