Bucketboot

[smokingboot]

Well, I learned something yesterday. I can listen without having my entire body twisted into a full-nelson! No really!

I learned this on the counselling course. We had to deal with one of the core components: Unconditional Positive Regard. Perhaps there is no such thing as 'unconditional'. Perhaps we all make conditions, and I am sure we all have lines drawn in the sand, things we are not prepared to hear. Triggers perhaps. It's not about being TufEnuff to counsel someone who has done something horrible, its about knowing one's limitations and being honest about them.

Last night I came across a limit that I don't have. Something I could bear to listen to, and feel the pain of the person, without condoning their action. Guess this is something I should be able to do anyway, considering the superior listening powers required of anyone who gets close to me, but it surprises me that kneejerk emotional reaction isn't an unchangeable part of my personality, that I can detach and step back without coldness, that a terrible revelation, subsequent judgement of wrongtm, and angry response do not need to come in the same package.

And that is important. I don't know what it means, but I am glad to have tripped over it, and record it now, for a time when I look back and can judge what I made of this, what it meant to me long term. Perhaps it won't mean anything at all. We shall see.





I am thinking of getting a paid account. Twelve quid for a year, seems OK, but I know the moment my lj looks just as I like, I will suddenly not want to write on it. Do I want a paid account because I intend to download messages from my mobile phone? Put up photographs of my amazing life? Hold fascinating polls? No, it is because illuminating_dragon has made some exquisite icons, and I want to use them all!

If liking pretty things is shallow, I fear I am a mere bucket of a being!

Comments

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

Counselling thing sounds interesting - what course is it you're doing? Is this to do with your psychic work or something else entirely?

And yay to pretty icons!

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

it's a 10 week intro to the concepts behind counselling, 3 hours a week; if I turn out to have any aptitude for it, I may take it further. Right now, I certainly want to. It has nothing to do with my work - though the helplessness and pathos of some of my clients has certainly made me feel I want to do something more tangible for them - but from the suggestions and help of bad_moon_rising, a man I can only describe as the perfect careers adviser!

[bad-moon-rising.livejournal.com]

I find, from my end anyway, that in a professional setting it is much easier to be dispassionate about people. I certainly wouldn't subject myself socially to some of my clients. I remember one chap who part way through a sesssion explained that he could no longer work with children or young people. All his experience was in that field.

well yes

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

From the others in the class, it seemed that detachment even in this professional setting would be impossible; what happens in that situation is that apparently, you refer onwards. It made me feel strange to think that I might be the one such a person could be referred to, simply because my buttons are different. Not better or worse, just different.

A strange feeling. I still don't know what to make of it.

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

Extra userpics will be next. It's a slippery slope.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I feel myself slowly but surely sliding...
Hmm. Forget 'slowly!'