And Now For Something Completely the Same
You know that feeling you get when you’re right in the middle of some kind of reactivity — anger, fear, frustration or whatever — and you realize it, so you’re inside your body having that experience and then outside it as well, seeing yourself with some clarity and perspective? I had that today, when my new shopping cart, designed to make my life easier, as well as that of my assistant, pretty much stopped doing what it was supposed to be doing.
The thing is, it’s pretty much not worked as it was supposed to since it was installed, even though we were assured by the developer and various web people that it was working on their end. Now I’m losing customers over it, have fielded numerous complaints, and can’t get any of our alleged tech support people on the phone or through email. Or I get vague promises of action that never seem to materialize. It’s a huge mess, and I can’t say anything positive about the people I spent so much time agonizing over and making sure were the right people to work with in the first place. They’re not the right people. Not at all. Now I have to figure out what to do about it.
In those moments of reaction, I’ve realized there is truth. Whatever you’ve been skirting around, afraid to notice, or stuff you’ve gone out of your way to do to avoid rocking the boat, comes spilling out, and sometimes I find myself hearing what I’m saying in a brand new way. So to reframe this ongoing and very stressful situation, I stepped way back from it in my mind. I could still see myself angry and hurting over it, unsure about what to do to apologize to people who have been loyal to me for years, and scared about losing new customers who might think I was unprofessional or worse by the behavior of my web site. I could also feel the heat of the anger and fear rushing through my body as energy.
When I was pretty far back, though, I could see this as a moment, a tiny one on the timeline of my life, which would be soon forgotten. I saw my site getting sorted out by these people or someone else soon enough, and then some ease as my worries left me. As the anger and fear left I felt a whooshing feeling at the top of my head and looked up. Up there, further than I could see, I sensed a warm, caring presence, perhaps something divine, and I knew that even though this moment sucked like hell, it would pass, and that things would get better. Tomorrow’s another day, after all.
