My Personal Challenge

This is one of my hardest things: how to be a good listener--and NOT a pushy advice-giver-- when someone you know and love is hurting, and there are easy ways out. I struggle with this. I struggle deeply. One of my feelings about therapy is that the best therapists are not necessarily the most insightful people (though many of them are) but they are gifted at helping you to see what you are doing wrong, or could do better, or could be open to, without making you clench up and scream NO NO NO NO NO!!!!
Because the truth of it is, none of us can hear anything until we are open, and ready to hear. Until then, it is like we are deaf. When I first started therapy--and I WANTED to be there--I had searched long and hard to find the right person--in the middle of sessions sometimes my mind would just go off. I couldn't hear any more. I could repeat back words, like a UN interpreter on rewind, but I could not feel them or internalize them. I simply shut down. My brilliant therapist figured out a way to talk to me. She would write me stories. They were elaborate metaphors made up of crazy characters in a fantasy land, who had many many obvious parallels to my life. In that form I could take in the lessons. They could seep into my subconscious and begin to change me. I couldn't listen to stories about Hilary MacGregor, but I COULD listen to stories about the sad, gypsy Zora guitarist (me, in these metaphors).
So many of the things we struggle with are so obvious to all around us. It is easy for those we love to see what makes us angry, miserable, scared, or stuck. And it is hard, when someone you love is in this place to not say, well, obviously you need to just stop X-ing. Especially if they seek you out to complain, if not to seek advice. But if you do give too much, you only drive that person away. So I am trying. I am trying to learn how to listen without seeming judgemental. And also to be open to those who try to show me what I need to know better. Sometimes I think we are surrounded by pools of wisdom in the company of those we love. They know us. They know what we need. They see what makes our souls sick, and our hearts sing. But if any of us are not strong enough to hear the help, the advice, the insights--however simple and naive they are -- all we can do is listen. But--if there is anyone out there who has mastered the art of being a good listener, without launching into giving advice, which can seem like judgement, please o please send me some words of wisdom. I am open. I promise!