Pushing Back!

If you would like to listen to the podcast episode on this topic, click the appropriate link for your mobile phone at the bottom of this article.

A colleague who observed me being cross-examined on a case, she knew well, and we had worked together on, gave me some unexpected feedback recently. She said: "By the way, I like the way you push back when the barristers ask you certain questions. You don't seem to let them get under your skin; you just tell them in a professional, clear way what the situation is...and I notice you don't always push back but when you do it's appropriate."

I thanked her for her feedback and thought about it for a while. It's not necessary to go out of your way to disagree with those cross-examining you unless of course, what they are saying is incorrect or misleading.

If it isn't I tend to act like water and go with the flow, treading the path of least resistance until or unless it is necessary to disagree, and then of course, I have to explain why I disagree and have come to a different conclusion from those cross-examining me.

It is rarely, if ever, necessary to challenge all the things that barristers say, you just have to be very clear about where your evidence differs from the other parties, and when possible back your arguments up with examples that provide convincing reasons why your evidence should be preferred to that of others.

I often tend to think of the similarities which exist when giving evidence and the problems or the issues we face in life,

Occasionally, whilst giving evidence you're posed a question you're not expecting and it can leave you reeling.

Life is exactly the same, things can hit you hard and all you can think about when something unpleasant you had not anticipated happens is, why me? Why has this happened to me?

It's a question we all experience from time to time when something we see as awful happens.

But strangely, some of the events that we see as the most horrendous or difficult, at a later time, we come to recognise, were experiences we needed to encounter to help us grow and become the people we need to be. But at the time it is the last thing we want to occur.

How often when you reflect back on life has this happened to you? Isn't it funny that the experience that was the most daunting turns out to be the experience that changes us.

Only later do we realise that we are not defined by what happens to us unless we let ourselves be. Unless we let the circumstances of life ensure we stagnate. What happens to us is in reality neither good or bad, it is instead simply what we see it as.

We are not defined by what happens to us, but by what we do with what happens to us.

Two people suffer the same experience: one uses it to complain how life has treated him badly, The other uses it to build something wonderful for herself and those she cares for.

One saw the events as only negative from which nothing good could grow. The other saw it as an opportunity to learn grow and develop. One saw life as happening to him; the other saw life as happening for her.

Pushing back is I think a key skill in life, pushing back means refusing to accept what life hands you, if it's not taking you where you want to be or go. Pushing back means being clear about what you want to say, who you want to be and where you're going with your life. We can all be derailed temporarily but we don't have to stay that way.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/incredible-witness/id1679934113

https://open.spotify.com/show/5w3CWjV1CcwdsA7tTiAPVO?si+43d84dcf6c8049ed