

Do Not Feed The Weakness
Sat gives advice on how to best help others who are going through a hard time.
Do Not Feed the Weakness
Summary: Sat gives advice on how to best help others who are going through a hard time.
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Question: You have spoken to us about feeding our own and others’ weaknesses. I have a cousin and a friend who are going through a hard time. My challenge is that it’s hard for me to decide when and how to intervene. I feel as though I have a lot of judgment, trying to judge what is their weakness and what is not. I feel as though I didn’t get the point of Your talk on this subject, because obviously there shouldn’t be any judgment there. Can You please elaborate on how we can help our friends by not feeding their weaknesses? How do we distinguish on our part whether we are judging or getting it right?
Sat: Yes, first of all, I am glad you are clearing it up, because that was certainly not the way that I had wanted you to take it. There is no judgment at all, you just see that someone is putting themselves like a ping pong ball that goes from one side of the table to the other. When they are talking to you there is so much contradiction, there is so much confusion. At that time, My approach is to show a lot of compassion and I try to make that person find some tranquility, some calmness through love and understanding. I give a lot of understanding but if it is not working, I pull Myself out of their ping pong game. By doing that, I keep silence and if it is one of you guys, I just say, “You know what, I am not getting involved where you are standing and apparently you don’t want to come to My side and I don’t want to encourage you to stay where you are staying.” But you can’t say that to your cousin. When you see that your understanding and your effort is not paying off, just be a listener. Just be a listener, not a solver- that’s all. Without judgment!
Sepideh: Dear Sat, The only judgment here is to see the ping pong ball situation that you are talking about, right? When we see that we are just being tossed, that there is no silence or stillness then we know to just pull ourselves out of that game?
Sat: Yes, because you are not helping at all, if you had helped it would have stopped and, in most cases, it is hard to help somebody that doesn’t have any background or interest. Second, when you go back and forth between you and that person, you keep her contradiction alive, by telling one story after another, another, another, another one, just to make sure that you understand that he or she is miserable.
At that point you know the solution is not what they want, you just need to listen, just listen! That’s it. If through your listening the person calms down and asks, “What do you think?” you say, “I don’t know, I really don’t know, I wish I did.” Because what you know is not what they want! That should go with everybody, whether it is someone that is talking to you about the conflict in their life, whether it is our children, whether it is our relative or somebody that we just met - the same rules apply.
US Chat
12/02/21