I came across this on somebody else's site about a week ago...I think it was Cracker but my memory is failing me. I liked it so much I thought it was worth reposting. So to whoever had it the first time, thank you for posting it! It bears repeating as it is a gem!

 

 

Will You Please Just Listen

When I ask you to listen and you start giving advice, you have not done what I have asked.

When I ask you to listen and you start telling me why I shouldn’t feel the way I do, you are invalidating my feelings.

When I ask you to listen and you start trying to solve my problem, I feel underestimated and disempowered.

When I ask you to listen and you start telling me what I need to do I feel offended, pressured and controlled.

When I ask you to listen, it does not mean I am helpless. I may be faltering, depressed or discouraged, but I am not helpless.

When I ask you to listen and you do things which I can and need to do for myself, you hurt my self-esteem.

But when you accept the way I feel, then I don’t need to spend time and energy trying to defend myself or convince you, and I can focus on figuring out why I feel the way I feel and what to do about it.

And when I do that, I don’t need advice, just support, trust and encouragement.

Please remember that what you think are “irrational feelings” always make sense if you take time to listen and understand me.

What is friendship?

A true friend is someone who sticks by you when you are down and celebrates with you when you are up. It's someone you trust. It is someone who understands you, knows the real you and appreciates the person you are.

There are many types of relationships and they may be hard to classify. I have encountered at least 3 different types.

- Situational friends. You see each other regularly, have fun together, and even share occasional disappointments. When you move or something changes, you don't stay in touch. Examples: activity and location based friends - work, gym, clubs, etc.

- Casual friends. Meet each other once in a while, go out for lunch and dinner, and catch up on the news/gossip. You like each other, appreciate the company; but are not best friends.

- Close friends. They understand the real you, help when you're in trouble and are people you can rely on. They will not betray you; they let you in their lives and care about you deeply. Such people don't come along often and such relationships are to be cherished.

There's no magic solution. Sometimes relationships disintegrate or people grow out of them. But if you don't spend time together, have fun together and talk (I mean really talk about your lives, decisions, whatever is going on), the friendship probably will not last.

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Somebody asked me recently if I really knew what "being a friend" means to me. What do you expect to give to a friendship? What do you expect to get from a friendship?

I know what it means to me and it is very clear and important to me. I think there are different levels of friendship just like the above stated. I have many friends who are in that first category of being situational friends. They are people I talk to and have fun with. We may discuss aspects of our lives with one another but not share the deeper intimate stuff. We may talk about serious subjects but not really reveal the tough stuff in our own personal lives.

Casual friendships are caring, fun, lively, respectful, warm and friendly. We do things together like go out for drinks, to eat or to the movies. There is a small level of support. They are the type of friends who would help you move, but not the type who would cry on your shoulder for support or reveal when they are having issues of any type of a serious nature.

Closer friends that go a bit deeper where they are supportive of one another and can talk freely about personal issues or things that concern us. We both may not reveal absolutely everything about our lives and feelings however it is a mutual relationship filled with trust, honesty, respect and they are willing to listen and they validate my feelings in a supportive manner. I provide the same support and friendship to them as well. It is a deeper level of friendship where there is caring and comfort and support along with all the stuff from the above more casual relationship. These are people I can cry with if needed and they feel comfortable crying with me.

Beyond that is a friend who is your closest deepest friend. Some call it a best friend. It is someone who I can share absolutely everything with; my hopes, my dreams, my fears, my victories, my deepest feelings and my flaws as well as my strengths. In this type of relationship I can be me and not have to worry about putting any guards up. I can be sad, glad, happy, silly, depressed, angry, sappy, elated, and every single other emotion there is with this person.

I would expect to be supported, encouraged, accepted, comforted, and listened to, validated, respected, and trusted. It encompasses all the above traits of friendship but at the very deepest level. I would hope that I would be given the same respect and caring that I give them along with being thoughtful and mindful of what they need from me. I would hope to be loved and accepted exactly as I am and while not trying to change me. I would hope to be given honesty in a way that is also respectful of my feelings and validates that my feelings. I would hope they would stand by me through thick and thin and be there to support me and provide me with encouragement even when I may be wrong.

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I ask my friend the same question because I felt we were not connecting and had not been for quite a few months. I wanted to know where we stood in our friendship. The reply I got was: “You want to know what I think friendship is? I think what anyone else thinks….Go to a Hallmark store and read all the cards on friendship and that’s what I think. You are feeling a little insecure and needy right now. I'm not into it. This is your problem.”

Not very comforting or even thoughtful when I provided a meaningful answer to the same question I was asked. I suppose I thought they were actually interested in my answer to the question. I had to look at this relationship and wonder why I got the response I did.

This abrupt mannerism has surfaced before not only with myself but in other situations as well that I have observed. What I didn’t understand the most was the fact that on a couple of occasions when I have needed a friend because I was feeling stressed or feeling emotional about something, why my past abuse issues were always brought up and pointed to as the blame for everything. In some instances, I am sure my issues have played a part into why I was feeling the way I did, however sometimes we all have bad days where we are just feeling down or frustrated about something. It is human nature.

Even more puzzling to me was the lack of compassion and empathy for someone who is supposed to be regarded as a close caring friend, only to have my feelings and emotions regarded with insensitive harshness. To have my past abuse thrown back in my face as if that gave them the right to be unkind and uncompassionate. Is that really the kind of friendship I want to be a part of?

A clear pattern seemed to emerge as I thought about it; because this was not the first time I was taken aback by such a response that didn’t seem to match the situation. I did a bit of reading and researching to find out personality traits of people who display this type of behavior.

Something popped out at me. A Lesson in a Narcissistic Personality

A narcissistic individual lacks empathy and does not identify with the feelings or needs of others;

A narcissistic individual shows arrogant or haughty behaviors or attitudes and does not care who they offend.

A pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy;

A narcissistic individual is grandiose in their sense of self-importance and exaggerates their achievements and talents. They expect to be recognized as superior without achieving any great accomplishments;

A narcissistic individual has a sense of entitlement.
They have unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment and expect others to automatically comply with their wishes;

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There seems to be a correlation to not being able to deal with other people’s feelings and having an air of arrogance by not caring how their words might hurt or offend the other person. A narcissistic personality just wants to say whatever it is that they want to say no matter if it is hurtful or not. They get extremely offended if the other person wants to respond to what has been said because they want their judgments or words to be the final word.

I’ll give you an example. I had a good friend at the time that was going through some extreme issues and she tried to commit suicide this past summer. (and before anybody thinks anything., no it wasn’t me) This woman felt her husband and family were not there for her and I suppose she felt all alone and in extreme hurt and pain, she ended up in the hospital in the suicide ward on lock down for three days. Another friend (the same friend that has been abrupt to me) called her out on it and told her she was just being selfish and how awful it was that she would manipulate and be so careless to her family and put that thought of suicide out there for her children and grandchildren to deal with. Needless to say the comments were hurtful and felt devastating to her. It certainly didn’t help to lift the spirits of somebody who was already down, depressed and suicidal.

I thought at the time how could someone be so unsympathetic especially to someone who is thinking about suicide who is reaching out for help. I didn’t understand it. I may have thought the suicide attempt was for attention but I would never dream in a million years of saying something like that to somebody when they needed compassion and understanding the most at a time like that. It’s like kicking somebody when they are down. You just don’t do it. At least I don’t. No matter what I think, it isn’t my place to tell them. I show them compassion and caring and try to do what I think is helpful or nurturing to the person in need.

I like analyzing and researching things. I like digging in and seeing what makes people react the way they do. In reading up on the narcissistic personality, I have come to the conclusion that the narcissist cannot deal with other people’s emotions and feelings because they view it somehow as a weakness. Because somewhere along the way, they have felt powerless or weak in an emotional way where they have been overpowered or hurt on an emotional level. To them, expressing feelings or emotions is a weakness and therefore not tolerated.

In this type of thinking they must reason if you don’t let your feelings and emotions show, you can’t ever get hurt again on such a personal deep level. When others around them show their feelings and emotions, it scares them and they shut it down by criticizing them and shifting the blame so they don’t have to look at feelings and emotions within themselves. It is like putting up a protective wall so they don’t have to deal with it.

We all have a bit of narcissistic traits within us, especially teenagers, however when it crosses the line into unhealthy or hurtful relationships, it may be time to take a good look at it and decide if it is the best relationship for you or not.

I have to look at my own actions as well and see where I have pushed their buttons to cause this type of behavior. Maybe I am too needy as a friend. Maybe it is unrealistic to want to have a friend who will be there to lift me up when I am feeling down or to share my feelings when I am hurting or feeling sad. Maybe I should not expect someone to listen to my feelings and to respond back to me in in a respectful nurturing way.

Or is it too much to ask?

Maybe it just wasn’t the right friend.

    "Be who you are and say what you feel...
     Because those that matter... don't mind...
         And those that mind... don't matter."

 

 

Hello Peeps! I am so glad today is Friday and the work week is over! They closed our office early today about 2:00 because we are getting hit hard with a snow storm. We are under blizzard warnings until tomorrow evening and have already gotten 6 inches of snow so far. The anticipated accumulation is supposed to be 15 inches of snow by the time it is all said and done. It took two hours to drive home this afternoon and I am glad we made it home before it really started blowing and freezing everything. Time to stay in and watch movies and stay warm and toasty! Sounds like my kind of plan.

Work has been extremely hectic and very stressed. I handle field support calls for our retail locations and my work load just quadtripled from supporting over 900 stores to being responsible for over 6000 stores! The problem with that is I have no information on the different type systems and merchandise the other brands use in their stores. It has been a difficult task to say the least. 125 positions in our company got eliminated. Thankfully I was not one of those positions, but my coworker was one who had to find another job and unfortunately for me, her whole workload got shifted on my lap in additional to my already full workload. Needless to say I have been in overwhelmed mode for the past three weeks stressed to the max.

This week I was nearly to a breaking point where I thought, man is this really worth it? Wouldn't it be nice to take an early retirement and sell the house and pack up my stuff and head for the mountains or the ocean? I would love to have an opportunity to be able to start up a new venture or business of my own and have the time to write and do artwork and photography. One day.... and I will. I love to dream about things that will come to fruition in the future and one day when I am ready to retire I will have my little cabin in the woods and be able to spend time at the ocean too watching the sunsets and the sunrises.

I found a really cool site this week. It is Writer's Digest.com that has all kinds of really neat writing prompts and exercises for you to do. I love it and am excited about trying some of them out. Some are fun and some are a bit more in depth. Well just wanted to catch up a bit and post since it is a Friday night and I can finally relax and chill a bit.

Have a great weekend Peeps! Catch ya on the flipside!

Bear Hugs,

PolarB ;)

It is good to remember that we are all connected.

We all live together here on Mother Earth and what we do affects everything in the Balance.

Do what you can to treat the Earth and everything in it with Respect.

 

 

 

There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

 

 

Your time here on Earth is brief. Time passes and things change. You have options and choices in which to make your wishes, dreams, and goals become a reality.

When you ask yourself, "Why am I here?" or "Why is this happening to me?" turn to your spiritual source and ask "What is the lesson?"

If you hear a defensive reaction using the words "never" or "always" then you haven't yet learned the lesson. Go deeper and ask yourself, "What is there  for me to learn from this experience?"

When you have learned the lesson, you will always be tested. When the lesson is learned, you will pass the test easily and then you move on to more complex and challenging ones.

You can look back on the incidents in your past and clearly see the lessons you have learned, resisted, and are still repeating today.

Listen with an open heart.

Explore all options.

See your judgements as a mirror.

View each crisis as an opportunity.

Trust yourself.

Believe in yourself.

Look within yourself and to your higher power for guidance on all your choices.

Extend compassion to yourself.

Remember there are no mistakes, only lessons.

Love yourself, trust your choices and remember everything is possible.