Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. Last night I had an unsettling experience. This morning I decided to write about what occurred to sort through and process my feelings. Through writing about what I experienced during the unsettling situation, I was able to objectively examine what transpired. In the process of writing about the unsettling experience, I remembered several valuable lessons that I had learned through past experiences.
The unsettling experience occurred when I felt led to share a word of encouragement with an individual after a meeting. What occurred was rather than being appreciative of my word of encouragement, the individual became angry and indignant towards me.
When the individual became angry and indignant towards me, I initially felt a tinge of shame. I felt a tinge of shame because I was caught off guard – as people usually respond positively when being encouraged. I felt a tinge of shame because for the thought that I had done something wrong or bad – because they became angry and indignant towards me. I felt a tinge of shame because I internalized the individual’s anger and indignance as being my fault.
When I felt the tinge of shame I experienced a “knee-jerk” response. I apologized for what I said and told the individual that my intention was not to offend them. The individual nevertheless remained indignant toward me, even after I made amends for what they experienced when I gave them a word of encouragement. As I wrote about the unsettling experience, I became aware of some telltale signs of my attempt to control their response to my good intentions.
During the interaction, I attempted to fix their discomfort by apologizing for how the individual responded to me. Although I may have “triggered” uncomfortable feelings or insecurities in the individual, I realized that I was was clearly not responsible for their anger and indignant attitude towards me. Although I could have compassion because of their reaction – knowing that the reaction was more about them than about me – I found myself taking their reaction to me personally.
Please read the conclusion of this article in part 2 by clicking here.
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