Sometimes we don’t need advice. We just need somebody to listen.

Sometimes we don’t need advice. We just need somebody to listen.
One of the greatest gifts you can ever give another person is to listen with all of your presence and all of your heart.
There are times when another person is so overwhelmed with their life experience as to preclude their ability to hold it all in. They just need to unload some of what they are carrying, so that they can have an emotional release and find their stability again.
Men, in particular, are programmed to be problem solvers. They wish to fix everything…sometimes, to the complete exclusion of listening past the point where their mind is zeroing in on the problem as it is being shared. This personality trait, while valuable in many circumstances, can be completely off-putting in moments where another party just needs to communicate.
If you are in that emotional state and wish to just unload some of what you are carrying on your shoulders, sometimes having someone interrupt you with their solutions is absolutely the very last thing you want. (Even if that is actually what you really need.) At that moment, you are in a cycle of unleashing emotional duress and wanting desperately to find a solution that will enable you to find your own personal equilibrium again.
Given those parameters, if we are more aware of this true need in our friends, lovers, colleagues or family, we can become better people by learning to close our mouths and listen while staying fully present to everything that they are communicating. In this act of kindness and compassion, we are strengthening our bond with the other party, improving our personal dynamic and we are growing as an individual… all by keeping our mouths closed.
The opportunity to communicate with another being carries tremendous power and magic. It is incomparable to just about anything else in life, because it carries the process of two brains connecting, which unleash countless permutations of possibilities as a direct result.
When you speak freely, without inhibition, you open pathways in your own mind, and magical things happen. Sometimes, you discover answers that are right on your doorstep (metaphorically speaking) just by voicing your own concerns, thoughts and opinions. Sometimes you find an epiphany that is waiting for you and you are overwhelmed by how obvious and apparent it is, when prior to speaking to the other party, it felt nonexistent in your own mind.
As you are going through this catharsis, having another person interjecting their opinions and perspectives can be both jarring and annoying because what you are really doing is verbalizing thoughts from deep within, that needed to be uncovered and unleashed.
It is a wise opportunity for each of us to understand that if we feel this way ourselves, that sometimes, our greatest gift in life can be to close our mouths, open our mind and enable another person to have access to us as a repository of their emotions, thoughts and feelings… and listen warmly with compassion and zero judgement. It may feel as if you are not doing enough for them, but in many cases, you are actually providing what they need the most.
Thanks for listening (or reading!)
Happy Friday!
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