Please Listen!

When I ask you to listen to me

    and you start giving me advice,

    you have not done what l asked.

When I ask you to listen to me

 and you begin to tell me why

I shouldn't feel that way,

You are trampling on my feelings.

    

When I ask you to listen to me

   and you feel you have to do something

      to solve my problem,

    You have failed me,

Strange as that may seem.

    

Listen! All I ask is that you listen.

     Don, t talk or do - just hear me.

  Advice is cheap;20 cents will get

You both Dear Abby and Billy Graham

   In the same newspaper.

    

And I condo for myself; I am not helpless.

Maybe discouraged and faltering,

but not helpless

  

When you do something for me that I can

and need to do for me,

You contribute to my fear and

Including.

But when you accept as a simple fact

   that I feel what I feel

No matter how irrational

then I can stop trying to convince you

and get about this business

of understanding what's behind

this irrational feeling.

And when that's clear, the answer are

obvious and I don't need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when

   we understand what's behind them.

Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes,

For some people_because God is mute,

and he doesn't give advice or try

to fix things.

God just listens and lets you work it out yourself.

So  Please listen, and just hear me.

And if you want to talk, wait a minute

For your turn_and I will listen to you.