The ability to simply hold space for someone is so valuable and so hard to come by...the people jumping in with solutions likely also think they are good listeners. Small talk and platitudes, how tiresome.
I am leaning further into authenticity and enjoying just being the passenger awareness of how I am showing up in that moment and the others' response...keep seeing confirmation that it isn't personal. We're bound to do it the way we do it, and to learn from each new way we encounter. Your desire to relate authentically sounds like a safeguard from sacrificing to the others' "shoulds"...
Other peoples perception of you is powerful if you don’t set boundaries.
Resist dissolving into the homogenized mush!
Also, I'd love to hear how to make avocado yummy, but so far the only way I've succeeded is burying it's flavor ha