When either someone comes to us with a problem or we are with them and over a couple of hours, they start to open up about something, it’s not always the best thing to give advice. Something that’s not the easiest thing to do, especially as a mother or other carer…
We want to help them resolve the issue which we can see is causing them problems and /or upset. However, whilst our instinct is to solve and help people, but this is not always what they want.
However, unless the person makes this clear up front, it’s hard to spot and we go into full blown “paramedic” mode. All we can do is start thinking of ways which we feel will help. however our caring intentions have the opposite effect as they take our approach as unsympathetic. I’ve had this issue with my daughter, but this only came to light when it was brought up as me being uncaring of her needs.
“Why didn’t you say” doesn’t sort it either, because they have now established a mindset of “it’s no point opening up because people don’t care”, whereas the truth is that’s is completely the opposite. We really want to help and from our perspective, it can hurt if you feel people have been hiding things/their thoughts
Another reminder that, as all things in life, we need to be very clear about our emotions and feelings up front in certain matters, especially when we are in a negative frame of mind.
If you want to open up to someone, it may help to be very clear and say something like “Can you just listen to me for a while?” – that should be enough of a cue that you need to talk.
If you need to speak to someone, do reach out; I will never judge anyone and will listen.
