When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, you have not done what I asked. When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings. When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as that may seem. All I ask is that you listen, not talk, or do - just hear me.
Advice is cheap.
25 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless. When you do something for me that I can do for myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness. But, when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and get about the business of understanding what's behind this irrational feeling. If the above seems helpful and logical to you, it will to others as well.