Sometimes, all you can do is listen.
Have you ever met one of those people that you just can’t seem to get through to? As a Doctor, a healer, a coach and a friend, this is probably the most frustrating and soul maddening experiences I come across.
My life’s work, my mission, my passion and my obsession is to help people, and when I can’t do that, it just eats me up inside.
Because there are some people who are so locked into their own ‘story’ that they are never, ever, going to change. For a few it seems to be a true pathology, almost a genetic predisposition; but for some it is a submission to the never ending storms that have characterized their lives.
Please understand, I don’t judge these people for where they are, for some have been through worse hells than I can ever imagine. I am consistently in awe of the power and nobility of the human spirit to rise up again and again after taking hits that I honestly don’t know if I could handle.
But I also see people who have believed the falsehoods found in the friction of life, and now live their life day to day in a never ending quest to stay where they are, and live in a constant attitude of complaint, negativity and sadness.
For them, the certainty of a known agony is safer than the possible future destruction of a hopeful potentiality.
And while I would love to help them step into the light, I have come to realize that there are people who are just not ready, and may never be so. For some it is because they are too old, and have spent too many years locked into their own world definition to want to change now.
For some, the burden of accepting the responsibility for their own happiness is too great, and they would rather ‘outsource their sentience’ so they always have someone to blame.
As I meet and work with these kinds of people, I have come to the understanding that the only way that I can serve them, after having tried to offer solutions, is to listen to them, and validate their existence.
That doesn’t mean I validate their story, because I am strongly opposed to supporting pathological toxic psychologies, but I can give them the gift of my attention and my love.
When we notice another human being, and spend some of our precious time in an effort to connect with their soul, we are in essence making the statement that they have a value and that they are worthy of our notice.
For certain people, that means more than you can ever imagine.
Today, I invite you to reach out to someone, and let them know that you notice them. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, just maybe a text, an email, a phone call or heaven forbid, a handwritten letter.
Give the gift of notice. It might change someone’s world.
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings