A Phone Call From A Distressed Friend
Yesterday I had a call from a dear friend and unforunately she was incredibly distraught because she just didn’t know what do to with life. She looked around her and all she could see was her friends moving forward with their lives and as far as she was concerned she was standing still and maybe even moving backwards.
I had a good long conversation with her and managed to make her laugh and also made her realise that no matter if she continued to allow herself to feel this way and not take action to change, then in 5 years times she’s be complaining about exactly the same thing.
If you have a friend in a similar situation, let me just warn you, that sympathy does nothing and infact, it can sometimes even encourage them to wallow in the their self pity even more so! If you are adament that you want to help that person, you have to ignite a spark in them. Snap them out of their depressed state. Even if initially they have to get angry….great let them be angry, let that fire in their belly ignite and then you can work on transforming that fire into desire for transformation.
What ever you do, get them away from the depressing allure of T.V. and get the into a proactive state!
Read also…
5 Empowering Tips For Helping Others!
Stuck And Not Sure What To Do With Life?
Sorry to hear your friend was so down. I hope things are better now.
Hm…..I think I just talked about how to help someone be proactive in my story about my feisty friend Margaret! See my reply to the “5 empowering tips for helping others!” post!! 🙂
It’s very true…if you listen to someone with a problem and just keep agreeing with them that it’s a bad situation with no obvious exit, they won’t be encouraged to solve the problem, just view it as a place they are stuck with no way out.
Good point, Amit.
Hey Michelle,
Yeah I spoke to her ealier and she said that she had a lovely evening out with friends and that she’s feeling much better already.
Maybe I’m wrong about the sympathy thing, but I always found with me, that when people gave me sympathy in the past, that I craved more of that, and so when I didn’t get it, I would go looking for it.
(There are times of course when sympathy is needed depending on the situation)
True! Sympathy never helps! and there are a few who act as if they are depressed just to get the attention of the others!
Hi Prasanna! 🙂
I agree that in situations like these, that it very rarely helps. There are times, when sympathy is needed, such as; when someone has suffered some sort of berevement.
You’ve given me an idea for a follow up post to this one. 🙂 Thanks