“Sometimes fear of the thing is greater than the thing itself.” A very wise quote and an important concept. Okay, so I said the quote, and I can’t take full credit for the concept. It simply means that sometimes I get myself all worked up about something that in the end turns out to be nothing. I can be incredibly gifted at working myself up into a state of anxiety and nerves about something such that days ahead of time I sweat about it. When that something finally comes around it typically has not been nearly as bad as my overactive imagination has made it out to be. I end up marveling over just how much drama and trauma I put myself through by playing out in my head all the various worst-case scenarios that don’t end up happening. Today after yet another experience of having worked myself up over something that turned out to be nothing, I found myself wondering what exactly my problem is. I’ll likely be sorting that one out for the next little while.
I’m grateful tonight for many things, and though I’m a little tired and scatterbrained (relief will do that to you) I want to articulate them for you as best I can. First I am grateful for intuition and discernment. I recently discovered something that made me so angry I could scarcely contain myself: someone had done something behind my back that had the potential to really undermine some important work I was doing and hurt some people I care about in the process. I was so upset I called my sister and railed at her about how bad things were and how I was going to have to tell this person off no matter the consequences. I brooded for days about how I was going to approach the person and tell him what I needed to say. As the time approached I got increasingly anxious about how to approach things, but I felt I needed to stand in the strength of my convictions no matter how uncomfortable I was with conflict and no matter the cost. And then, at the last minute, I decided to retrace my steps and reexamine the “data” I was using as rationale for my argument and realized to my horror that I had made a mistake. When I went back through all the information I had, I discovered that in fact he hadn’t even remotely done what I thought he had and was in essence completely innocent and blithely unaware that I had been about to lower the boom on him.
My intuition caused me to recheck my information before tracking him down and giving him a piece of my mind. It would have been embarrassing at best and could at worst have had some pretty serious consequences. So the second thing I’m grateful for tonight is divine intervention: that little nudge that told me to look again at the situation with fresh eyes and to do that before my conversation. It was and continues to be very humbling to me, as I think about what could have happened. I generally consider myself to be a fair and balanced person who gives people the benefit of the doubt and doesn’t rush to judgment. I found myself thinking the worst about someone in part because that’s what I expected from him, and that’s what people told me to expect from him. Sometimes when we expect something and other people reinforce that we should expect a given thing, then we start looking for it and eventually we’ll see that thing, whether it’s actually there or not. When you go on a witch hunt soon you start seeing witches everywhere.
I am deeply in thought about all of this and oh so grateful to be going on vacation in a few days. I need the break, the first vacation I feel like I’ve had in a few years. I hope to get refreshed enough so I can clear my head, release more of my biases and clear the foggy lenses that keep me from seeing all people in more balanced ways. I’m not going to berate myself for missing signals and misinterpreting the “data” I was reviewing. I will simply be grateful for the lessons I am learning, albeit uncomfortable and sometimes painful ones, and keep moving.
