The Attitude Determines the Result - Margin Notes Made by a Simultaneous Interpreter

Two experiences with a six-months-long interval that showed me how the attitude influenced the final result - this is a story that teaches how to find motivation and dispose yourself to work when you experience a tough personal period.

I haven't posted anything about my personal experience for quite a long but now I have something I'd like to share with the community - that's the experience of energy sublimation and its transformation into productivity. That's the emotions left behind the scene of impression-making process, that's something that hides behind the firm voice and confidence.

I am a professional interpreter. I've had a dozen of different tasks and right now I'm trying hard to meet the latest challenge.
50 Russian psychoterapeuts in one room + 2 doctors from Austria + 2 psychoterapeuts from Sweden + 4 interpreters = professional competing, a heat discussion and very personal issues brought up to light. 20 hours of interpreting in three directions, 20 hours of concentration and stress. This is a challenge. I have had a similar task six months ago and then it was a failure which made me feel very unconfident and uncomfortable. I was not ready for the emotions, for the challenges and problems with the equipment then. 

My first simultation interpreting was devoted to the issue of tutorship and adoption. The speakers were ordinaty people who began to get all the skeletons from the closet and that resulted in a very heated discussion. I was not ready for that kind of stuff and sat there in the interpretation booth silent. I was dissatisfied and began to crusify myself which resulted in that I totally lost concentration. A fiasco.

Your mood and feelings affect your work and influence the result. If you put aside the troubles and try to concetrate on the current task it can help, but the tough thing is that the emtions can't simply vanish - they get transformed and come back sooner or later. Today I have experienced in a way the worst: the emotions came in the very middle of the interpreting. I felt that the topic for the discussion - domestic violence and sexual abuse - was too personal and very touchy. I have had some very negative and painful experience connected to this topic before and so the open discussion of what we consider to be domestic violence made me realize that I had been right in my suppositions. I had expericed that in my life. I felt that I was nearly to cry. I felt my voice tremble and understood that the speakers' words passed my mind without leaving any impression. What happened afterwards showed me that I was much stronger than I thought before: the personality doubled in a way. I managed to go on interpreting without really handling the information recieved. That continued in some seconds and afterwards I managed to pull together and control my emotions. 

We should be ready for that kind of stuff. I am trying to investigate this fact of dissociation during the work process to understand this phenomenon better. 

From the very morning I was very concentrated and I must say that I'm satisfied with the results. The control let me do my best and provide the listeners with adequate translation still I should say that it was tough.
To understand yourself better you need to pay attention to such small things and tune yourself up for work - otherwise it can end with a failure.

Thank you,
Anastasia