Gifts we can offer those we love that cost everything and nothing all at the same time
• Listening – the willingness to listen without waiting to speak and without formulating a response or without re-arranging what we hear into something we may prefer to hear.
• Time – the willingness to schedule uninterrupted time together.
• Freedom – the willingness to resist taking or assuming control.
• Room for change – the willingness to allow those whom we love the freedom to change, the freedom to make errors, the freedom to be growing in ways we might not predict or expect.
• Thinking out loud – the willingness to allow those whom we love to speak things out as an exercise in exploring and planning.
• The possibility of failure – to be willing to encourage those whom we love to express new ideas and try new experiences with the understanding that they may not work.
• Room to apologize and to make things right – to offer those whom we love the space to express regret without recrimination or an attitude that says “I told you so.”
• Room even to “grow away” – some things the people whom we most love have to learn things alone and without us.
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