Real-Time Self-Support in a Moment of Experience: Success - Day 167

I want to look at a point that came up today where I was able to apply self support within moments to bring myself back to stability, or some approximation thereof, and also look at how I can continue to support myself to fully stabilize and sustain that stability rather than accepting and allowing myself to get stuck and let the energy move me.

Today was a training day at work and near the end of the day I shared a perspective on a topic that was being discussed among the majority of the school staff.

I felt very minor anxiety / nervousness as I began to share but afterward distinguished how the mere fact that I brought myself to share my perspective showed an increase in my self-confidence and a decrease in my overall work-related and self-esteem related anxiety.

However, after stating the 2 or so sentences that I wanted to share to present my perspective (that perspective being that some people might not identify a student's behavior as "dangerous" and therefore, given the direction of a video we watched, might not disengage interaction with the student; however, sometimes even if a staff member does not identify the behavior as dangerous, it is still best to disengage, because at that point engaging is ineffective. I stated how a particular notorious student had never cussed me out, because I never engage him when he becomes uncooperative, and I cannot control a student / another person), I had difficulty telling how well I was received. My perspective was a bit of a caveat, so it wasn't really an opening point for discussion, and so the conversation moved on. So, there wasn't a lot of specific and objectively identifiable feedback to see how others received my shared perspective.

Aside from this, what I noticed while I was finishing sharing my perspective was two individuals seated to my right whispering to each other, and what I thought I heard was one say "Did she seriously just say...?" And the other responding, "Yep," after which the first person got up and left the room.

So this triggered anxiety in me and I almost lost myself to my reaction.

But, as I saw some of the specific thoughts and as I saw my mood drop and as I saw myself starting to shut down and as I saw myself starting to rely on some false negative beliefs about myself to explain why this happened, I was more aware of this as it was happening, rather than just letting it happen as if I have no control over that.

So I stopped myself, and I breathed. I had a few realizations which I will share shortly. And then, due to the place we were at in the training, I was able to take the opportunity to turn the page in my notes and start writing self-support of what had happened and what my realizations were and just basically write out how I almost got stuck, and start to climb out of that hole through writing. As I was writing I could also hear the conversation happening in the room and I noticed that people were using words like "disengage" and "you can't control the kids, you can only control yourself," so noticing this also assisted and supported me to stop my self doubt and self judgment because it was a kind of feedback that what I had stated had been received / was not rejected as "wrong" by everyone in the room.

So now I want to revisit some of what I wrote here (I will not copy word-for-word but the skeleton of the following is from my notebook) and also look at how I can support myself to not get stuck or hold onto this energy or these beliefs so that I can enjoy this moment which has no triggers, and also enjoy my weekend and also return to work next week without any energy to interfere with my professionalism.


Basically, I shared something, and could not tell how well I was received, and also thought that I might have heard the two people to my right talking negatively about me in a way where it seemed that they were offended personally by what I said. I interpreted and internalized this immediately so that I:

• Entered self-doubt and self-judgment
• Wondered if I should have not said what I said
• Thought, "Oh I guess they both hate me" (as opposed to just the one who I am already certain does not like me)
• Thought, "I should just not say anything ever"
• Thought, "I am worthless / stupid"
• Thought, "Well what am I supposed to do?" 
• Which was a point of getting stuck in reaction and lack of understanding where, because it was possible that I could have stated my perspective in a more "sensitive" way or could have been less specific so as to not risk others personalizing, I got stuck on what I actually did in fact do and how I didn't know how to do it any better, rather than seeing, realizing, and understanding that that moment is over, but if there is a need for change, I can change now in this moment and in the next moment, I can come to understand what I could have done differently or better, I can move forward, I do not have to get stuck. 
• So, this turned into: "I can't win, I can't do anything right, I am a failure" -- all absolute statements about who I am, and not just assessments of one action in one moment. 
• Then also thought, "Great, now I'm in x mood" -- probably the most easily identifiable abdication of responsibility over my experience of myself by which I realized I could stop and support and direct myself to a different solution. 

I was able to see some of these in motion or promptly after, and also see my mood sinking and see like a dark cloud come take over my whole weekend, so I stopped myself with the small quiet voice of realization that this is not necessary; it does not have to be this way; I have self directive principle over myself and my experience of myself.

So I began to breathe and process with myself, realizing:

• Another person's reaction to me is not who I am, is not indicative or definitive of who I actually am.
• Sometimes another person's reaction can help me to see myself and who I have been in a moment, and so assist and support me to face and change that point if I have contributed to a consequence/outflow, but:
• Another person's reaction is first and foremost their own and so does not necessarily indicate or define who I am, and, in this case, after self-reflection and also shared reflection with a trusted individual I see / realize / understand that I am not "bad" and I am not worthy of such frustration or malice, although there is room for me to improve in my communication of sensitive topics such as this when my perspective differs from the perspectives of others. 
• I realize that this is important both professionally and personally, because even if what I am stating is true and valid, facilitating a reaction in another person is not necessarily the most effective way to support them in understanding my perspective, and so, sensitivity and tact is a very useful skill to develop. 
• I have not been as good as I could about validating / not offending others specifically.
• I could have used a more generalized example so that no person would reflect on their own memories of themselves within the belief that I was talking specifically about them and that I disapprove of their methods.
• Within this the principle of treating others as I would like to be treated comes into play. I see how sensitive I am to negative feedback or even just perceived negative feedback on the basis of very little actual evidence, and so I can be sensitive to how others may also be sensitive to this, also sensitive to the internal experiences of others so that I can assist and support best outcomes from my place of understanding -- same as I do with the kids. 
• I have taken this one small interaction and have "made a mountain out of a mole-hill" or maybe even just a little pebble that might not even be a pebble at all, making inferences and then directing my internal experience based on those inferences / accepting and allowing the automatic response systems to take over and lead me into self doubt and self judgment and ultimately self hatred -- all from practically nothing, not one single piece of evidence within the physical to facilitate this kind of internal avalanche / snow ball of reaction about my self worth and who I am. 
• I cannot address another's concerns with me unless another voices them to me -- I cannot solve another's problems with me unless another tells me they have a problem. All I can do here is support myself. I know what I said was valid. I know what I said is an important component of the changes we are trying to implement. I realize I can be more careful about how I say things, but I also realize that I should not have to walk on eggshells just to not trigger reactions in others.

After we were dismissed I asked one of my coworkers if I could pick her brain, and so I asked her if she had seen anything wrong with what I shared. She said no, but she also hadn't heard what I had heard from the people to my right. I mentioned how I am such a people-pleaser that I can get really caught up in and worried about these kinds of reactions from other people, and she said she shares that struggle, but she has to just let those things go because "if you're making everyone happy, you're probably doing something wrong." Basically she validated me, reassured me, and then supported me to find some more tools to support myself. I also shared with her some of my ongoing concerns about job security (she responded that none of these people are my direct supervisor, and my direct supervisor is extremely happy with me) and also concerns about basically realizing that, whoa, I'm not a little kid anymore, and other people actually have more confidence in me than I have in myself. She reaffirmed that it is always okay to come to her or some of the other staff, that part of their job is to support the staff through these stressful, confusing, and frustrating work experiences.

So ultimately, in reflection, this was actually a really cool example of real-time self support and self change, to not allow myself to dip into absolute misery and anxiety just because of one small interaction that I interpreted a certain way and then extrapolated all kinds of personal meaning from. I notice a certain sense of fear here though, because I almost feel like it was mere "chance" that I was able to realize what I did and bring myself out of the reaction. I also feel like this is such a... fragile, stability for me... like it would not take much to override this and go right back into these self-abusive beliefs, so I see that from here I have to really release the energy and commit myself to actually let it go and not accept or allow it back in: to move on just as time moves on just as life moves on.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to doubt myself and then just sit within and as that self-doubt rather than seeking out perspectives from other people about my performance or how I can improve or how I can better support myself because I foster a belief that I am "bugging" or "bothering" other people and also that they do not like me, they are sick of hearing from me or even seeing me, and they wish I would just go away.

I realize this is obviously not true, even if I am still blocking myself from embracing the realization that other people like me and there is nothing wrong with me.

I realize this is separation and within this self doubt, anxiety, and separation as my direction, I will manifest my fears into reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to just assume that other people do not like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I should just be able to "go it alone" and also that I should be able to be stable in myself and support myself absolutely "overnight" without any process of learning how to do this or needing to sometimes lean on or reflect with others for support and perspective.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to talk to some admirable individuals and wonder at how they are able to slow themselves down so much so as to be aware of all of the dynamics within an interaction and juggle these different personalities of different individuals in a way that promotes best for all outcomes when assisting and supporting people to learn how to change to support themselves and do their jobs effectively / live effectively. I realize that this is an awesome skill that I am witnessing in these individuals and when I wonder in awe at them I am putting myself in a position of inferiority rather than seeing, realizing, and understanding that this is an opportunity for me to learn and grow and see how this skill looks when practiced and then adopt these perspectives and apply them in my own self direction wherein I can be a pillar of stability in first understanding myself and supporting myself and then understanding and supporting others, and then directing myself only after I have done these.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to often only consider myself and my own self interests, or only consider others and what it seems like they want or want from me, rather than considering all one and equal, first myself in to achieve stability within myself, then others / my environment to achieve stability in the outcomes of my direction of myself.



I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes pigeon-hole others based on their past mistakes, within this holding a grudge, and because as within so without, I have thus prepared myself to do the same to myself such as in this instance where I got stuck on the point of a potential mistake or offense such that I believed this was self-definitive and who I am and therefore must always be, that I cannot get out of or away from this mistake, that this is a disaster, and I should just give up.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become concerned that a specific set of people dislike me so much that they might want to get me fired, that maybe that person got up and left the room to somehow like write down what I had said as if they wanted to use it against me as an example of why I am a horrible person to work with and a horrible staff person at this site.

How paranoid!

I realize that I have been encouraged to keep record of interactions that occur that seem unprofessional or hostile or against best practices and so within this I have developed a fear or paranoia that others will be doing the same about me.

I realize that some individuals on campus hold a perspective or viewpoint that there is an "us vs them" dynamic where I am a part of the "them" or the "others" and so they have probably many of them pigeon holed me and might use me as a target of their anger and frustration about the changes that are happening because I am such a prominent presence and representation of those changes.

I realize that this means that it would be wise for me to develop and cultivate the skill of sensitivity and validating others, like kind of tip-toeing around egos because, even though I do not wish to validate any egos, I also wish to be effective, and I realize that validating others' egos is an effective way to get them to trust my opinion / perspective lest they just reject me absolutely and take out their anger and frustration on me.

I do not like that work involves playing such a game as this or participating in such "politics," but I realize that it is best for me to learn to do this in a way that is as self-honest as possible to support myself in my position of providing for myself financially and also supporting myself to work in a field that I enjoy and in which I am interested and also supporting myself in my own professional development.

So I commit myself to develop and cultivate this skill.



I realize I am the creator of myself and I have self directive principle over myself and my experience of myself internally.

I commit myself now to release this energy and this memory from me, to move on to some other activity within my day that supports me to get into my body and is enjoyable.

I commit myself to watch myself as my mood shifts and especially to keep myself noticing if when as I think "Great, now I am in x mood," so that if when as I see myself thinking this I can stop and breathe and assist and support myself by looking at the series of internal events that led from one mood / experience of self to the next and how I can regain my stability for myself and direct the energy in a self-supportive way.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to almost get carried away in and by and as reaction and energy and negative self-talk and negative beliefs about myself and who I am absolutely, digging myself into a hole that I would not be able to easily climb out of, piling on top of myself layers of energy that, beyond the point of initial creation, and thus the point at which I could most easily stop myself and re-direct myself to change my path and my chosen solution, it would be very difficult to release the energy and instead it would just have to dissipate until I faced the point again and again had the opportunity to stop and support myself in the moment of that experience.

I realize how crucial it is to see the experience as it happens, to see the shift and transition away from stability as it occurs, so that in that moment of first initial experience, in that moment of my direction changing, I can course-correct and re-direct myself back to a point of stability, within this also looking at and seeing the specific series of internal events that led to this change in direction away from stability so that I can see how these internal systems operate and reprogram them in that moment, rather than just allowing them to run and hoping they'll end sooner than later and then hoping they won't happen again or will happen less.

Within this I realize just how much I really am the creator of my experience and how self-awareness and slowing down to the speed of my breath in all moments so that I can be self aware of my internal operations is imperative in walking this process of myself to life.

So I commit myself to this kind of awareness and I commit myself to continuing to reflect on this experience in a self-supportive way (not getting re-stuck in the reaction!) to assist and support myself to further define for myself what exactly I was able to accomplish here and how I can assist and support myself to do it again in the face of other points.