The most powerful gift you can give another is your undivided attention.
When the best techniques don’t work, simply close your mouth and pay attention. The best way to listen is with your mouth shut.
This poem, written almost 50 years ago, is as relevant today as it was when it was written.
Please Listen
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 ask is that you listen.
Don’t talk or do – just hear me.Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get
you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham
in the same newspaper.
And I can do 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 feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational,
then I can stop trying to convince
you and get about this business
of understanding what’s behind
this irrational feeling.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.So please listen, and just hear me.
And if you want to talk, wait a minute
for your turn – and I will listen to you.
– Unknown Author
