Earlier today during a group session with Phase One and Phase Two clients, I asked them to write a sentence in seven words of their feelings at that moment.
One of them, three day fresh from detox center arrived on The House door step with complete package been there done that attitude said he didn't want to write on a piece of paper I gave to each of them. He'd rather had me wrote on a white board.
"Lovely, what is it?"
" I don't want to be here".
So I wrote on a white board, I do not want to be here.
"Do you mean here in this room or here in a program?"
He tilted up his chin, his eyes spoke first, what are you gonna do about it? and said, "Here in this room."
4 pairs of eyes traveled from him to me and back to him waiting for my reaction.
2 pairs of eyes stared at their sneakers.
3 pairs of eyes looked in the space in front of them.
I caught EL, one of 3 pairs of eyes slowly took a deep breath, dropped both of his hands between his knees, silently counting to ten. He kept staring at the space in front of him.
Someone cleared his throat.
"Where would you rather be?"
"Anywhere but here."
"Okay, you can leave now,"
He looked surprised. "Are you serious? But you'll give me a pull up and I'll get into a trouble."
"I don't give pull up to anybody who doesn't want to participate in my groups. But I'll give a note to your counselor."
"I don't have to be here you know."
"M, you can leave now if you want to."
"I meant I don't need to be here in this program. I don't need this, you know what I mean?"
"Oh? You can leave the program if you want to."
"What are you talking about? You don't understand. The court sent me here. My PO said go to the program or jail. I didn't have a choice."
"Hahh.....Interesting, let's talk about choices."
"I thought we are going to talk about motivation today." El looked calmer now.
"Yes, we are. As a matter of fact we are talking about motivation. Choices we make that motivate us to move forward or slide backward. M said the court sent him here, and he didn't have a choice. "
"Man, you had a choice. The court didn't force you to come here. You are here because you didn't want to go to jail. You made the choice right there," said Eli, our senior citizen resident.
"Yeah man. I did the same thing. Program or jail"
From that point, it seemed everybody had things to say about choices and what, who and why motivates them to make their choices.
We discussed about wrong choices, right choices, or when M decided to enter the program instead of went to jail, does it mean he didn't have a choice?
It was an uplifting discussion for all of us. By the end of the session we agreed sometimes we make less desirable choice to avoid a repercussion.
M was adamant that it wasn't his choice to come to the program, but I was glad he stayed the whole hour.
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