Identify what is most important )0( Eliminate everything else
The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. Dr. Paul Farmer
The suffering of others is not alleviated when no one knows about it.
There is no one right way to live. Daniel Quinn Ishmael
The only thing that you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right sort of people.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut

Sunday, May 26, 2013

over

I am so grateful for being able to start a new week, fresh from all of my stupidity last week.  Sometimes I wonder how many actual functioning brain cells I have.

Allrighty, I guess it was mostly that stupid phone stuff.  When I found that I had a defective minutes card it threw me totally off balance.  It was my own fault for waiting so long to add the minutes to my phone.  And, it is interesting to look back on those several days to see how panicked I was.    Even in the moment that was relatively easy to acknowledge, but I think my reaction is about so much more.

Poor customer service on the cell phone company's part aside, I was not able to step back and find the reasonable part of me that helps me to avoid acting like a crazy person most of the time, and particularly helps me with my clients.  I have to admit that helping others is so much easier than helping myself.  Same thing goes for standing up for someone else, but that is part of the entire construct, at least it is for me.

I can be an advocate for just about anyone else, but when it came to my own problem last week, well, I was a total fail.  Sure, the issue was resolved, but there was no part of my better-self, my higher intention or any connection with anything except for nearly hysterical panic.  Shame wanted to make me ignore the entire issue, but that feeling is always a pretty good indication that I should be writing and getting all of it out on the page.  So, that is what I did.  Externalized those fears in a way that has allowed me to analyze them and, hopefully, to learn from the experience instead of simply waiting for the next difficult situation to unnerve me.

Last week was a huge set-back in terms of crafting this new life.  Even whilst it was happening, I felt discouraged about how helpless I felt to just stop, take a couple of breaths and behave more, gosh, maybe calm or adult or reasonable or something.  But, I could not do that.  I was stuck in being fully invested in the panic and fear where my resources are concerned.  It is fair to say that I was completely irrational, not concerning the inability of the phone company employees to help me with their company's defective product, but in my ability to just calm the fuck down and come at this problem from a more helpful direction.

Unfortunately, I allowed my fears about my resources to take precedence over my decent nature and good sense.  When something like this happens with one of my clients I am the calm and collected person the situation or circumstance requires.  But, to do that, be that for myself seemed impossible once I was caught in the panic. 

That situation may well be the most important opportunity to learn about myself that I have had in a very long time.

The truth is that the conversations could have been less stressful for everyone involved, and may even have not had such a fair resolution, but it could have gone less productively, and I will never know, because my time machine is broken, again, and there is not going back to try it differently. 

It is my hope that the next time I am feeling vulnerable, that I will be able to recall this most recent problem and apply some of what I have learned from it.  I have been on the receiving side of customer dissatisfaction issues, a position that I find more comfortable.  Those things give me a chance to flex my problem and conflict resolution skills.  I find them challenging and energizing and have been fortunate to bring them to success.   

It is my hope that even if the problem does not move to good resolution for everyone involved, that the person or entity who is the catalyst to my distress will come away from our time together thinking that I am the nicest, most calm, most reasonable and decent person with whom they have had contact.  I am able to do that most of the time, although this recent situation was a trigger for all kinds of insecurities over which I still need to become master, and  because I am not even remotely proud of the person I was last week.

1 comment:

  1. Don't be so hard on yourself luv, after what you've been through it's going to take time.

    ReplyDelete