When I Ask You To Listen - Writer Unknown

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 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:

50¢ will get you both Dear Abby and Ann Landers in the same newspaper.
And I can do 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 weakness.

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 the irrational fear.

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.

Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes for some people because God is mute, and doesn't try to give advice and try to fix things.

God just listens and let's you work it out for youself.

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.