triggers

Even an only moderately stressful day can feel downright horrible when you're under the weather. And not only am i still under the weather, but today was more than just 'mildly' stressful. I've been home about three and a half hours and I'm just now starting to feel decompressed. I spent much of the day resolving something a cranky client decided we should've done sooner - though the hold-up was waiting to get a final okay from her - and who decided that she didn't like how our agent handled her call. She escalated it to our sales rep for her region (pointless, really) who called me and freaked on me and went off about our agent, who I had helped with the call and knew first hand that he handled it well. in the end it all got resolved, but honestly no sooner than if she hadn't made a mountain out of a molehill. It was a frustrating waste of an afternoon and required several people to stop what they were doing and "fix" something that wasn't broken and would've been fixed by the end of the day anyway.

This has been a week of triggers for me. These days I'm generally pretty happy with myself and pretty comfortable in my own skin. Maybe it's because I've been sick and my skin is thinner, but this week has really been in my face. I'm finding life demanding I step up just a little bit more in my leadership skills, and I'm realizing that one of the guys I supervise is of the same mold as a couple of guys I have supervised at other jobs, and those relationships have gone very badly. They perceive my communication as trying to put their place or something...I don't know. I don't have that issue with anyone else. With each of these past scenarios it ended up in the guy blowing up at me, and my wondering what the heck happened, and how he got to the boiling point without my realizing things were going so badly between us.

Triggers are powerful things, aren't they? It's easy to tell myself that everyone has some personality type that they never quite mesh with, but the truth is that I feel like a big screw-up when I think about those other scenarios, and I feel helpless because I not only seem to have botched it in both cases, but to this day don't know how. It's that familiar feeling I had sometimes as a kid where I know I'm in big trouble but don't know why. I fight fear in this because I don't want to repeat the past, but I don't know what I should be doing differently with the guy I currently work with to make sure history doesn't repeat itself. It feels like a test I studied for but now that the paper is in front of me I can't remember any of the answers.

So I guess what I need most right now is the peace to be still and listen to the Holy Spirit help me walk through this in a way that brings Him glory. I can't afford to take council in my fears. I just have to keep inviting Jesus into the frustration and fear, and asking Him what He sees in the situation. It's interesting how the more weary I am the harder it becomes to rest in Him and be at peace, but that's where my strength will come - not just for my tired sick body, but for that part of my heart that has been hiding this trigger for so long.