Owning my own view

So as I debriefed from a patient encounter, my supervisor challenged me to say something that would get him to think / see things differently?  The answer was that I could offer something from my point of view.  

I felt equivocal about that answer, saying I often feared it was imposing me on you (aka my story being imposed on the patient /client). 

Upon reflection, I see it is the only thing I really can do, especially in a 'new' relationship.  I  don't know another's experience and intellectual orientation.  But neither do they know mine.  The only thing I could reliably offer that might offer a new perspective or challenge IS something from my point of view. 

I don't think I quite embraced this truth before. The risk remains that someone would say - no, that is not so, but they can't really refute my perception, just offer to amend it.  

And what my Zen practice tells me is that a universality of experience is more likely to emerge than is difference: at core we hold the same existential concerns, and we all have the same habits of mind that avoid suffering, deny impermanence, and cling to difference.

Here's to owning my own view!