It helps to acknowledge their issue first, maybe commiserate, and only share something directly related. Then you need to immediately hand the conversation back to them, and listen some more.
Don’t say, “Oh, that reminds me of something…” and then talk about seeing a dog on your most recent three-week summer vacation to France.
Yeah, it can be tough to balance it. Sometimes, especially if it’s a loved one, just listening and letting them vent and then offering if there’s anything you can do to help/support them is all they want. Even if you have something that’s directly relevant, it may not be the right time to share. There isn’t really a silver bullet guideline to these types of things since it can be very context dependent.
Thank you for saying this. I know a lot of people have a hard time with it, but once you establish trust and connection, you can then share your experiences that are similar with most people. There’s some who are very little sense of self security that hearing this will break that trust.
It helps to acknowledge their issue first, maybe commiserate, and only share something directly related. Then you need to immediately hand the conversation back to them, and listen some more.
Don’t say, “Oh, that reminds me of something…” and then talk about seeing a dog on your most recent three-week summer vacation to France.
Yeah, it can be tough to balance it. Sometimes, especially if it’s a loved one, just listening and letting them vent and then offering if there’s anything you can do to help/support them is all they want. Even if you have something that’s directly relevant, it may not be the right time to share. There isn’t really a silver bullet guideline to these types of things since it can be very context dependent.
Thank you for saying this. I know a lot of people have a hard time with it, but once you establish trust and connection, you can then share your experiences that are similar with most people. There’s some who are very little sense of self security that hearing this will break that trust.