The amazing week that wasn't
When what you thought was healed rears its ugly head...again
Last week had everything it needed to be an AMAZING week! The sun was out more days than not, which doesn’t happen very often in February. I received word that I passed the latest certification I completed. An event I’ve long dreamed of doing quickly and easily came together.
A time of great celebration, right?
Wrong
I found myself reacting out of proportion to a situation when another project my husband and I have been working on for more than a year got delayed through no fault of ours. We relied on someone to do something he said he would do. When it was time to do it, he changed his mind.
I was little angry. My husband was big angry. Then we switched back and forth as we considered why this person changed his mind and what our options were. This person was pretty much radio silent not answering emails or calls. The underlying tone of it all was that he thought he held all the cards and we were powerless to stop him.
This continued for the ENTIRE week!
It triggered me — HARD.
Instead of celebrating my accomplishments and enjoying the wins, I spent the week consumed with figuring out why this other situation bothered me so much and using all of the tools in my professional and self-care toolkits to calm myself physically, mentally and emotionally.
After a week, I realized this situation made me feel powerless and at the capricious whim of someone who clearly couldn’t think past himself and his need for control to see the effect his actions were having on a large number of people.
Basically, a bunch of old hurts and the feelings behind them that were were healed (or at least neatly packed away) came tumbling out in the most inconvenient way at my husband’s feet, triggering him and reminding us both that no matter how neatly packed away or how deeply old hurts are buried, the unlikeliest of things can bring them up.
Fortunately, we are both self aware enough to realize it when it happens, we have tools to help us figure out what is behind it and we know when and who to call when we need help.
If you find yourself overreacting or reacting instead of responding, don’t struggle alone and don’t shove them back in that part of you where you store the things you don’t want to deal with so they can come tumbling out another day. Contact me and let’s see which of the many tools in my toolkit we can put to use!