2023 Review

群體。關係

hierarchy定義了人與人的關係，但卻不能定義我們與那些愛我們的人的關係。很高興在外地重遇幾位重要的人&長輩，你們的存在實是我的福氣。謝謝你們多年來的關心愛護。



早前被邀請參與一個小組，與諸位友好一起細讀友人的信仰長文並作出討論。嘗試過參與編輯的工作後，對於出版社的員工多了一份尊重。另一方面，這次的邀請亦令我倍添對於母校的思念。謝謝師長們仍然記得我這個學生。（多謝巧儀幫我買書～）

雖然離開了第一個棲身的城市，但是我很感恩我們仍能保持與幾個party 的連結，在假期時共聚分享近況。謝謝你們的厚愛。

人或許會有美好的願望，但有些關係總是理還亂。畢竟有些東西已積累了一輩子，只有自身才能決定該如何處理。努力過就好，起碼我不會為此而後悔。

工作與新的城市生活

在新家園的第一份工作有苦有樂，一方面認識了一些頗好的同事，另一方面亦第一次忍不住在office 與某君小吵一場。最有喜感的應該是我在離職前幾天被幾位高層多次問到的問題：「我覺得你做得不錯，還以為你會應徵某部門的主管角色……為何要走呀？」。在離開前的一週，我從未聽過任何人在意過我們那一team。 難怪這部門的前人們無一留下來，甚至把所有的檔案也刪掉才離去。

第二季搬到了倫敦生活，認識了不少來自不同背景的新同事，同學及教會弟兄姊妹。或許我們的溝通不能像說母語一般順暢，但我深信我們還是可以有深度的交流分享。

目前來說，我想我還是比較喜歡大城市的生活多一點。至於定居這問題，還是留待晚一點再決定吧。


聆聽，零聽

早前在’未竟的目標’一文中提到我開始了修讀一個入門的輔導課程，朝這個方向踏出另一步。這門學科幫助我更為敏銳於自身與他者的情緒與行為反應，也令我對於人與人之間的互動有更多的反思－－如牛的「反芻」一般的反思，反思，再反思。我留意到一些痕跡與烙印怎樣跨越時間與空間，持續不斷地影響那些正在苦苦掙扎的人。在某些場境中，信仰成為某些人戰勝的憑證；同樣地也有一些個體看過自己本來的面目後，隨即忘了他的相貌如何，更用舌頭不當的對待他者。但願我可以好好善用自己的舌頭，避免說出不該談的東西。


Reason to study the CPCAB Level 2 course
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/11/reason-to-study-cpcab-level-2-course.html

Sharing at UK church -- Listening
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/03/sharing-at-uk-church-listening.html

就是開不了口
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/08/blog-post.html

言說與解讀 II
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/06/ii.html


「心理史學」

這一年到訪了幾個城市，逛了很多個博物館。每次逛完後都會想起阿寶的名言以及心理史學。 雖然這並不是一門真正的學科，但我認為它解釋了歷史對於人們的真正意義－－不在於未卜先知，而是明白人類的集體行為怎樣呈現出一些規律，某程度上成為命運共同體，如LCL 之海一般無分彼此，不論身份地位、價值觀……

曾經聽人說過一句頗有意思的說話：「在無數的小事上做錯決定也不打緊，最重要的是在人生最重要的幾個關頭做對決定」。那麼，什麼才是最重要的幾個關頭？有人說是找對的另一半，有人說是找對的職業……對你我來說，又是什麼？

逛博物館
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/04/blog-post.html


Remember me

這一年看了Elemental & Coco ,當中的畫面不斷的令我想起往事，想起很多面孔。有時在夢中見到諸君，醒來那刻真的十分痛苦。或許思念會是一種永遠存留的狀態？

扉掩于暮，居人之離思方深；
草綠有時，友人之歸期難必。

理性與感性之間
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/06/blog-post.html




One more thing
在高談闊論時，我們總可以說出至理名言；
當危難臨到，人會如何回應？
所信的道會否被遺忘，成為空談的東西？

治國平天下實在離我太遠，
能夠將信仰踐行在修身齊家上，於願足矣

Conditions of Worth

I think I am quite comfortable to provide feedback to helpee. It’s because I believe providing feedback is a good way to show that I’m really listening to the helpee during the section and I can then share honest comment to help people grow. In general, I prefer not to give harsh feedback. The rationale behind is that I think people wish to listen to people’s feedback regarding their own situation, but actually they don’t wish to listen comment that make them feel bad. To balance the need of providing honest feedback and helpee’s humanity, what I always do is to start with praise and follow with constructive comment. For example, someone told me he is exhausted because of busy life. After talking for a while, I realized that’s because of his intension of over-promise and attachment to friends. Then I told him I can feel that he loves his friends a lot, thus he is willing to spend a lof of time with his friends. However, I noticed his action make himself very tired. Thus I suggested him not only care about needs of his friends, but is also important to take care to his own physical and mental health. I found that this is a good way to deliver the feedback and helpee is happy to listen my feedback when I use such indirect approach. Although the above way is useful in most of the time, sometimes I still feel difficult to provide feedback when I heard difficult stories, such as emotions due to bereavement. It’s always a challenge to balance the need of caring helpee’s emotion and providing appropriate feedback during the section. In such difficult moments, I tend to not talking too much to prevent saying something harmful. I believe silence is golden in some scenario. 

Regarding conditions of Worth, I noticed that the experience that happened in my childhood shaped my personal value and behaviour. When I was a kid, I was inspired by a prayer that called ‘The Prayer of St. Francis’. One of the key sentences of that prayer mentioned ‘grant that I may not so seek to be consoled, as to console’.  And I found that I internalized this value. I always think that it is critical to put other’s needs beyond my own needs, and I think this is the best way to show my love and respect to others. And I think this is the way that I think I am valuable to the others. For example, when my friends and I hang out together, I always act as a listener, and I prefer to not to talk too much about my emotions and recent struggles. Instead, I always care about my friends needs. I’m not saying the value from my belief is a bad thing. But when I become an adult, I noticed that the message I take on board from kid stage causing me put insufficient attention to my own needs and feelings, but always focus on the others first. As a result, I spent a few years to learn how to express my feelings to my family and friends properly in right timing. On one hand, I still wish to show my caring to people that I care. And on the other hand, I don’t want to neglect my feelings. After spending quite a lot of effort, I think I can now treat my own feelings properly and can continue to use my ability to help my friends via talking therapy. 

Listening and responding skills

Listening and responding skills are very important to the helping interaction because that’s the way that helper shows their understanding about helpee’s experience and assist helpee to see themselves more plainly. A few weeks ago I had an hour to share my recent experience with my life coach, and I shared my struggle about the future plan for the next two to three years. During the conversation, I shared my concern about where to settle in long run, career pursuit, and so on. During the first half of the section, my coach applied restating skill and reflecting skill frequently to make sure he understood what I said. On the other hand, he tried to repeat words that I mention repeatedly during the conversation, such as uncertainty and financial stability. His action helped me a lot because that confirms he recognise my main concern from the twenty minutes sharing. After I shared my situation and my concern, my coach started to use his own words to sum up what I said during the last twenty minutes. The summarising skills assisted me to express what I said in a few sentences, so that we can bring those content to the next procedures of the coaching section. When I rethink the coaching section. I can still recall the feeling of being understood by the appropriate usage of the responding skills mentioned above. That’s very valuable and that enhance my willingness to share more because I know that the opposite side is aware of my saying and feeling underneath. 

Apart from talking about my experience of experiencing good listening and responding skills, I’d like to talk about the power of silence. During the lecture time, we’ve gone through a lot of verbal ways to connect with helpee and create an environment that convey receptivity. Some people might think that the best way to help the others is to provide useful feedback and suggestions throughout the whole helping session. However, I think it’s only a myth, not truth. As a helper, sometimes keeping silence is a good way to participate and is beneficial to the helping section, verbal ways are only partial of our toolbox. There are a few importance of silence. Firstly, silence provides time for helpee to think before they say anything further. It is a way for helper to allow helpee to organise what he/she wish to talk after shared many information, allowing a short interval for them to pause before they talk further.  Secondly, silene is also a good way to facilitate listening. When helper is keeping silence, he/she can put most of the focus on listening what the helpee is talking about and observing how the body gesture reflect the emotions of helpee. If the helper spend too much time on talking, it’s difficult for helper to do the things mentioned above. Thirdly, silence is also beneficial to helper because that allows helper to plan the next move during the time of silence. Helper can organise the content that the helpee shared and think of the best way to respond, such as paraphrasing with empathy, raising questions to remind helpee the existence of inconsistency or other counselling skills. To conclude, the power of silence is larger than our imagination. It’s worth to keep silent wisely when helper participate in a helping section. Sometimes it’s more useful than keep talking and try to persuade helpee to do something to react to their life events. 

To be listened to and empathically understood

Talking is one of the activities that happened in our daily lives, but that doesn’t mean that every conversation we have are in good quality. The core reason is because quite a lot of people did not really listen to other’s sharing, and they are too keen on giving advise or express their ideas. If we wish the helpee felt that they were listened and empathically understood, helpers must use listening skills wisely. Firstly, non-verbal language is the skill that frequently use throughout the communication. Even though people are not saying any words, their cues and expressions can reflect their reaction regarding what the helpee said. Besides, non-verbal communication is beyond race and culture, even people from different countries are able to communicate via this way. Take siting position as an example, helpee is able to recognise if the helper is really interested to what they say. This can be recognised by how the helper sit on the chair. If the helper lean a little forward towards the helpee, this is an obvious signal to show he/she is interested in what the helpee is talking about. And that will encourage the helpee to share more about their experience. Of course, facial expression is another powerful way to express empathy and understanding towards the helpee. Even no words are used, these communications can show that helper is really listening. 

Apart from non-verbal communication, open-ended questions is another good way to show helper are really focusing on the sharing of helpee. Sometimes helpee will only mention a very brief picture about their experience. That might because of incapability of self-reflection or helpee is having numerous hard feeling, thus he/she can only disclose a little. If helper is able to listen carefully and raise open-ended questions, a good opportunity will be created for helpee to further explain the situation or elaborate their emotion. I’m not saying helper should not use yes or no questions or leading questions, but those questions will limit the helpee’s answer. And helper may miss the chance to explore ideas and feelings of helpee. As a result, I’d say helper should use those questions with caution. 

Without a doubt, skills are important for helpers to assist helpee. But at the same time, it’s also important to realize what kind of blocks to listening are affecting helper. No matter experienced helper or normal people, blocks to listening always exist due to various reason. For myself, distractions in the environment is a critical externa, blocks. I am quite sensitive to noises nearby and those noise constitute strong interruptions. My concentration will be diminished and thus I can’t pay full attention to the others. Other than distractions in the environment, pre-existing judgements is one kind of internal blocks for me to listen to the others. As mentioned in previous journal, I was grown up in a Christian background and thus most of my value are compatible to my faith. When I listen to other’s sharing, I found that my brain will generate some judgements unconsciously.  For example, I found that I’m quite hard to show empathy to men that have extramarital affair because I think this violate my belief, and I will have strong biases to those people.  As a result, I need to pay extra effort to disregard those judgements during the helping session.  

Prejudices and its effect

 

In my own experience, prejudices is easily established within the society. I was grown up in a monoethnicity society that almost 90% are Chinese. Because of the homogeneity, it’s highly likely to meet friends that are from the same ethnicity. And at the same time, the crime rate of South Asians are higher than average. As a result, it’s easy for people to build up perception that many South Asians (in my hometown) are criminals and thus we should not get in touch with these people. Because of the above prejudices, I seldom communicate with South Asians even though my high school are very close to one South Asians community. Besides, I will always hold my pocket tight when I see there are some South Asians nearby. 

On the other hand, family is another environment that create prejudices. When I was a child, my parents always emphasis only people with low education level will be blue-collar workers. Although I know their rationale is to encourage me to study hard, I still brainwashed by their point of view about blue-collar workers, I always think that they are people that are lazy when they are kids. 

The above prejudices are reformed after I moved to UK. In the workplace and church, I have opportunities to meet people from various background. ’m able to listen their story and have more understanding about every person I met. During the communication with different people, I realised that it’s not reasonable to judge people based on their occupation or ethnicity. Working as a blue-collar worker not necessary because people are lazy, but that might because they have better skills and abilities in a non-office setting. After those interaction, I changed my mind and I tried to use new viewpoints to see people that are different. 3.2 After talking about my own experience about how prejudices was created in society and family setting, I’d like to further discuss the importance of helper to be aware of their difference with the helpee. As a metropolitan, London is full of people from different backgrounds and they all have their unique culture, ideas and value system. As a result, it’s not surprising that helper may have great probability to meet helpee that is very different. It’s critical for helper to be aware of their difference because the unconscious bias in helper’s mind will affect how helper treat the helpee when they have a section. For example, helper may have their own religion and thus will have some unintentional judgement towards helpee that have different sexual orientation or value about relationships. If helper is able to identify their unconscious bias and understand how their automatic serotypes works, then they can take action to create a non-judgemental environment for helpee to share their experience and difficulties. 

Take myself as an example, one of my relatives is keen on gambling and sometimes he mentioned his difficulties about living cost. Since I think gambling is a bad behaviour and do not agree with the act of earning money driven by greedy, I found that it’s difficult for me to show empathy towards his situation. In my mind, I always thought that his situation might have been improved a lot if he gave up gambling. As a result, I’m not willing to build a close relationship with him because of this kind of bias. And I’m not willing to put effort to understand his life experience.