Listen!

Listen!

There’s a poem about listening by an unknown author. This little poem expresses several thoughts about what people want from their partners, friends, and children.

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 think you have to do something

to solve my problem

you have failed me,

strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I asked was that you listen,

not talk or do…just hear me.

advice is cheap; twenty five 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 do for myself

you contribute to my fear

and inadequacy.

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 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.

Perhaps that’s why prayer works

sometimes, for some people…because

god is mute, and doesn’t give

advice or try to fix things.

He (or She) just listens

and let’s you work it out

yourself.

So please listen and just hear me

and if you want to talk, wait a minute for

your turn…and I’ll listen to you.*

*Writings from Dr. Thomas Gordon