The Truth About Being Present

When somebody says, I'm struggling, men traditionally, but can be anybody, but on, you know, on balance, try to fix, right? Here's the problem I'm dealing with. And they go, here's what you should do, or have you tried this? And the answer is, is I just need you to listen. And the amazing thing is, is people know what they need and we know what we need and we can give instructions. Like ideally you want people to be equipped to be able to hold space for you in hard times. But what I've, what I've learned is that you can ask for what you need. Sometimes we don't know what to do and a friend comes to you. We can say, do you want me to offer ideas and suggestions or do you want me to just listen and hold space? And they can say, no, I want suggestions. And I think we don't do that. We don't. There's a little piece of information that we don't seek out or we don't offer, which solves the problem. Because if you don't close that gap, you end up feeling unseen, unheard, misunderstood. And distant. And I think we have to practice finding out what someone needs or the place they're in and telling people what we need. And the amazing thing is when they get it wrong, it doesn't ruin it. We can just interrupt and say, "Thank you. What I need is this."