Relax, relate, release

This week has been an interesting week and by interesting, I mean challenging. One of my biggest faults is my quick temper and I have come a very long way in learning to keep that and my smart mouth in check most of the time. This week pushed me to points I have not been in quite some time and left me feeling a multitude of things. For one, I am proud of myself. There were times when I wanted to just really let loose and tell someone what I was thinking in my head that I was dying to say out loud. I didn't do it. That took a whole lot of restraint and effort on my part and, to be completely honest, left me exhausted.

On the other hand, I am left feeling confused and bewildered. Why do people feel the need to be so mean? Is there some benefit to being that way? Did their mother never tell them that whole catch more flies with honey spiel? Why people would spend their time being obnoxious and argumentative instead of helpful and cooperative (particularly in my line of work) is simply befuddling to me. Yes, I said befuddling. Meanness, bullying, rudeness have all always been things I could just never understand and they are sometimes so unsettling to me, they make me physically ill.

Today, I spent 37 minutes on the phone with another supervisor who berated me, berated my staff, talked to me as if I was 2 years old and had misbehaved and somehow offended her. The purpose of the conversation? Trying to come up with a time when we could staff a case together because she reported that she was too busy to do so today. I heard someone in the background and she told me it was her worker (the one we needed to staff with) and I said....can't we just staff the case NOW? We have been on the phone arguing about this for 37 minutes! She advised me that it was her lunch break and she doesn't staff cases then. I am left to wonder if she ever even considered how petty she sounded. To wonder how we can all supposedly be here to help change the lives of children when that is your mentality. Why would you waste 37 minutes of time arguing that you don't have time to staff a case today...that would take 15 minutes to staff? Oh wait....it was your LUNCH HOUR! Now I get it! The sheer ludicrous nature of the situation was enough to give me whiplash from shaking my head.

This is only the most recent example I experienced this week of behavior that left me wondering what on Earth people are thinking and trying to understand where they are coming from. For some reason, it made me the most upset and I ended up bursting into tears. Not out of sadness but out of sheer frustration. Maybe it was the culmination of events of the week? Or my lack of sleep?

Not all of the things that happened this week were in my professional life and some were in my personal life. I am making some really tough decisions about how to include people in my life who are really important to me but are possibly destructive to me as well. I am trying to push the negative as far away from me as I can and trying to surround myself with joy and happiness. Sometimes, in matters of the heart, that is easier said than done.

I am trying to be self-reflective as well and understand what role I have in the situations I have experienced....trust me, I am well aware I am not little miss innocence. One thing I am not; however, is just mean. Smart aleck? Check. Sarcastic? Check check. Arrogant? Slightly. :-) Mean? Nope. That one I just don't understand. Is there some sense of satisfaction for some people in hurting others? Does it make them feel better about themselves? I don't even understand how that could work that way...but maybe I am missing something. I am sure that I could have handled several of those situations better than I did this week and perhaps the outcome would have been different. I do know, however, that I handled them better this week than I would have five years ago....so there is progress and hope for different outcomes in the future. One of my friends told me this week, "Rebecca- you can't fight ignorance so just leave it alone...you are just going to wear yourself out and they are never going to get it because they aren't capable." I have a hard time accepting that to be true. I have to believe that, deep down, everyone has the capacity to change for the better and not stay "stuck" where they are. I have to hope for that or I would go crazy (no, for real crazy....) at my job seeing the cruelty and sadness day in and day out. If I thought there was no hope for change...I would be completely ineffective and I like to believe that is not the case.

Just curious though, have you ever wondered how much nicer the world would be if people didn't spend so much time convincing you how "Christian" they are and spent more time showing you? And that if they spent more time showing you....would you even need to talk about it? Their beliefs and their true spirit would be transparent and self-evident....would they not? Something that has had me really scratching my head this week is the people who hide behind the guise of Christianity and talk about their faith while at the same time berating and degrading others, passing judgment, and arguing and criticizing others. Perhaps I missed the lesson regarding "Judge not lest ye be judged" but I thought it went against all of those things. Maybe I misunderstood. I especially love when someone ends a particularly hairy argument with "I am going to pray for you." I am always a little frightened about exactly who they are praying to and left kind of wishing they would just leave me out of it...

As one of my young worker's encouraged me to do this evening....I am off to relax...relate....release. Don't worry, when I get done, I am going to pray for all of those mean people. They keep telling me they have Jesus in their life but I think we might be talking about two different guys. :-)

Much Love,
Becca