empathy | Julia Kristina Counselling

Why Getting Unsolicited Advice Often Feels Icky.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:43-07:00June 28th, 2016|General|

Have you ever wondered why it is that most of us think other people want, no NEED our advice and should absolutely do what we say and make the choices we can clearly see are best from them - but then when the tables are turned and they come to us and tell us what to do, or how we should live our lives or what choices WE must make, we get irritated, resistant, frustrated and feel like they "really don't know what they are talking about"? So we all want to give our golden, must-be-revered [...]

5 Things You Can Do To Become An Exceptional Listener.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:51-07:00April 27th, 2015|General|

“We have two ears and one mouth. This is so we can listen twice as much as we speak.” –Aboriginal Wisdom Ahh communication. When we hear the word communication, the first word that usually comes to mind is ‘talking’. But that’s only the half of it. The other half is listening and that part often gets forgotten. And believe it or not, being a good listener is often more crucial to being an excellent communicator than talking. Most people can talk relatively well, but very few actually listen well. If you really want to stand [...]

It’s More Important to Listen than to Give Advice.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:52-07:00January 15th, 2015|General|

When is the best time to give advice? And the answer is… never. And by never, I mean not ever. Unless, of course, we specifically ask the person if they are looking for our thoughts or suggestions regarding their troublesome situation, AND they reply “yes!” or they explicitly request our advice (but even then the person rarely actually wants your advice – they just want you to fix their problem for them which, of course, none of us can actually do). You see, many of us believe in earnest that we are the experts on [...]