Giving Advice Vs. Offering Suggestions
How to truly honor another’s human experience.
One of my guides and coaches, Paula Mallis, is the founder of WMN Space in Los Angeles. I recently went through her virtual WMN circle facilitator training and was struck by the simplicity but profundity of the circle’s structure and guidelines. At WMN Space, the circles offer a guided facilitation to help women shift an old pattern into a new story. One of the key takeaways for me, especially as a supporter of our founders and people throughout my life, was the importance and power of offering suggestions rather than giving advice.
What does it mean to not give advice and instead offer suggestions? It means that instead of saying “you should do this or that’’ from a place of superiority, that you come from a place of curiosity and share your experience or whatever you’re inspired to connect on based on the other’s expression. Giving advice feels like ‘ego’, as if “I know better than you and here’s what you should do”. It does not allow us to acknowledge the other, to give them the dignity of owning their own process separate from us. By bringing it back to “me” and my knowing, it blocks or interrupts their own process. Whereas offering suggestions is curiosity-driven, coming from my personal experience and what has positively impacted or served me, and offering that maybe it will help another, take it or leave it. Offering suggestions is not so defiant. In sharing what has worked for me, maybe helpful or not, it allows the sharer to stay in their heart and feel supported and connected rather than move into their mind by feeling defensive or detached. YPO shares a similar structure in their famous forum meetings, as you’re only able to offer up personal experiences in response to someone’s share, using “I” statements and never “you shoulds” .
Another helpful tool alongside offering suggestions based on personal experiences, is to ask permission first if you’re inspired to share something in response. For instance you could say, “Thank you for sharing. I’m inspired by something you said, are you open to a suggestion?”. This allows for the choice to receive it or not. Think in your own life, what’s your experience when someone provides unsolicited advice versus offering a suggestion? I know for myself, I am more open-hearted and willing to hear it when someone is offering a suggestion based on their own experience versus telling me what to do, where instead I start second-guessing myself and feeling tight or defensive. As an observer or listener, I’ve also found it helpful to ask myself “Is what I’m about to say of service to the person I’m with or sharing an experience in?”. This has been helpful to take me out of my mind and the monkey brain of “what should I say” or “what do they want me to say” and instead moves me into feeling and truly being present with the person.
In following the intentions and desires to be together in a way that is holding loving space and sharing in an experience together rather than wanting to fix or improve one another, the dynamic of the overall experience is remarkably elevated. At the WMN circle training specifically, with every participant coming from a place of curiosity rather than from superiority, it allowed me to be more vulnerable and feel more connected to those around me. It felt powerful having witnesses to my own journey and shares, regardless of the theme or prompt, and allowed us all to have a mirroring or shared experience. It permitted us to move beyond the words and into conscious listening and presence, to truly experience one another rather than anticipate what they were going to say or what we should say in response.
During the training, Paula highlighted this quote,“No one can give away wisdom. A teacher can only lead you to it via words. Hoping you will have the courage to look in yourself and find it inside your own consciousness” (from the book The Missing Link by Sydney Banks). Simply put, we can’t even really give advice, as all we can do is offer our own experience and provide suggestions based on what has worked or supported us in our own journey. Giving advice or “giving away wisdom” isn’t effective, for all each of us truly needs is already inside us and it’s us to turn inward and follow our own consciousness to find the answers. Besides ‘you can show them the water but you can’t force them to drink’, so all you can do is plant seeds of inspiration based on your own experiences and they’ll blossom in another if they’re meant to. Our partner Tony Robbins similarly says, “You can’t change someone, but you can influence them”. Think of ‘offering suggestions’ as positively influencing another.
As observers and facilitators, and by holding loving space for others, we are able to honor the gift of being able to “see” through the eyes and ears of the heart rather than being stuck in our own minds and pulled out of the experience of truly witnessing and experiencing another. Coming from a place of sharing in an experience and offering suggestions, allows us to slow down and have the awareness of and practice to truly listen. It sounds so simple, but to not speak until someone is done speaking and to take a breath before responding (from your heart and not your head), is shockingly rare. I couldn’t believe how novel it felt to just be witnessed and sincerely listened to, rather than the usual quick-witted responses I get and offer up myself all too often. The opportunity to give ourselves and others space, rather than assuming “me too” or “I know what you mean”, is transformative. To be able to pause in silence, even if it feels like forever, and allow yourself to really be with them is such an intimate opportunity we often overlook. It also taught me to not be afraid of silence. To reside and be comfortable in the spaciousness of silence and appreciation.
“So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.” — Krishnamurti
By being fully present and only offering up suggestions if inspired to do so, you’re trusting that you and others have all the inner tools and wisdom needed to complete the work at hand. You are also being of service to yourself and others when you hold loving space without the impulsive need or cultural expectation to respond or be right. As a teacher, facilitator and space-holder for those in your life you are acknowledging the insight that resides within you while acknowledging the insight that is present for the other person. This is ultimately the role of the teacher.
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