It’s Nice to Have Good Friends

Headspace Studios. Hi, it's Andy here and welcome to Radio Headspace and to Wednesday morning. I dunno if you have a friend like this, a friend who you can talk to just about anything and it's a friend who won't necessarily judge you in any way. They won't try and necessarily ask you to think in a particular way. They won't try and force their opinion upon you and they won't try to fix the situation for you. They will simply listen to you. I have a friend like this who back in the days when I was sort of training in monasteries and doing that sort of thing who became particularly important to me, I felt it was very difficult to speak my mind, honestly felt like there was a level of expectation in being a monk that everything should just be okay. And of course, sometimes just being a human being just cause you're dressed differently and living somewhere differently doesn't mean that everything's okay. And I remember speaking to him and the thing that I used to enjoy about speaking to him was that there was always a sense of safety. I always felt that I was being met where I was. It wasn't like talking to someone else who had an opinion that they wanted me to subscribe to. He simply listened. And I wonder how often we find that in our lives, I wonder how often we give that to others in our lives. I think very often the intention is wholeheartedly good and positive. Someone tells us they're having a tough time and we wanna try and fix it for them. We want to try and make them feel better. So we try and sort of say hey, looking on the bright side, here's this, here's this. And we try to sort of frame it in a different way. And of course there are times when that's incredibly helpful. I think very often it actually creates a bit of tension in the mind of the person who's having a difficult time. So I dunno about you, but I know that if I feel really stressed out, the last thing I want to hear is someone say oh, just relax, it's fine. Well, in that moment, it doesn't feel fine. So whilst the advice is much appreciated, it doesn't feel relatable and it doesn't resonate with how I feel in that moment. Likewise, if I feel very sad and if I'm crying, I don't mind that. But if someone's saying hey, come on, cheer up, again, it doesn't resonate. Ultimately, it's okay to feel any number of emotions. And if we see someone else experiencing a challenging emotion, our reaction very often might be driven how we feel in ourselves when we experience that emotion. Instead, if we're able to meet that other person where they are, and if they're crying, maybe it's to put an an arm around them and not really to say...