Listening with Love and Compassion

Watching someone you love hurt is not easy, because you just want to wrap them up in a blanket and take all the hurt away. As we all know that is not possible. We live life, make decisions and hope they are the good ones, so that one day we can look back and say, "Yes, I did something right."

I don't know if you do, but I find that when giving pep talks that I fall into the bad habit of giving cliche's like: Everything will be okay, don't worry all you really need to do is move on, another words get over it. lol Oh, man when I hear that I just want to hang up the phone and hit my head against the wall. That kind of advice is not what the person really needs or wants to hear. I know I don't when going through a bad time.

For most of us it is hard to trust someone enough to open up. Sometimes when initially making the effort to call for help we don't even really understand what we need in the moment, but when we hear it, it really hits home. Most of the time we just need someone to listen. We don't need to fall into the role of advice giving or telling someone what they have to do, "to get over it". We are human and we don't really work like that, and it isn't that easy anyway.

Most of us already know what we need to do, but our feelings get in the way and that is part that is difficult to work through. Our feeling makes us human.

One of the things I did say to this person I love is, sometimes we just have to give ourselves permission to move on, we have to tell ourselves that it is okay to forgive ourselves for things we think we have done wrong and take credit for what we have done right. It is okay to be happy and stand up and learn from our experiences. We take with us our experiences with people and situations and ultimately learn from them, and if we allow it, become better people because of them.

I could tell that I said something right, because first of all, I didn't get hung up on, or I didn't get the irritated deep breath, that people do when you have said something they aren't ready to face, or maybe doesn't really apply to what they are feeling, or what is going on. After all I'm not a therapist, but I'm a mom, a friend, a wife and best of all a woman who has gone through a lot of things in life that help me identify with hardships, disappointments, frustrations, anger, sadness, forgiveness, happiness and love.

We may not admit it most of the time, but we need each other. We need love, compassion, and most of all we all need to be heard. We need to know that we matter.

Take the time to listen and be there for someone, because you just never know when you are going to be the one who needs someone to lean on.

Vickie