1. Remember, You are not wrong, you are just not helpful.
2. Suspend your disbelief… by listening, asking questions, focusing on the other person. Very powerful way of validating the other person This is just like listening in a meeting.
3. Think about the path it took you to get where you are when it comes to feelings. At meetings, people talk about how they feel. That is the way they get to feel validated because the rest of us sit there and listen. That is what you have to do with Ian and Leslie. When or if they ever want to change themselves, they will, but only if they feel that they are supported. That only happens when you act like you do “around the tables”.
4. What to say when asked “What do you think about this?”
a. Pivot your thinking. (don’t feed the vortex of despair)
b. Encourage, How? Praise, hug, let the person cry, just let them feel their feelings and be there next to them. Not your job to be “helpful”.
5. If Ian can make himself do the things he already knows he wants to do, the whole demoralization of being a failure will go away and that is the source of the depression.
6. Help Ian take a baby step by doing something with him, for even 15 minutes a day. Instead of telling him he is ok as he is, start actually helping him DO things by being a co-worker.
7. Big hopelessness and emotions of self-pity come from feeling “not understood” We don’t understand what he is saying most of the time. All his life. Big disappointment.
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