Wanted: Good Listeners

It helps to have friends who will listen…

When I ask you to listen and you start giving me advice,
     you haven’t 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 problems,
    you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen.   All I ask is that you listen, not talk or do…just hear me.
Advice is cheap; you can find your horoscope in any newspaper.
I can do for myself. 
I'm not helpless…discouraged and faltering perhaps, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself,
    you contribute to my sense of fear and inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact that I feel what I feel,
    no matter how irrational, 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,  I don't need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand them.

Perhaps that is why prayer helps…because God is mute and
    doesn't give advice or try to fix things. 
    He just listens and lets you work it out for yourself.
So please listen and just hear me; and if you want to talk,
    wait a minute for your turn--and then I will listen to you.

-- Anonymous