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 and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as it may seem.
Listen!
All I asked was that you listen" not talk or do---just hear me...I can do for myself. I am not helpless.
When you do something for me what I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and feeling of inadequacy.
But when you accept as fact that I do feel what I fell, 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."
--Ralph Boughton, MD
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