Helping Others

     How can we help others? One of the great questions you may have is helping other people. How can we accomplish this? Our friends may come to us and want our help and the great thing is you can actually help them by simply listening. How? We listen to them and hear what they say. When we listen to them after we are done we can reflect back how they are feeling. An example is say a friend says they are mad at a roommate because they never clean up after themselves and we then say that is frustrating. We help them by seeing how they feel. We can reflect back content of the story and we can even help by asking questions when necessary.

     This helping is in no way a replacement to therapy or having a counselor but in many situations, we can help them by simply listening to them. Listening and having empathy for those we are helping can be difficult but It can be had easier with good friends. There may be times we simply can't and shouldn't help. One experience that comes to mind is marital conflicts friends may be going through. Your friend really needs to go to their spouse and discuss the conflict they are having. We don't want to be biased in our advice to them and also, we don't need to see their spouse as negative or terrible because they are going through a rough time. Marriage can be tough and all couples disagree in some way or another but if you see that they are going on about it then suggest they talk with their spouse and if that doesn't work then suggest they go see an expert or a therapist to help them. These experts have skills and licensing that we as a helper may not have at the moment.

     Even if we don't have every skill to help them the best help we can give is listening to them and empathizing with them. This may come easy or may be hard for you. Regardless know that you can help your friends. Try not to give too much advice but in the role of a friend you may give suggestions. See if listening and helping them see the story help them come to conclusions. You may be surprised with what you find.

Hopefully while helping your friends you can be great active listeners. That is sometimes all we need is a friend to listen.