The Beginning
My cousin was stressed about college admissions. She was describing how strange she had been feeling for the past month or so, how her headaches every day and her heart beats like crazy when she overthinks. "Sleep is like a foreign concept to my brain, dude," she said. This convo went on for hours.
It awfully felt like she was having panic attacks, and she didn't know what to call it. I'm not gonna lie, I was terrified AF. I had no idea how to help her. But she made me swear not to tell anyone, especially her patents.
I know, what the hell!
She trusted me, so I decided not to rat her out to anyone in the family (yet). So, I listened to her and helped her reflect.
The Transformation
In retrospect, why do kids hide their problems? Who doesn't need their parents' advice? ——surprisingly, nobody. None of us are fans of our parents’ advice. But why? because everyone is quick to give advice on things they know nothing about. They don’t take time to understand the details but hurry in to throw in words.
People are bad at advising, but we don’t really accept that fact about ourselves, do we?
Yesterday, my cousin came back feeling so much better. She proclaimed to have found "the solution." She had a whole new vibe. She felt much better. She told me that in the past week or so, during her verbal monologues with me, she had been feeling much better.
When I asked her what changes, she said something simple: "I am writing down my thoughts every day." Huh. Now that seems pretty obvious to me. I could have told her that. That’s when I realised something profound .
Yes, I could have given her the exact same advice, but it wouldn’t have worked!
The reason she talked to me wasn’t to get advice, but to create a safe space for someone to listen to her. If only I jabbed in to throw advice, I’d be no different from her passive-aggressive parents. She had to come to that conclusion on her own.
You can only change your problems by finding solutions on your own. No matter how obvious it is to others.
By saying pretty much nothing---I guided her into reflecting---and she was able to solve her problem. It feels great, tbh.
The Lesson
I know what you’re thinking. She’s nowhere close to recovery, and is about to realise that one solution doesn't solve all the problems. She stumbles onto more challenges and works on them. And so on. But she’s one step closer to recovery. And the reason why is that healing comes from the inside and not from other people’s advice.
You don’t need to be a clinical practitioner to be able to do what I did. Listen. You don’t need some social superpower to stay silent. And yet, people rarely listen. It’s just like any other skill to practise more to get better.
The problem is that people don’t see it as a skill. They take it as an offence if I try to say it out loud. "So now you want to take a course, or what?" they’ll jab. The thing is, bad advice is dangerous! It’s not helping folks, far from it. It’s hurting the loved ones.
People think listening is a passive activity. Something that you can multitask on. You’re already formulating a reply before listening to it entirely. Humans define their "intelligence" by coming up with an instant reply. As if!
It’s not always the case. It takes concentration to truly listen and fight the urge to respond. It demands you respect the other person, truly.
When someone needs to get something out, the best thing to do is to let them. Don’t interrupt their flow of thoughts. Your role is to jump in when they invite you in. Oftentimes, it’s not advice but a listening ear.
Here are two very crucial ways to look at how your interfering advice might be dangerous:
You are interrupting their train of thoughts by assuming that you know the solution. That’s egoistical of you, buddy.
When advice comes from the outside, it subconsciously destroyes the person's self-esteem. (Have you seen those scenes in movies where a therapist asks questions in a way that the patient rats out solutions from their own mouth?).
We all deal with this
I accidentally signed up for a 10-day trip at college. All the co-travelers were complete strangers to me. The day before the trip, while packing, I was frozen by the thought of dark nights on some faraway island, which could be the place where I might die. An axe-murderer would get hold of me and traffic my femur bones and turn them into badminton rackets and what not. It’s stupid, I know. But I couldn't breathe. The world was spinning and I was definitely having a panic attack.
My mom found me in a foetal position on my bed, sobbing.
She asked me a very simple question—"are you okay?"
I cried even more and took deep breaths. She held me like that for a long time and waited.
And sure enough, I talked to her the whole night, explaining my fears. And you know what she did—listened. She didn’t shit-talk and make fun of my obscure fearsshe didn’t make me cancel the trip. She just listened.
I went for the trip, and as per the record, I’m well and alive, writing this for whoever wants to read this.
Listening is way more powerful than most people think.
The more you practise it, the more you realize its power. Again, it’s a skill.
The next time someone opens up to you, great. You are worthy of their trust. Ask them a simple question to open them up and let them say what they have to. It can make a huge difference to someone’s life.
You can do this!