The past has a way of creeping up on you when you least
expect it. A few years ago I was fired
for the first time in my life. I liked
what I was doing and it was an extension from the job I had previously resigned
from to take the job. Well, in the
beginning everything seemed fine. I was in the learning phase of training and I
thought I was doing well, until it came to my attention that I was not. Things took a turn. Not to go into to all the details, I
overheard a conversation that was not meant for me, and after this conversation
my training took a turn for the worse. At
the time I did not think that it w
as all that traumatic, but as I stated in the
beginning the past has a way of creeping up on you when you least expect it.
A few months ago I started my current job, if you did not
know I am a 911 dispatcher and as hard, stressful and at times heart wrenching,
I love what I do. I am at the part of my
training were things went so wrong a few years ago. I thought I was fine, that I had gotten past
it. I had even gotten a job that was similar but not quite the same. Well, here I am at my new job having flash
backs and my anxiety is going through the roof and the funny thing about it is
that they are not doing anything at the current job to cause them. At first I thought that it was the time of
the year. If you are unaware December,
January and February are really rough months for me; my mom passed away on my
birthday in December, my sister, who passed away, birthday is in January and
mom’s birthday is in February. So, I had
attributed my mistakes, mishaps, and anxiety to that. However, after my birthday passed last year
and the New Year was approaching, in talking to people I realized that it all
was not from the time of year, month, or events but from what had happened on
the job a few years ago. Man, when I
tell you that it blew my mind, this is when I had this “ah ha” moment. The moment came when I was having the worst
day at work, it was like I had learned nothing, and I did not know anything. I was making mistakes and when I tried to
correct them ended up adding more to it.
I tried everything to get back on track. I reached out to the women of my church and a
really good friend for words of encouragement, but at this point the words were
not seeping in. My regular trainer was
not with me but my coach was and although she was patient with me I know that
she was like what in the world is going on with me. I was defensive, and short tempered with her and all she was doing was trying to help. By the end of the day, I felt so deflated
that I had gone into the bathroom and cried. When I got back to my station my trainer had
come by to see how my day went, all I could do was shake my head because I
could not trust that the tears that I was holding back would stay. He saw that something wasn’t right, so we
went into the office and I cried again.
He asked me what was wrong? I was trying to explain and make sense of it
all, but everything was coming out in a jumbled mess and it all hit me at
once. I had held in all that pain from
years ago and I never dealt with being fired and treated that way that it all
came to a head on this day. The day had
no significance, nothing was tied to it.
So, after my cry fest, I went back to my station feeling a little better
but drained. On my way home I re-read
the words of encouragement the women of my church gave me, it made me smile and
had me mending some of the pieces. I also
re-read the message from my good friend that put everything in perspective. First, he reminded me of my own words “You
said this was a “calling” right?”. Then
he said, and I quote “I need you to step back and talk to yourself. Tell
yourself how good at this you are… tell yourself how much you know about this
job… tell yourself to calm down… slow down and do what you do best. Tell
yourself that today will be a good day, then finally, tell yourself before
every call I know what I’m doing, and I got this!” When he sent this to me originally, I said
the words but did not mean them. I did not say them with conviction or with my heart. It wasn’t until I had cried and cleansed my
soul that the words sent to me to repeat meant something.
I said all that to say this.
When we have had so much hurt, pain, disappointment, betrayal and
mistreatment we tend to push them aside and tell ourselves that it doesn’t
matter, because we are so use to it that it doesn’t register until we get into
a similar situation and everything starts to crumble and you don’t know
why. The saying “that hits differently”
applies here. It all hits differently when
it comes back around and you realize what the culprit was. Once you get to the heart of the matter you
can begin to heal and then you are able to move differently. We have to start acknowledging our hurts,
pains, disappointments, betrayals and mistreatments because if we don’t and it
“hits differently” you may not come out on the right side of things. We have to start using our voices (in a
constructive non-confrontational way) to express how we feel, because holding
it in, pushing it aside and being immune to it does not always work. This past
Sunday my pastor spoke on “See Yourself Better.” This was so spot on for me. To see yourself better you have to have faith,
acknowledging that what’s in front of you is just a challenge, but faith is
what lies ahead of you. Meaning, in the
context of this post, that expressing yourself maybe a challenge but what lies
ahead is your healing, you mending some relationships or even letting go of
some relationships. Don’t focus on the
challenge but focus on Seeing Yourself Better; seeing yourself healed from
hurt, pain, disappointments, betrayal and mistreatment. Seeing yourself grow, mature and stepping out
into your purpose.
Ever since my “ah ha” moment I have felt so free, clear, and
happy. All I had to do was shed some
tears to clean my soul and get everything that was held hostage inside of me
out. So I leave you with this SEE YOURSELF BETTER because I do!!!
I pray this helps someone. Until next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment