Saturday, February 26, 2011

The million-dollar garbage can

 
These past couple of weeks have offered up a fair share of upheaval in my life.  To wit, a couple of uncomfortable not-quite-knowing-what’s-going-on days with The Robert, a difficult career-related meeting, and a very challenging facilitating session – basically, mayhem.  Here’s a brief synopsis … bear with me, a theme does emerge!

The Robert and I had a conversation during which I pushed his buttons without realizing it, and his response to that was to withdraw.  The temperature of his usually warm emails plunged to a distinctly cool reading.  My experience of that is that I’ve done something wrong, and I’m incapable or incompetent when it comes to relationship.

Then, in a meeting where huge decisions needed to be made about the direction of our business, the only comment that I heard was that I hadn’t been able to work sufficiently well with our local district to have a garbage can moved from one corner of the street to the other.  Again, I heard strains of “You’re No Good” coursing through my brain.

Fast forward.  That evening.  I am to facilitate a group session in which we must come to a couple of decisions that affect a larger group.  I wasn’t able to corral the troops or report back that we had succeeded.  Again.  Abject failure.

Wow.  What the heck was going on?  I mean, all of this was so loud I had to sit up and pay attention.  And then it hit me.  It was like waking up after you’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. You are in motion and you need to get back on the right-hand side of the road to refresh your trajectory.  I was unconscious to the fact that I was letting my cracked identity lead the way.  Wherever the notion of incompetence, not good enough, or stupidity pointed, I followed.  It was in the driver’s seat.  I was hell-bent down the path of self-invalidation.  And not for the first time.

This time was different though.  I woke up in time to “keep ’er twixt the ditches”.  What was even louder than all this was a profound sense that I could experience this differently.  I could let in other information – such as the summons from the House of Parliament in Ottawa to be at a press conference in West Vancouver first thing the next morning.  (It turned out to be a long-waited-for announcement of over a million dollars being invested in our village to allow greater traffic to all of our businesses.  And I had played a role over the past few years in helping to make that happen.)  And the group facilitation was as much a crucible for learning as it was a necessary decision-making piece.  And The Robert – well aren’t relationships about finding out about what buttons are still hot ones?  And can’t we learn and heal those pieces through discomfort?  I believe we can.

So after a very challenging and emotional week, I am choosing to resonate more deeply with the truth – and believe that I am not incompetent or stupid. My intent is to make good use of that garbage can.

Authentically yours,

Buns

1 comment:

  1. Good post after a wicked week, HunnyBuns, but why did you leave out the part where we made up and had fantastic orgasmic phone sex?

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