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It’s about mid-afternoon as I write this, I woke up feeling a little out of sorts. I tuned into my body to feel into it and identify where it originated. It seemed to be a low-level vibe in my heart region. Why? Possibly it stemmed from my choice in entertainment combined with other feelings circling within me. While folding my laundry last night I turned on a tv show in the background called “Normal People” on Prime. I guess this show was a bit of a downer, albeit interesting. In any case, I was hooked and didn’t go to bed until 12:30 am, which is late for me. “Go to bed early next time!” a part of my brain shouts. Bit of a judgmental tone there much? Is it? Not sure.
Later this morning I’m waiting for this call from the designer and have no idea when it will happen. Cue the frustration and worry feeling from yesterday again, in other words, I’m feeling out of control. “Why won’t he answer my texts?”
Then the designer’s call comes in at last. Not the greatest call in my life. Ugh. He said that the document I sent him with revisions was not clear enough. Excuse me what??!
Had I not laid out the simplest of bullet point instructions? I couldn’t believe this, I suppose our styles of communication are vastly different. He decides that the best thing is to scrap my document completely and go through each revision one… at… a… time. Tedious. Long. Exhausting. I could hear his frustration and he could hear mine. There was too much to go over so the discussion required two calls. Fortunately I had the sense to ground and realign my energy before the second call, this helped a bit. “Okay round 2 here we go”. Somehow this second call was even longer and tedious but we made it through… finally.
Then at the end of our second call he made several scathing comments, “that’s the most time I’ve EVER spent with a client on this”. It didn’t feel good to hear. Sure I was feeling the same frustration he was feeling, but I was not articulating that at this moment. In fact, before he said that I was choosing to revel in the relief feeling of being done, maybe even getting on the same “side” as the designer again… or so I thought. Clearly he just wanted to vent his frustrations my way. Not that I can blame him, that is certainly something I have done in the past many many times on many many calls, even on calls in the past week with him....heh… #confession.
Immediately after hanging up, I felt a small punch to my solar plexus. Why did it hit me here? Seems like it triggered some baggage. It was a deep wound within that spoke the words “Am I an incompetent communicator? Am I not smart enough?”. A flicker of feelings associated with “traumatic” school group projects in university entered my mind. Not to mention a work report I wrote during a previous job where a reviewer told me “this is the worst report I have ever read”. Not only had I originally put my heart and soul and sweat and tears into that report, the kicker here is that I thought I did an incredible job. I thought it was one of my best reports. Ouch.
Well… it’s one thing when you know you did a bad job because maybe you didn’t have the time. Or maybe you just didn’t feel like putting in the effort. But it’s quite another thing when you think you did a great job and put in the effort only to be told your work was awful. At the end of the day, I guess this was a feeling that I never dealt with and wasn’t consciously aware it was still in me. A little bug to work out. Good to know. This is why I’m here writing this right now. What an OPPORTUNITY!
It ’s interesting how different things seem when they happen TO YOU versus seeing things happen TO SOMEONE ELSE. If I saw a movie where someone poured their heart and soul into publishing a book and then was rejected I would feel deeply for the character. I would want to reach into the screen to shake them and say, “They could have been the wrong audience so that’s why they didn’t get you!!!! Don’t stop believing in yourself!!!! And even if that book didn’t quite hit the note, that doesn’t mean you will never write that killer piece!!” Keep your head held high!!!” So why don’t I tell myself these things? Until tomorrow, thanks for reading and sending out love to you!
