Turn Turn Turn

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven"  (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
If you are like me, you like certainty, security and stability.  I cling to certainty, security and stability, yet oddly enough, my job is considered by most to be uncertain and unstable.  Why you may ask?  Because my job is dependent on people, and people are a HUGE variable!  With the economy the way it is, the only thing that is certain is uncertainty - change!  I don't want to come across as being Debbie Downer today.  Change can be good.  Change is good!  Change is God!

Today, I was blindsided by change.  I was blindsided by my coworker!  Move over Sandra because the Oscar goes to my coworker!  I'm not insinuating that my coworker was putting on a show or an act, but if anyone is going to win an award for "the blindside" it should be my coworker!

My coworker was a hard worker.  And to top it off, she was very good at her job!  She was so good and worked so hard that it pushed me to work harder and be better at my job!  So for her to tell me today that she would no longer be working with me, came completely out of left field!  She voluntarily quit a job that provided an income and paid her bills.  She left a job when so many others are struggling to find one.  I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around it!

I think I am handling this change fairly well considering that I'm losing a wonderful team member, revenue, production and income and at a time when I'm still adjusting to my biggest change in life - my baby!  I generally don't handle change well.  I never did.  I was one of those kids that cried when Mom dropped me off at daycare and cried when she picked me up!  Today, I have a tendency to cling to the past.  However,  I know that some things...some people are only meant to be in our lives for a moment in time - a season.

It has been a dream of mine to grow my business.  In order to do that effectively, I need to grow my team.  So to lose a team member at this point in time is a bit devastating.  Oddly enough, I had a conference call earlier this week with one of my business mentors.  She talked about emotional management.  As a woman, this is so important!  With any dream or goal, there is bound to be some level of disappointment.  Things will not always go according to plan.  There will be a few stumbling blocks along the way - opportunities to make things better.  However, we have to manage our emotions in order to succeed in our dream.

Emotional management is cyclical.  In the cycle, there are four phases:  excitement, frustration/shock, fear/crisis, and recommitment.

Excitement Phase: At this phase, you have decided your dream or goal.  You are excited because you know it will happen if you keep working and work hard!

Frustration/Shock:  This is the bump in the road.  At this phase, you get frustrated that things are not going according to plan, or you are shocked by something that you had not planned for (e.g. your best coworker/ team member quit!).  You become impatient with yourself, you become impatient with your coworkers or team, and you may become impatient with your clientele.

Fear/Crisis:  This is the phase where you may fear the unknown or fear the change.  You want to quit or throw in the towel.  At this phase it feels easier to just be complacent.

Recommitment:  This is the phase were you recapture your dream.  You've taken a step back, calmed down, re-evaluated the situation, gathered your thoughts, and you've reignited the fire of desire for your dream or goal.

The key to emotional management is how quickly you move through the phases.  Sometimes I go through the phases all in one day.  Sometimes it takes a few days, a few weeks, or a few months to really recapture the dream.  The quicker you can move through the cycle, the better you will be.  Hopefully you come out of the cycle with a stronger sense of purpose.

One of the books I turned to when I got the news that my coworker was quitting was One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life by Kerry and Chris Shook.  They have a chapter or lesson designated for each day.  The lesson that pertains to this posting is called Hurricanes.  The Shooks state that "We can't prevent the hurricane winds of change from blowing into our lives....The winds of change will either make you stronger or knock you down....In your career, a lost opportunity can snuff our your dream or inspire you to fan the flames more vigorously." (136).

As I write this post, I'm "turning" through the phases.  I started out in the frustration/shock phase.  I was shocked from the news.  Then I thought about just throwing away the possibility of growing my business and just sticking out mediocrity because it's easier.  I didn't want to deal with the growing pains.  Now, I've decided that I'm not going to let one person or any person steal my dream, or control my dream.  It's MY dream!  So when you find yourself in a hurricane of change or a bump in the road, in the words of the Byrds "turn turn turn"!

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Byron Katie once said, “Everyone is a mirror imagine of yourself – your own thinking coming back at you.”  If you’re like me, you read that statement and think there is no way that could be true!   We all know a gossip queen, a procrastinator, a curmudgeon, a drama queen, a negative Nelly, a lazy Lorraine, a Debby downer, and especially in my case, a defensive end!  I wouldn’t consider myself any of those, really.  I consider myself more of a tenderhearted Plain Jane!  

While I had a little down time after Dee did not contact me back about our falling-out, I kept wondering how she was a mirror imagine of myself.  I’m passive.  She is aggressive and defensive.  I admit that I became defensive.  As mentioned in the “Reviewing the Tapes” posting, Martha Beck said that our brains start to mirror the behavior of the other person.  So, I could sort of understand that; however, I was reacting directly to her defensiveness.  I was mirroring her behavior, but what Byron Katie was talking about was Dee's behavior was the mirror of my behavior. 

Confused yet?  Well, this week, Dee finally contacted me back.  We decided to hash a few things out a little, to be honest and to be forthcoming.  It was probably the first time we had both been truthful and forthcoming with our feelings in a long time.  We’ve known each other for almost a decade, but more on a superficial level – casual friends.  Since we reconnected a few years ago, Dee had demanded a lot of my time.  I don’t mind to give time to friends.  Friends are important.  We are social creatures - that's why God made a mate for Adam - so it only makes sense.

However, Dee demanded my time, only through the Internet – emails, social networking, etc.  I worked so I didn’t have as much time to devote to the Internet socializing.  I asked several times if she would like to meet for lunch or at each other’s homes or at an event.  She never came through.  I offered her a position with my company, when there was an opening.  She did a phone interview, turned down the offer, and then called me back within the hour and said that she might still want it.  I sent her some more information on the company and position through email and snail mail, and asked her to call when she had a chance to look over the information.  She never called back. 

After that, if I called her, she would dodge all my calls.  When I say all I mean all!  She never once answered the phone when I called.  I left messages saying what the call was about  - lunch dates, parties, etc.  If she acknowledged that I called, it was through email.  Wow!  If that’s not inconsiderate (I will post about the hierarchy of communication at a later date)!  However, she would continue to send emails almost daily, as if nothing were wrong. 

Over time, I became fed up with her emails.  I felt the Internet was a cop out for not having to actually talk to me or see me.  I didn’t want or need a pen pal.  I wanted and needed a friend!  We lived within thirty minutes driving time of each other, so I felt there was no reason why over the past few years, we couldn’t have gotten together at some point. 

My return emails started becoming shorter and shorter.  I wanted to stay civil, but couldn’t devote the time to entertain her through emails.  We drifted apart over the next few months.  Then she joined another social networking site that I was a member of and all this mess started all over again, like we were best friends. 

So in our most recent conversation (through email, of course), I mentioned to her that I would love to be friends, but I didn’t want to be a pen pal.  If she was going to continue to hide behind a computer, then I wasn’t up for it.  Not that we couldn’t be civil to one another, but I didn’t want the novelesque emails about her life, especially since she never asked how I was.  I was willing to put time into things where time is due, but not into entertaining someone else’s boredom.  She replied by saying that she dodged my calls and some emails and never wanted to meet me because of the situation about the open job position situation a few years prior.  She said that I constantly talked about it, invited her to events about it, sent her information, etc., and she felt pressured.  She said she didn’t want to have the job issue brought up, so she avoided me…except when she had something to say.

She was right, to some extent.  I did talk about my job.  It’s my job.  It’s part of my life.  So it comes up from time to time.  I did invite her to job-related events.  If I can invite friends or potential clients to an event, why not invite a friend I haven’t send in a decade, so it’s a little less intimate, and maybe a little less awkward.  I also invited her to personal (non job-related) gatherings.   

So while I was thinking of how to express this in my return email, I had an Aha moment.  I realized how our issues with one another were mirroring.  So I explained.  The way she described her feelings of pressure when I mentioned my job or invited her to a job-related event and that she thought I did it constantly (I’ll still argue that point!), was very similar to they way I felt when she kept barraging me with her suggestions that I mentioned in “The Defensive End.”  I still believe the reality of what she felt is a little skewed, but nonetheless, that’s apparently the way she felt. 

The other way I felt Dee was a mirror image of me was actually in reference to her only using email and social networking to contact me.  For some reason it just really rubbed me the wrong way.  I felt some face-time was a more beneficial way to have a friendship. 

So how is that the mirror of myself?  Well, I fall back on email too much when dealing with my clients for my job.   I use the Internet as a cop out to not have to pick up the phone and call.  I know a phone call would be more effective, and in turn, more beneficial to me than an email.  My reasoning for using my cop out is that to this day, even though I use the phone quite a bit for my job, I’m still a nervous phone talker.  With email, I can edit before I send something.  With the spoken word, I can’t.  Then my internal dialog starts sabotaging the rest of my conversation, as I think about how stupid I sound or how nervous I sound!  Also, now that I work from home and care for my child at home, I could potentially have a screamer in the background while trying to accomplish a business call.  Emails don’t have audio!  So, I actually hide behind the computer!

Each person in our life is here for a reason.  We learn about ourselves when we acknowledge the wrong doing in others.  So the next time someone cuts you off in traffic and you think “I hate it when people cut me off,” think of when or in what instance you could possibly be cutting people off, literally and figuratively.  "Therefore, you have no excuse-every one of you who judges. For when you pass judgment on another person, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, practice the very same things" (Romans 2:1).


To learn more about the mirroring effect, check out Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is.  She does what she calls The Work, with four questions that can change your life!

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the Lenten season, 40 days before Easter, if you do not count Sundays.  Basically this is a season of fasting before Easter.  Not all Christians observe Lent, but you will surely know the ones who have been to an Ash Wednesday service because they have the mark of the cross in ashes on their forehead.
Modern day "fasting" for most of us Christians is not rationing out food, but rather utilizing self-discipline by giving up something (a particular food or drink or bad habit).  So for me this means no more soft drinks until Easter! Technically, the Sundays of the Lenten season don't count, otherwise Lent would be more like 46 days than 40.  So some Lenten observers can have or do what they gave up, but only on Sundays.
I chose to give up soft drinks because I have become addicted to caffeine and the amount of sugar in soft drinks.  I know soft drinks are not good for me and I have become too reliant on them to get me moving in the morning and to keep me awake during the day, especially with a little one in the house!  So for me, Sundays are not free pass days to drink soft drinks.  Otherwise, I will start to loathe each Monday until Easter!
I was very tempted this morning to choose something else to give up for Lent.  I was up with the baby several times last night, so the Coke in my refrigerator this morning looked wonderful!  I actually got the Coke out and a glass and tried to open the Coke bottle, but the cap wouldn't budge.  I started to run some hot water in the sink to run over the bottle cap to help break the pressure seal, and then I decided I was going to be strong and resist the urge.  I put the Coke back in the refrigerator as I thought about all the sacrifices Jesus made for me.  He gave up his life for me.  The least I could do was give up soft drinks!
Also, I am starting a new personal growth book in conjunction with Lent.  I bought the book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren a few weeks ago and found out that it is a 40 day spiritual journey. The author even mentions the significance of 40 days in various stories of the Bible.  So I thought it was very fitting for the Lenten season, even though that was not mentioned in the book!  I will be reading a chapter a day everyday except Sunday.  So I should know my life's purpose by Easter!

4:8 Your Mate

Valentine's Day is upon us! For many people, this is the one day each year that you and your significant other go above and beyond to show the other how much they are loved! I will be the first to admit that I like getting gifts, but more importantly, I LOVE giving gifts!

My husband and I started dating in college. We were like most college students and didn't have a lot of money (except after selling back our text books at the end of the semester!), but we always got each other a special Valentine's Day gift! If you asked me today what all the Valentine's Day gifts I received, I could tell you one, actually two. My husband got me two stuffed animals for our first Valentine's Day, but other than that, I cannot recall any other gifts. This means one of two things: either my husband is not very good at buy memorable gifts, or the gifts themselves, don't really matter. I choose the latter!

This year, since we have a baby, the idea of going out to eat with all the other crazy love birds seemed more chaotic than romantic, so we opted to stay at home and I cooked dinner. After the baby went to bed we had time to share some romance. I recently read a book called, The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-filled Life, by Tommy Newberry. This book is based off Philippians 4:8, in which the apostle Paul asks us to think positively. At the end of the book, in the Afterward section, the author lists what he calls 4:8 Questions to help you continue to think positive. There are questions for a 4:8 Marriage. My husband and I decided to sit down and answer these questions openly with each other. It was the most romantic gifts of my life, as corny as that may sound! So many times I think these amazing thoughts or pray for my husband, our family and our marriage, but rarely do we sit down and actually share what is on our minds or in our prayers to each other. What a great gift to give!

If you would like to 4:8 your mate or your marriage, check out the 4:8 website. You can print off some bookmarks that have a few different the 4:8 Questions on them under the 'toolbox' section. I use these bookmarks in the books I read in the morning and evening, so I sandwich my day with positivity!

Happy Valentine's Day!