A PRECIOUS GIFT

One of the most difficult things anyone can do is open themselves up to another person and be completely vulnerable. Most of us design elaborate emotional defenses to prevent this very thing from happening, defenses we have built and designed since childhood as a bulwark against the very first hurts we endured and all of those that have come since. For a person to lower those defenses, open their heart and mind to another and allow them entrance into their innermost thoughts, fears, worries, shortcomings, anxieties and injuries is often too scary.
Some men think, however, that women do this easily. That is because women often will share with another woman some thoughts, ideas, emotions, issues she would not share with a man. That's natural since, as women, they often have endured many of the same physical and emotional changes and demands and, if nothing else, have a common problem: us. Let's face it, most of us men have not shown interest in what goes on in the hearts and heads of women. Oh, some of us will feign interest in order to date, bed, wed a woman. But few, if any, males maintain a real interest in what a woman thinks, wants, knows, has lived through.
But they should. Because women are incredibly complex, deep, multi-faceted people with so much to tell us; things we should know about them, about how they see the world and how they see us.
That doesn't mean you find a woman, sit her down and just let her talk. That isn't how it works. She may want you to listen and ask questions based on what you hear, proving to her you truly are paying attention. Or she may prefer that you let her decide how much she wants you to know, so you must listen well. She'll know you were listening when you talk to her later about something she said.
Even if you do those things, however, it will take patience, kindness, gentleness, love, trust and an emotional bond to get her to open up her heart and the deepest of her thoughts and secrets to you. But show her patience, kindness, gentleness and love -- form that unbreakable emotional bond and trust -- and what she shares with you will be her most vulnerable self. This is a most precious gift, the greatest honor a woman can bestow on a man. Treasure it like the pearl of great price that it is. You will never, in all of your life, be given anything more valuable.