Holding The Space

I understood this over a period of time while interacting with my close friends. I used to cut short the conversation and offer my advice. My friend would end the call saying some work while the coversation or venting was not complete. Slowing i started giving the listening ear and the conversations went on...the friend was in real struggle and venting out helped a lot.

 

Decades before, I happened to accompany an office colleague to his councillor. The councillor was actually a psychiatrist. My friend began narrating in dull & drab manner incidents in his life from childhood.

The psychiatrist found to be frenetic in his chair and so he firmly told him to tell him incidents from recent past in reverse order.

My friend got wild and curtly told him, “look if you are in a hurry to meet the next waiting patient then i would leave right now. Your job is to listen to me first without interrupting in the way i want to tell you. You are paid fees to listen to my woes which may be boring. Your profession is to Listen”