When asking for advice from a friend, instead of it being handled with great care, for the one who is asking is opening up him/herself to you, exposing his/her helplessness to you, trusting you– he is using the space given to him by being dominant, all knowing, deciding instead of you, telling you what to do. As though when asked to give advice he is giving up all your rights for you to think for yourself. They are taking over control.
They don’t understand that when asked for advice it is not because the friend is all wise and the one asking for advice – is all stupid, this is not the c.ase at all. What is needed is not a ‘know it all’ response, not a definite answer, (for this is ‘a closing option’) but to join the question of the one asking for advice with a greater question of his own, so that both would ask the question together, and together they might find the rout to the deeper level, where only there, a new fresh view is possible.
When seeking for advice – we do so because we are stuck, the one being asked for advice cannot possibly have the keys, for he doesn’t live in the skin of the one seeking advice. Whatever he knows, most chances that the seeker for advice knows himself, he doesn’t need a teacher, or a master, to tell him what to do, he needs a friend to join him in his search, so they can search together. If he is being asked for advice he should come back with a bigger, deeper, wider spectrum, more conscious – question.
We are never short of advices, everyone has got a few. But we are short of supporting friends, who will do the empathic act and widen and deepen our search, by joining it, because only together we might find the right direction.
Gabriel