What if 'Advice' was a real person?

Imagine one fine day you are inside the confines of your cozy home, all alone. You are going through mixed emotions on this day. This lone time makes you reflect on things that were probably unattended due to your busy life. You are experiencing feelings of happiness, or even sadness by recalling certain past events or events that are currently going on in your life. In this moment you are probably looking for someone to just listen to you, but you are also considering whether you must share your thoughts & feelings with someone, or should you just keep them to yourself. You are evaluating the possibilities of you being judged or being considered as weak or vulnerable when you open up about how you feel.

So after a lot of considerations, you decide to finally share your thoughts and feelings with someone who you find trustworthy. You pick up the phone and call up your confidante to share what you are feeling. While this is happening and you have mustered up all the courage to open up with your confidante, all of a sudden you see someone banging open the door of your house and entering your house. You didn’t hear a knock on the door for a permission to enter the house however this stranger just very audaciously enters your house and is standing in front of you. The stranger has a very empathetic look on her face and claims to offer you some solution to the concerns or doubts that you have been trying to cope up with. She wants to be around in the house with you. You wonder what just happened as you were just talking to your confidante and now suddenly there is this stranger inside your house, standing in front of you....

How would this entry of a complete stranger barging into your house without your permission make you feel when you least expect it and sits in front of you, claiming to ‘solve’ your problems and to stay in your house for some time? Would it make you feel relaxed that although this person is a stranger, she seems empathetic and is offering solution that she wants you to consider? Or would it make you feel uncomfortable and unsafe to let that person be around you and decide not to have her stay over? Would you feel that your space has been violated OR would you feel that regardless of the space violation, the stranger may offer some solution that might be of some value to you?

Well, for most of us (if not for all) a stranger’s entry into your house would make you feel unsafe and violated.

So what if I tell you that in this story the stranger is none other than ‘advice’. Imagine advice being a real person, a person with 'empathy' and 'care' written all over her face. And this stranger entering into your house without your permission is none other than ‘unsolicited advice’.

Without even realizing what unsolicited advice can do to people, we ourselves, our friends, family members, relatives, colleagues, more or less everyone around us are giving it every now and then. We do this with harmless intentions of ‘trying to help’ someone or with the assumption that if someone is sharing their feelings or problems with us, they must surely be seeking solutions or advice. We don’t care to take consent of the person before even offering it. We are probably not even actively listening to the person as while the person is sharing things with us, we are already thinking of what advice we are going to offer. Afterall, what harm can a ‘friendly’ advice do?

We don't realize that most people are looking for someone to simply listen to them and offer some non-judgmental listening, and may not necessarily be looking for any advice. It mostly makes people feel just how you would feel when a stranger would enter your house without your permission.

How difficult is it to practice active listening and not offer advice the moment you know you have dealt with a similar situation earlier in life? I know, it is difficult for all of us. This is our way of expressing that we care and if may tend to assume that if we don’t offer advice after listening to someone’s story, they would consider us as unempathetic or uncaring. You are immediately worried about your image or the impact on your relationship if you don’t offer friendly advice. However, how would you know for sure that the person is really looking for an advice or just needs someone to listen to them and offer them a safe space to probably vent out? Well, mostly it is the latter. Its just that we do not ask questions or take consent before offering advice. We just hurl advices at the sight of a familiar territory to simply feed our ego (yes, ego!).

Questions to ask ourselves to have richer relationships with our near and dear ones:

• How can we reserve our advice until someone asks for it?
• Can we proactively ask if they were seeking any advice from us on the subject being discussed?

How can we become better listeners and be more empathetic OR are we simply feeding our ego by offering unsolicited advice?

• What is more important for us, making the other person feel safe and heard, OR making us sound more caring and knowledgeable?

Do share your thoughts by commenting below.

Best Regards,

Monica Arora

Picture Courtesy: Pexels.com?