Whenever we feel someone we care about needs support whether it be emotionally, financially or in some other way, it’s always a balancing act.
During difficult times it can be tempting to try and fix someone else’s problems by doing too much for them or telling them what to do. Although this may be preferable to leaving someone to struggle on alone, it can prevent them from the learning and achieving the growth that often comes from going through difficult circumstances that will help them to cope and deal with similar situations that could happen in the future.
It’s only natural we may feel negative emotion when listening to the struggles of a loved one because naturally, we want to see them happy, but helping someone too much can come from our own desire to feel happy by seeing the person we love feeling better.
In reality, every situation is different with both people having their own personal perspective about what’s happening and we can only ever do what we feel is best at any given moment. When emotions are running high, sometimes all anyone really needs is someone to listen to how they are feeling without judgement rather than coming up with 100 ideas on how to fix the problem. I’m not saying that some well considered gentle advice may not be a good idea if we strongly feel it will help, but when someone is in turmoil they are often not in the place to be able to hear or put into action any advice and instead it may cause them to become more confused or even worse, feel like they are being judged in a negative way.
Men especially like to fix things and when faced with an emotionally unstable female counterpart often use all their brain power to come up with as many actions as they can to try and rectify the problem as quickly as possible. Although much of the time this is coming from a place of caring, things can quickly turn pear shaped if one isn’t careful.
I suppose the moral of the story is most of us can and do sort our own problems out one way or another and often all we require is someone to truly listen to us without judgment and with compassion and love.
When we truly listen without taking on our counterparts negative emotions and feeling bad ourselves by making a conscious effort to stay in a neutral or positive emotional place, this is the best support we can provide that doesn’t dictate what should be done but let’s the other feel, express and possibly let go of the negative emotions they are feeling. When we understand it is through the thoughts and emotions we feel that creates our future life experiences, we can know what a great service listening to another can provide without the need to give any advice.
You only need to observe people to know it’s difficult to find someone who can listen to others in this way as most people have so much going on in their own lives that much of their thought process is taken up with what they are currently doing and dealing with depriving them of the ability to be able to truly listen to another. If we have had the good fortune to have someone who has been in the place to truly listen to us when we’ve needed it, we can know the great difference it can make to us as we move forward. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that make the biggest differences in our lives.
No one else can really solve our problems for us no matter what advice we’ve been given. It is always each individuals responsibility to decide what is best for themselves. It was never supposed to be someone else’s job to tell others how they should live their lives and what they should be doing, that’s what each person came here to decide for themselves. By just being there for someone and listening gives them the opportunity to get how they are feeling out and make space for healing and clarity to come in…….
And so it does…..
The Purest Soul 