The gutsies

My old roomie was once studying a book on becoming a dog trainer, and it was making the point that every student needs something different. You have to change your style to suit the student, not vice versa. That reminded us of the difference in how you treat your dogs too. One day she was disciplining her tough dog, Tonga, and just the sound of her raised voice made her other dog, Puppy, pee herself! Delyriam felt terrible.

Somehow this translated into my work as a manager. Some staff members you had to be tough with, but others needed only the gentlest of reminders. And that's how I am--friend Maewitch and I always referred to it as: We're the puppy who pees. If you give me a rule and I'm still not following it, then I've misunderstood something--I'm not being sassy. When I would get in trouble at work, it would ruin the rest of my evening. I'd feel sick in the stomach every time I thought of it.

That job things eventually reached a sticky end, and one day I was standing at a bus stop, 7 AM, having been awake all night, and I had that Sick Feeling in my guts. And then I thought: I didn't want this job anymore, anyway. Why do I feel bad? I am not, not, going to go around with Le Sick Feeling anymore. I am not going to let this infect all my days and nights!

And the S.F. went away.

And I was like: Holy shit. How did I just do that?

Over the next few months I didn't maintain this sense of calm all the time; but I was in a much better state than I would have been years before (I was growing up!) And since then I have tried to re-find that place and battle the gutsies, which is why I love meditation so much. Cause when you detach from a situation, those roiling emotions dissipate.

At my new job, so far all is fine. When I'm told about the correct way to do something, it's nicely, politely. (I haven't been there long enough for A Grievous Error.) But last week I did have my first experience of being corrected (nicely) for something I didn't think I had control over (shop lifting while I was busy on the cash.) So I got the gutsies.

But it really wasn't a big deal. No one was mad at me. I was given advice, and then we all moved on. Except I was unable to. And I thought: This is what I get for being sleep deprived! I'd only had 4-5 hours each night that week, and I could tell it was making me more sensitive, less in control. I grew increasingly grumpy, not at the situation, but at my reaction to it, and my inability to get to bed on time.

!!

At home that night I isolated myself, and meditated a few times, until finally--like when my drugs take effect and a migraine goes away--the feeling left me. I felt perfectly fine again. Hasn't bothered me since. The combined effects of getting older, and meditation, won the day.

But that's when I decided I had to work on this bedtime thing, cause it interferes with my ability to non-attach. And non-attachment is, like, my goal for the next decade. No more twisting myself into knots, or having my evening ruined, by a JOB.

So that's the long explanation of my 2013 resolution. ;-)

Now for another fave song of 2012, cause it perfectly embodies how I feel when I release sticky emotions: The very short theme from Hart of Dixie.



PS - I should add that all of this is just plain complicated by the depressions. Though I think I'm feeling better lately, I'm still very low on emotional resilience. Which, in and of itself, is depressing.