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

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.