Healing is not a destination but a lifelong journey

Reminding myself that it’s ok for me to still be a work in progress

Happy new week dear friend!

Last week I was reminded of the fact that healing is not linear and not a destination but a continuous journey throughout our lives. I shared in one of my notes that I was surprised how the actions of a person I know or rather work with, still had so much of an effect on me even though I know this is how she is.

This brought me back to examining why I was triggered, what my emotions were telling me and how I could move on from here as I can only work on me and influence just my actions.

Why was I triggered?

Upon some searching within myself, I realised that one of my greatest values - respect -was being violated by this person. What started as an internal discussion was escalated in the presence of external stakeholders, where this person was questioning my authority.

Well knowing that not only is such a discussion discrediting me but also our appearance as a professional team. I would have been ok with having a constructive discussion about ideas with our clients but not one that puts my decisions in a bad light without the necessary information but pretending they have all the facts.

I’m not sure about you but something that really gets my blood boiling is when someone undermines a relationship be it professional or personal - you’ve worked so hard to build in a sly way with inaccurate information.

What were my emotions telling me?

It started with me feeling disappointed in her, her actions and her awareness or the lack thereof, of the situation at hand. Then I got frustrated because I realised she did what she did without the necessary information needed to make any valuable contribution to the meeting.

My frustration turned to anger as I felt if she respected me to own my project she wouldn’t challenge my decisions, especially in front of our clients. So, now I had moved from disappointment to frustration to anger that wasn’t a good feeling but I had to let myself go through them.

How could I move on from here?

In order to process my emotions I picked my journal and wrote freely at first and then after I wrote again by answering some prompts. This helped me see clearly and also release the negative energy I had built up throughout this experience. Here are the prompts I used to work through my emotions:

1. Why am I feeling the way I am?

Answering this prompt helped me pinpoint and put into words what emotion I was feeling and why this affected me the way it did.

2. Is there anything I can do about what I am going through?

Journaling on this made me aware I could bring this to her attention again. However, in the long run I would have to manage my expectations and set clear and strict boundaries with her, as she will constantly disappoint. Thus working and concentrating on myself.

3. What lesson can I learn from this?

It’s not always that I have the energy to answer this but with this particular person, I knew there had to be something for me to learn here. When I delved deeper into this question that was when I realised that her actions triggered a part of me that for the longest time felt unseen and respected. Leading me to revisit my resources for working through my self-worth and building a resilient mind.

One of the pieces of literature I picked up again was chapters 1&7 of James Allen’s - As a man thinketh. On Thought and Man and Serenity respectively. These chapters have helped me control my thoughts and calm my mind immensely in the past and it helped again this time.

When I calmed down I decided to give her a written suggestion of our continuous collaboration as she is in my team and I still have to work with her. She read and didn’t reply but that was fine with me because all of what I was doing was working with myself to heal some more and that meant taking time to feel my emotions, process them and resolve them.

What I have learnt in my journey

Most of the time triggers come to remind us of things we still need to heal within ourselves or confront. Being triggered by something we thought we had worked through doesn't mean we aren’t healing but that a different aspect of what we healed needs to be addressed.

That was why I felt that what happened this week reminded me that this journey I am on hasn’t got a destination as long as I am alive and developing and also it is ok for me to be a work in progress.

I hope my experience and the prompts I have shared will be helpful to you should you ever need to confront or heal through something. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with getting through situations so kindly share them in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a great week ahead.

Love & Light

Sheila Daisy