This article is based on some observations made during a day’s conversation. 

I was speaking to a friend in the morning. She was facing a certain problem.  Me, with my ever shining wisdom, gave her all possible solutions for that problem. I convinced her to think differently and come out of the problem. Am sure all of you have been in my shoe. That one friend or relative who is stuck in a difficult situation and we, with our shining armor of glowing wisdom, provide a solution to that person. 

The same evening, I was talking to a relative about a certain problem that I was facing. I was quite convinced it was an unsolvable problem and I would have to live with it. But, as I was speaking about it, I was hearing what I was talking and I felt I had heard those exact same words earlier. I suddenly stopped talking and did a little rewind of the day’s happenings. 

Voila’! I could recollect where I had heard those exact same words. It was the exact same problem that my friend was facing and she had narrated to me in the morning. How did that solvable problem in the morning suddenly become an unsolvable one by evening? 

Obviously, the magnitude of the issue changes when I am at its epicenter. 

It is so ironic that we always seem to have a solution for other’s problems and not for our own. And even more ironic is the fact that this statement itself seems to have a solution for our problems. 

If we consider our problem as another person’s problem, we can probably help ourselves. Is that statement too complicated? Not actually. 

When I listened to myself, I knew that I had a solution for my problem. I was lucky that my friend had discussed the same problem with me in the morning. And, the person whom I was speaking to in the evening did not confuse me by giving me a solution. 

The best way to solve a problem that we are facing currently is therefore to:

1. Speak to oneself. 
2. Listen to oneself. 
3. Use the same wisdom to advise oneself that we use to advise others. 

The role play of the speaker and listener happens within our own mind. ( Exactly what we discussed last week in the article: Speaking The Mind. )

I also realized how wrong I was in trying to tell another person what she could do to solve her problem. Out of curiosity, I called her the next day. To my surprise and relief, she had solved that problem. She said when she heard me speak about a possible solution, she started thinking about it and she successfully solved it using her own methodology. 

That further ascertained my point that we are the best solution provider for our own problems.

Some of us work better when we speak about it to another person. That is just fine. Choosing the right person to talk about it could be a challenge. There is some etiquette that the listener should be able to display.

As far as other’s problems are concerned, we can probably suggest ways of dealing with it if we think we have had similar experiences. It should stop there. And, if we don’t have anything to offer a solution, that doesn’t make us any less of a well wisher. A lot of times, people tell us their problems and in the process come up with their own solutions. They hear when they talk. 

p.s I am not talking about the technical problems that a manual can help to solve. I am talking about problems that are created, nurtured and destroyed by our mind. Problems involving people and relationships.

The stupidity of a problem, the way we have given it undue importance, the points that we have not taken into consideration etc become clear when we talk about it to another person. 

As the saying goes, A Problem Well Put Is Half Solved. The speaker does exactly that when he/she talks about it to another person.

So, our responsibility as a listener to the problems of a person is actually to listen to it. Giving the speaker a chance to talk , listen and think at the same time can make us the best listener. 

I have to share an excerpt from an article that I came across in Psychology today. This is a link to the whole article.  

Some time ago, I was part of a workshop for community leaders from Syria. At some point, a woman, whose two brothers had been killed by the forces of Assad, unleashed in a rage her desperation. “What should we do?” she asked me, while tears of anger and grief run down her face. 

 

I felt overwhelmed. What possible advice could I provide before such great tragedy? None, really; and that realization frustrated me. I had come to this small border town in Turkey, all the way from New York, eager to help with my more-than-20 years of experience in conflict resolution, and I had no answer for this woman. Than, while she continued to vent her frustration, something clicked within me, and I realized that what I could really offer was to listen with compassion to her pain. For a moment, I focused on my breath to silence my own worries, and then I focused fully on the tale the woman shared. I heard her out, and did not utter a word.

 

Later that afternoon, the woman came up to me. She looked at me straight in the eyes, and said, “Thank you, you gave me peace!” I smiled back and we embraced. Somehow and somewhere within her self, she had found new strength. “If I have come all my way from the U.S. just to listen to the grief of this woman, it was worth the trip,” I thought to myself. And I was reminded of a great lesson: There are situations where not giving advice is the best advice you can give. 

 

Please follow and like us: