What's the difference between...

counsel and "fluff that makes you feel better"?

It's a question that I am pondering in (hopefully) not too bitter tones today. Counsel, as I receive it frequently is hurtful and demoralising. It makes real all of the horrible things that I hope aren't as true about me as they feel and causes me to feel like retreating into my cocoon of self pity and woe.
Further, I get defensive, and thus am frequently accused of being proud, stubborn and difficult to counsel. Which just further annoys me!! :)
Then there is the "fluff that makes me feel better". I receive that from a few select and caring friends. I walk away from receiving said fluff calmed, more tranquil and ready to try and stave off the inevitable rise of inadequateness that seems to be flooding into my life from all quarters!

One makes me feel like an animal, backed into a corner, trapped and ready to fight; the other gently coaxes me out of said corner and causes me to curl up harmless in my bed!

My question to the great ethereality of cyber space is the following... why can not counsel be wrapped up in "fluff that makes you feel better"? Why do they seemingly have to be two separate things?

The "fluff that makes me feel better" is given and received in love from those that I consider friends, they have my best interests and my best self in their hearts and I feel that they safeguard them and remind me of them when I forget in the face of all the "counsel" I receive from other sources!

To those who give the "fluff that makes me feel better", if you were to offer me nothing else for the rest of our time on the earth, I will always love you for the fluff and the making me feel better. Thank you.

Finally, may I learn the invaluable lesson to love those who do not love in return. I think that it is very easy to love those who gently coax one out of one's corner. But, those who trap one there (often with a big stick to poke you in the eye!), are much more difficult to love because one doesn't feel love back!
I think that it is surely one of the Saviour's greatest gifts, and once accepted and activated in our lives will, most assuredly make us more like Him.