When I ask you to listen and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that, 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 was that you listen, not talk or do -- just hear me.
Advice is cheap: Twenty cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself: I'm not helpless, Manybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.
When you do something for me that i can and need to do for myself, you contribute to 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 can 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.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what's behind them.
Perhaps that's why prayer works --- God is always there. LISTENING
So, please listen and just hear me. And if you want to talk, wait a minute for you turn, and I'll listen to you.