Regretting The Words Left Unspoken

Remember that special person you never told how you really felt? Of course you do because after all this time you just can’t get them out of your head for very long. You wish now you could go back and tell them how much they had an impact on you, how much you loved them perhaps, and you wonder if/how things might have worked out differently if you had.

It’s wondering, ‘what if’ that tantalizes; because it ignites possibilities of what might have happened had shared your thoughts openly. Ah, but you were scared, nervous and afraid of blurting something out you’d come to later regret. Ironically, after all these years, here you are now regretting the words you left unspoken.

It’s very much like that in other situations too; although the people we neglect to say what’s on our mind to aren’t just potential sweethearts. No, sometimes we find we lose job opportunities to others and later wish we had said a few more things at the job interview. This is often especially the case if we sincerely wanted a job bad. It would have been perfect and you have wanted a job like that in a long time, so when the news came that they went with someone else, it hit like a truck. If only you had said what you were feeling, things might have worked out differently.

Or perhaps there was someone you really valued in your past; that person who made a big impact on you. Perhaps it was their influence that set you on the path you later took or are taking now. A teacher, a father or mother, a mentor or some person who inspired you to think differently, perceive things in a new light. You never said how much you appreciated them and now their gone. Whether they passed on, moved away, have dementia and don’t recognize you, or you moved away yourself, the opportunity to tell them how you feel is lost.

Now the only thing worse would be finding yourself in this situation here in the present. You know, feeling so strongly about someone you see in the here and now daily, but feeling timid, awkward, embarrassed or anxious about sharing how you feel. You’re so worried about ruining things or spoiling your chances that you go on being around them in silence. You wonder, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just open my mouth, pour out how I feel? Tell them?” Of course in your mind you worry about creating a wide divide, making things weird, learning that your feelings aren’t reciprocated and as long as you don’t do anything…you’ll at least have what you have now – which is something.

Opportunities to step up and voice your true feelings pop up every day; but not forever. Take your work environment. You really value the support of a co-worker; they’ve passed on knowledge to you, covered for you when you weren’t at your best, listened to you share your frustrations, applauded your accomplishments and even motivated you when you needed it. There they are beside you every day, and having a real heart-to-heart with genuine sincerity, telling them how much they mean to you sounds both the right thing to do but maybe the weird thing to do.

Really though, what’s so weird? How long have you worked together? All those years and the hours you’ve spent in each other’s company? Why should it be weird to shut the door and say, “Hey listen, I want to tell you how much you mean to me, and I’m being serious.” You’ll likely catch them off guard, and they might use humour to deflect their real feelings, but they’ll likely also be grateful. What they feel in any event is up to them. You’ll feel better knowing you expressed your feelings and took that chance instead of regretting saying nothing. Then they retire, take another job, move or have an unexpected long-term medical leave etc. and you lose touch; opportunity lost.

I mentioned the job interview earlier. How many times have you walked out of an interview and suddenly said in your mind, “Oh, why didn’t I just say _____?Should I walk back in? Should I follow-up with an email or phone call? I really want that job! I’d LOVE working there so why did I find it so hard to tell them how bad I really want it!

Sometimes its convention and decorum that gets in the way. It seems somehow inappropriate to tell someone how we really feel. On the other hand we also hear that employers want people who are passionate about the work they do. So when you do find something you’re passionate about; a job or company you’re sincerely excited to work for and will invest yourself with fully, why not just open your mouth and express that.

Just like that mentor, potential love interest, teacher, co-worker etc., you’ve got a limited window to risk expressing how you feel. They won’t stick around forever, and the time will never be any better than it is now – today. If you’ve waited for a sign, this is it.

Look, hearing someone tell you how much they appreciate your support, your love, your encouragement, the opportunity to work with them etc.; it’s all good. We need to get better at telling others just how much they mean to us. Few things are better.

 

For The Beast To Stay Alive It Has To Feed

Anger, bitterness, resentment; hatred.

You might have cause to feel these emotions from time-to-time, but I hope you come to realize that in choosing to feel these emotions on a regular, daily basis, you choose to allow whatever, or whoever, stirred those emotions in you initially, to win. The sooner you release those feelings, you purge yourself of their power over you, and you regain your control, take back the power and live a better life.

Now that’s it in a nutshell. If you stop reading now, you’ll have the point.

Here’s the thing about anger, bitterness, resentment and downright hatred; sometimes they come into our lives and change us without us being aware we’ve changed. Of course the people around us, especially the ones closest to us, see the change, know it’s not change for the better and are sometimes powerless to help us regain our former selves.

When you carry any of these four with you, the surprising thing is how they change our body language and facial expressions, alerting those with whom we interact that we’re in a bad mood. This often causes us to look unapproachable, best left alone and then it follows that this can build even more resentment as we fail to win employment competitions, find ourselves passed over for promotions or yes, find ourselves removed from employment altogether.

How we then experience the world changes, because of how we interact with the world. One of the healthiest things an angry, resentful, bitter person can do is let go of the hatred; releasing the negativity; healthy yes but hard for many. Change as you know is hard for some people, and change for the better is no different.

Now on the outside; from the objective point-of-view of another person, it might seem easy to let it go. “Stop being so negative!” It’s not that simple though, and does telling someone to stop being negative ever really have the effect of having that other person just say, “Oh alright. Thanks”, and then immediately change happens in a snap? No.

Change; real, lasting change in this case, only occurs when the person holding the anger, bitterness, resentment and hatred let’s it go. In order to let it go, there has to be some motivation to release it, something they realize they want more than they want the negativity. Again, it sounds obvious. Choose not to be so negative and you attract the positive to your everyday life. Yet, not easily done.

Much of the time there’s an element of forgiveness that immediately precedes the release of these four emotions above. The last thing however that an angry person who holds resentment and bitterness towards a hated individual wants to do is turn around and forgive them. No, often these are the very things that feed the feelings. It’s true you know; for the beast to stay alive it has to feed.

So you’ll find looking from the outside in that angry people carry that anger to new situations. They have short fuses and little tolerance for others who they have no reason not to like. At the same time they can want to have fresh beginnings and new starts in new environments yet bring all the anger, bitterness, resentment and hatred with them and when what they experience is the same as earlier poor situations, they mistakenly believe the world has changed for the worse. It hasn’t of course, it’s just how they interact with and experience it.

If this were an easy thing to change, these periods would be short-lived. However, as letting go through forgiveness can be so very hard for some, these four traits can rob a person of a life of happiness. Should that anger, resentment and bitterness spread to others and stir the hatred in them, it can become infectious and linger to become generational.

But for our purpose, let’s keep the mirror with only us in it. Look at a yourself in a mirror – not figuratively but literally – and what strikes you? Do you see defiance, anger, hostility and resentment? How easy or hard is it for you to bring a smile to the face you see and when you do, does that face smiling back at you hold a genuine smile or a sneer of disgust?

While change is hard – even change for the better – it’s possible; possible always. If it’s you holding the grudges and the anger, there’s got to be something occur that becomes the catalyst for change. It’s highly unlikely you just wake up one day and say, “Huh, I think I’ll embrace positivity from now on.” If you’re lucky, you might have others who see the good in you stick by you long enough to be around when you make the change. However, often the catalyst I referred to earlier that precedes real change in the direction of positivity only happens when you lose the ones that mean the most to us. They tire of the anger, frustration, bitterness, resentment, universal hatred and though it hurts them to do it, they move on.

Choosing what to feed – and it is a choice – determines how we shape ourselves and therefore how we experience the world in which we live. It’s therefore not so much what the world is doing to us but rather, what we bring to the world around us. Choose.

Grieving At Christmas

Are you grieving at this time of year more than usual and feeling out of sorts as a result? You know, there’s merriment joy all around you whether it’s songs on the radio, Christmas cards that arrive in the post, the humourous social media posts that land on your homepage; and somehow you just don’t feel in sync with all that carefree joy all about you.

You find yourself on this pendulum swinging between moments when you get caught up in those happy moments yourself and then feel pangs of guilt as you recall the loss of someone special in your own life. Your laughter and broad smile disappear from your face replaced with stress lines on your forehead and a sombre look of remembrance. One moment you feel happy, then you’re sad, and then you’re guilty again about bringing everyone around you down in spirit. Oh if you could just get back to feeling, ‘normal’; the normal you used to feel in years past!

Welcome to your new normal. The emotions and feelings you’re experiencing are valid, very real and yours to deal with and process to the extent you are able. While normally in control in most areas of your life, it seems like you haven’t yet mastered this specific one; dealing with the loss of someone significant in your life. Try as you might, you haven’t found a way to – as they say – get over it; deal with it; move on.

The fact that Christmas brings along with it words of good cheer from everyone from family and best friends to work colleagues and strangers is well-meaning but only seems to punctuate the feeling that things aren’t usual. “Usual” means that for the other 11 months of the year people aren’t wishing you happy holidays or merry anything.

Think of that pendulum metaphor again. Your balance point looking back seemed to be when the one you’re grieving now was still around. When they departed, you experienced a shift where sorrow, longing and heartache have moved the pendulum. Then at Christmas we see, hear, smell, taste and feel the good; it’s families gathering around singing carols, over indulging in rich foods, their gifts, bright lights in the night, decorations and traditions deeply steeped in family history brought out and on exhibit 24/7 until Christmas is over. All of this swings the pendulum in the other extreme; where you’d normally be happy to go and make merry of your own accord.

But whatever side that pendulum is on at a given moment, you’re private thoughts can’t seem to be a peace with. You’re feeling guilty when privately grieving and feeling remorseful when you catch yourself humming a Christmas song in your head let alone out loud. So yes, you’re feeling out of sorts all the time. Why can’t everyone around you understand this and give you your own space so you can get the pendulum back to the center?

Of course to others, they see mood swings and may feel they are walking around on eggshells trying not to set you off. They want desperately to be of help and support; they worry don’t they? And you of course are wondering why they themselves are seemingly handling things much better than you are. Don’t they miss the departed? Don’t they care as much as you do?

Everybody experiences loss and everyone processes the feelings that go with loss in a very personal way. The thing is there is no set timeline for doing so. People who experience long grieving periods might worry those who don’t, and those that don’t worry those who do because they may come across as unfeeling, callous, cold and detached.

It’s healthy to accept that we all process loss and figure out how to move ahead on our own at our own pace. We know intellectually that death is inevitable where there is life; the day we get a puppy we know a day at some point will come when the pet will pass away. Does this make it easier? Maybe for some but not for all. And things get magnified for many when the loss isn’t a family pet but a family member such as a mother or father; daughter or son.

So here it comes…Time is the answer. How much time? Who is to say? You can no better predict how long you’ll take to deal with your personal loss than you could predict how long you’ll live yourself.

Now this grieving process of dealing with the loss of someone special is identical to the process of grieving over a family pet for some and yes grieving over the loss of employment. That may seem trivializing your loss of a family member but to some people, the shock, anger, denial, bargaining and eventual acceptance which makes up the grieving process is just as real when losing a job and shouldn’t be dismissed as not just as real.

Give yourself permission to have your moments of pain and don’t apologize for your tears of remembrance. These are your own very personal moments and your thoughts are not to be taken as a weakness of character. You should never expect nor hope I imagine to entirely forget the person gone, the pet gone or the job lost.

You will eventually get to where you will give yourself permission to be happy without feeling conflicted or guilty. Your good mental health will return. Do accept wishes for a merry Christmas as they are intended; with only the best of intentions.

Unemployed? You’re Still Entitled To Your Dignity

You may be unemployed at the moment. Or, if you are fortunate enough to be employed, perhaps you can recall a time in your life when you were out of work, between jobs, or the threat of unemployment hung over your life, like a dark cloud on an otherwise sunny day. You know then the feeling you’ve got just now? The anxiety, frustration, anger and possibly persecution?

Maybe just for a second you felt a stir of some memory of your unemployment you’d told yourself you never want to experience again. Just for a moment, thinking back to that period in your life you felt it there deep down; maybe the shame and embarrassment, the low self-esteem, the loss of dignity. And if as I started this off, you are currently unemployed, you may be experiencing this daily and wondering if it ever will get better.

For a large number of people, (I think it’s safe to say the majority of us) our employment status is closely associated with our personal dignity. If we have a good job and we do well in our job, we perceive ourselves as successful and that then is how we interact with others and thus become perceived by others; ie. he or she is successful. We hold our head high, feel good about ourselves.

The reverse is that if we have no job, we may perceive ourselves as failures, different from the norm, not measuring up or pulling our weight financially, and this too can affect how others see us. Hence, we are seen and perceived as unsuccessful, our heads drop, we shun gatherings, isolate ourselves and feel poorly about ourselves and lose our dignity.

Now while this may or may not be the case for everyone, it tends to be the case for a majority of people. But is it possible to distinguish the two things; unemployment and dignity, and see them as two different things that don’t impact on the other? In simple terms, can you be unemployed and out of work but still hang on to your personal dignity and truly convince yourself you are a person of worth? I believe you can.

For starters, a good exercise in rediscovering your dignity is to identify your strengths. What is it that you are good at? I’ve been fortunate to have a look at some of the past performance evaluations some of my clients have retained over the years when I’ve been working with them to find their next job. In those evaluations, while there have been areas in which to improve, there is always some reference to tasks the person performs well. It may be the case that in addition to tasks, other traits are evaluated; overall attitude, working with others, communication skills, attendance and punctuality etc.

These strengths are good to get down on paper. Even in a case where the same person whose name at the bottom of your evaluation is the one who released you from your job, this person was able to identify things you were good at and that they recognized in you.

One of the key things to understand is that your worth as an employee in one company doesn’t necessarily carry over to who you are to others. So even if you got fired as an Outbound Telemarketer with a large telecommunications company, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you are a bad parent, a poor spouse, a disappointment as a son, or a poor influence on friends. It’s too often the case that this does in fact get into the head of the unemployed person; and it’s not a healthy thought process because it can unfairly lead a person to make poor decisions in those other roles, and what you think can be in turn what you become.

So in other words if you fail in a specific job with a company, you might succeed in the same job but with a different company, or you may determine that the job is not for you no matter what company you are with, but it doesn’t follow that you should see yourself as a failure in all jobs. Nor does it follow that you should be a failure in other parts of your life just because you failed in one job with one company.

I’ve known people who are actually very much relieved when they lose their job; jobs they couldn’t bring themselves to quit on their own, but the release they feel on being fired makes it a positive experience. One such person worked in a store selling Adult video’s and kinky sex items. She hated the job as it went against her personal morals but at the time needed the money. She was grateful after being fired as her heart wasn’t in the job and she underperformed. Her dignity rose as she walked out the door.

May I suggest that you acknowledge your work is only one part of who you are. Taking stock in all parts of your life, from the personal hobbies, your role in your family, with friends, in your community etc. are all small parts of who you are as a whole. It is unhealthy to allow your employment or rather lack of employment and the dignity you feel in this one area, to dominate the other parts of the person you are.

There are a lot of good people out there who just lack employment. Maybe your one of them?

“You’re Useless!” And Other Put-Downs

This week and next, I am facilitating a Self-Employment class at work. I’ve got twelve individuals, all of whom are on social assistance, who are interested in launching their businesses soon; intent on gaining their financial independence this way rather than the more conventional route of working for someone else.

While all of them present with their own barriers to employment, there is one whose comment struck me as all too common, whether one is job searching or attempting to run a business. The comment made remarked on those closest to her; family and friends who have always doubted her openly and are now telling her she doesn’t have what it takes to run her business and she should just suck it up and go get a regular job.

Now that’s as much about this one person I’m going to share in this blog today. However, I’m going to sum up a multitude of individual conversations with others throughout. Comments that openly criticize others are destructive and painful for the other person. While some people do say these mean comments to bully and intentional hurt, often they are made in a bizarre attempt to be helpful.

But why do the comments sting so much at all? To answer this, its important to remember that the comments are coming from sources that people generally expect to be supportive and nurturing; our family and closest friends. More than any other people, our parents, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles, our best friends; these are the people constantly in our lives who know us best. And if they know us best and they don’t believe we have the ability to succeed, then how good are our chances of success?

You must also realize that because you are without a job, you have lost temporarily, the status that typically gets assigned by our society to people who have jobs. And it’s generally believed that trying to launch a business is much more difficult than going to work for someone else.

I’m telling you this: If you are constantly being put-down, criticized, having your abilities questioned, yelled at, told you’ll never amount to anything or you’re just a major disappointment, you’ve got to take action. It is absolutely critical that the attacks stop. If you continue to endure and live in a situation where others slam you constantly – especially if those others are family – you run a high-risk of believing all those negative comments, doubting your self-worth, depression, withdrawal from society and even suicide.

To start with, if you haven’t done it, have a conversation with those closest to you about your job search or your new business venture if you’re going that route. Explain the ultimate goal, why you’ve settled on that career or business idea, and how the skills, experience and education you have puts you in a position to succeed. If you are taking training, share that too. All of this may legitimize yourself in their eyes, proving you’ve really thought this out. And then ask for their personal support, telling them how you value their opinion, and that you really need them behind you.

Now if you just get some negative reaction, they just call you stupid or a complete waste of space, you have to in my opinion for your own good, remove yourself from the source of all the destructive and hurtful comments. This could mean moving out or restricting phone contact to once a week instead of daily calls. And it could mean putting rules of engagement in place, such as, “if you start yelling at me and telling me I’m stupid, I ask you to stop once and then I hang up the phone.” You really can’t afford it you see to constantly be verbally assaulted and abused; and if you didn’t realize it until just now, you are a victim of abuse – it’s verbal but it’s still abuse.

Being the victim of verbal abuse can be more deadly than a victim of physical abuse – although please don’t think either are preferable. It’s just that others can’t see bruises and welts who would help, and it takes much closer observation to see the damage.

If you do leave home, don’t do it in a rage, yelling and screaming, yelling accusations back and forth. Do it calmly, with purpose, knowing you may at some point in the future, welcome and seek out that contact so don’t burn the bridges on your side of the relationship. You’re not leaving to hurt the other people, you’re leaving to preserve the person you are and save yourself. This also applies if you have to temporarily terminate a close friendship with someone who doesn’t believe in you. Same rules; leave with kindness and respect for them even if it seems incredibly difficult to do.

You are a person of worth. You do have good qualities. You are entitled to succeed. There is a job out there you can do and do well. Your idea for a business may just be your future calling.

Ironically, those closest to you are usually scared for you and want you to succeed. They want to see you well-off but know they may be powerless to help you so they just rant and seek to motivate you by calling you names. They know not the destruction they cause, and are powerless to do otherwise. That conversation you have might give them an opening.

Living Consciously

In my daily life, I encounter a large number of people who are currently unemployed. Almost to a person, aside from feelings of depression, anger, guilt, remorse, frustration etc.the one thing many have in common is a desire to move ahead and “put all of this behind me as fast as possible and forget”.

I will suggest however, that the feelings that go along with the period of unemployment be remembered. This sometimes initially strikes people as odd. Here’s my point. When we are at a low point in our careers which in turn affects our personal lives and those around us, it is a safe bet that we all wish for things to change and by consequence, feel an uplifting consequently of our self esteem, our self worth and our value to others. Once we have gained employment and taken back the positive feelings that come with it, remembering what it was like AT THE TIME can help us reach out to others, be more compassionate, more tolerant, and helpful.

When we reach out to others, lend an ear, provide some kind of advice, or job lead, etc. what we are really doing is providing hope. Helping others by having a self awareness of our own past and the feelings that were very real to us at the time, is not only helpful to others in the position we were in, but it can help ourselves.

As an Employment Counsellor, I am reminded daily of times in my own life when I was between jobs. Those memories have given me a strong appreciation for the employment I now have. I like to think I’m a better person now for having gone through that period (one I nonetheless don’t want to repeat!). The best way I believe to empathize not sympathize with others than is to allow yourself to get in touch with the real feelings that you may be experiencing during your unemployment. Resist the temptation to wallow in those feelings, but pay attention to them and recognize them for what they are.

Moving forward can be much more productive if you consider consciously being aware of your present situation and the emotional turbulence you are experiencing.

Cheers