Personal Narrative: My Last Court Hearing

My thoughts on the book remind me of how I like to hang back and listen to what others have to say. Most individuals will come to me thinking that I have all the answers to their problems, when in fact I do not. Therefore, I will most often fall into the listener, with no one actually wanting to hear what I have to say. It is during this time I find myself feeling overwhelmed, and avoided, to the conversation. In my last court hearing, I have to set and listen to a women tell everyone how much she could not stand her son, and how she wanted him out of her house. Then the mother of the young man blames me for all her problems because I had him released from a detention center after four years. Whereas, instead of screaming at her that she was
a worthless individual and did not deserve to be called a mother, I just had to sit there and smile. This reminds me of Petersons description of the stomach, heart, and head, and the thud. Since, during the entire conversation with all people involved in the meeting I was the only one who was called out for not providing enough support to a mother I felt was worthless. Therefore, my smiling reflex was just a way for my own mind to escape the entire proceeding, to prevent a complete blow up of my own emotions aimed at those in the room. It was during this time I did try very hard to reflect back on Petersons outline of active listening. Yet, the desire to sit there and actually hear what was being said, you can say my mind checked out. Therefore, I feel that even reading the text, and using it at work with some clients, it was during that particular meeting that everything I had read did not register with my brain, heart, and stomach, I was to emotional, and the problem was not even mine to own but I felt that I would be the only one who would ever own the problem and try and solve the situation