奇速英语时文：该如何为困境中的朋友提供力所能及的帮助呢？

yscbook · 发表于 2014-12-12 17:20:01

如果你的朋友有一些非常糟糕的消息--你反应的最佳方式是什么呢？让我们想象一下，他们或许是婚姻破裂...或许是亲戚逝世。你会说什么呢？现在就让我们来问下我的同事Nuala O'Sullivan，看她是如何应对朋友的坏消息的：

好吧，一个周日的上午，我的朋友来看我，我们当时正喝着咖啡，然后她说‘我丈夫离开我了’。这着实令人惊讶。我想我必须说‘哦，上帝啊’或者‘那太糟糕了’又或者...等一些诸如此类的话。然而，我并不记得我说了什么，只记得我走过房间到我朋友坐的地方给了她一个深深的拥抱。我想，大多数人在那种情况下都会那样做。

因此我们说‘哦，上帝啊’或者‘那真糟糕’或者‘真麻烦’。

而在有人有一些坏消息时，我们不会说‘那真遗憾’或者说‘那太糟糕了’。

然而，话并不能起多大作用。我只记得我走过房间到我朋友坐的地方给了她一个深深的拥抱。

我们常常从其他人那里听到某人的一些坏消息。在这种情况下，主动去找到你的朋友向她提供帮助，比起等你的朋友来找你要好。

我认为，当人们正在经历艰难时期时，我们能做的一件重要事就是去聆听。我们对他们说‘你什么时候想聊天，就来找我或给我打电话’，因为我觉得当人们难过时，唯一能够起到实质作用的就是能够和人们谈论这件事。

这里有一种实用的方法，即你可以这样说‘有什么我可以做的，就告诉我...也可以是一些简单的事，诸如购物、照看婴孩、聆听或者那些事中的一部分。

译：

If your friend has some very bad news - what's the best way for you to react? Let's imagine that his or her marriage breaks down… or maybe a relative dies. What would you say? Now let’s ask my colleague Nuala O'Sullivan about how she reacted to her friend's bad news:

Well, one Sunday morning, my friend came round to visit me, we were just having a cup of coffee and then she said 'My husband's left me'. It was really shocking. I think I just must have said 'Oh my god' or 'that's awful' or…, something like that. But, rather than remembering what I said, I do remember going across the room to where she was and just giving her a huge hug… and I think that's the thing most people would do in that situation.

So we say 'Oh my god' or 'That's awful' or 'That's terrible' or…

We don't say 'That's a pity' or 'That's too bad' when someone has really bad news.

But, words aren't everything. I do remember going across the room to where she was and just giving her a huge hug.

Very often, we hear about someone's bad news from someone else. In this situation, it's perhaps better to go to your friend and offer help, than wait for your friend to come to you.

I think when people are going through a hard time, one of the key things that we all do is we're just there to listen. And we say to them 'Any time you want to talk, just come round or just give me a phone call', because I think when people are sad, that's the one thing that actually really does help - is being able to talk about it.

There's a practical way, you say things like 'If there's anything I can do just let me know'… and it could be something simple like going for shopping, or it could be babysitting or, you know, or listening, or any of those things.

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