I had an interesting coincidence today. Last night my W began to tell me about her work situation (!) and seemed to be looking for validation that what she was doing in the situation at hand was correct. I sat back, listened and supported her concerns and made no suggestions like "you need to..." I did show a bit of supportive anger by saying "How much can they possibly expect you to do?" and stuff like that. No suggestions, no criticism, no expert analysis of the situation. I hope it helped her (and did no harm to my position!). Today on break I opened up my Five Things book and the starting place was "Being With the Suffering of Others", basically how to listen and show empathy , there's alot there to share but I'll go with this:
"Empathetic presence means listening to someone's pain with ...attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing. We pay attention without being distracted. We accept what is said without editing, adding, or blanking. We feel a genuine caring about what happened and what might happen to this person. We allow whatever feelings or silences or head trips the other employs in this moment without attempting to blame him, stop him, or criticize him."...'Lets just sit beside one another and look at this together. This happened to you. Let me be here with you as we witness this together' I am not the witness of her reality; we are the witnesses of it " Wow, letting go of all those ego layers and just being there with the other person, is often enough. Forget fixing, critiquing, putting a positive spin on it...just be there. What a concept " To stay with ourself or our friend or partner in this way requires that we be free of the need to clear things up or assume control. One person simply accepts the other's truth no matter how unclear, broken, desperate, or fragmented it may be"
I know when I listen to my W I want to fix it, show my brilliance, throw in my 2 cents and get on with it! It's best to get back to the basics cuz, guess what, the OP is giving her all the unconditional love and listening she can handle. So I'm glad she shared and that this little chapter was where I started in my reading today. Next part is "When cheer doesn't work", we'll see where that goes. And, yes, OSU, tonite is dance night. My feet are still recovering from last week, who says BR dance is for wooses ! Thanks for checking in everybody.

Divorced February 27, 2012.

"Only by love is love awakened".~ Ellen G White