helping people figure out their desires without taking responsibility for their self-awareness

[belenen]

icon: "tree wisdom (photo of a large tree with roots underwater and trunk reflected in still waters, thick woods behind)"When I suspect that someone wants something, I usually ask them, "do you want [this thing]?" and it used to be that if they said "I don't know" I would ask more questions to help them figure it out. Somehow within the last month

Comments

[hardigrin]

<3 Yay! To not being driven by fear! *clinks* That might be a new best toast.

I'll almost always respond with "I don't know, here are all the factors" (unless the answer is toaster), but I don't mean it as a request for help; I'm just trying to answer the question as honestly and as completely as possible. I usually appreciate (or at least don't mind) people trying to help me figure out the answer, but I wanted to make sure you didn't feel pressured by the habit. :)

[hardigrin]

Oh, also, I found this really interesting, because in the past while, I've gone in the opposite direction, but also to protect myself? I found it really upsetting when I realized people were not checking in with themselves enough to know what they wanted and would therefore either 1) Fail to ask me for something that would help them out or 2) Promise me something they were unable or unwiling to give.

And that left me feeling like people were hurt and I could have avoided it and it was just all terrible, so I've been doing a LOT of double checking on people's processing or poking an "I don't know" until I have a best guess from them.

Only when I have the spoons for it though. *shrugs*