Powerful

While the power was out yesterday morning, I sat down and started to write.

Throughout the past few weeks, I had been scribbling down words and thoughts as they came to mind. It was an email that I wanted to send but I didn't want to write it under duress. I wanted to put it together when my mind was clear and quiet. Yesterday morning's power outage gave me the opportunity I had been waiting for.

Back in my Daycare Days, I wrote newsletters when recurring issues started overtaking my thoughts. Writing down my thoughts and putting them on paper gave me an opportunity to formulate my thoughts and communicate them to everyone in a safe, non-accusatory way. It helped me confront many small issues that would have gotten out of hand if I hadn't said anything. How can you expect people to change if you don't give them the opportunity to know what you are thinking? And more importantly, how could I live with myself if I created a 'world' where I allowed people to take advantage of me.

The mantra I developed for myself in my Daycare Days was "I have no right to complain about a situation if I don't do anything to change it". If people took advantage of me and I said nothing, it was my own fault. For the first time in my life, I took a stand. And people actually respected me for it. Go figure ...

There have been small recurring issues in my work-world lately. I have been frustrated, but not at my boss ... because how could he know there was a problem if I didn't tell him??

Yesterday I put the words together and formulated an email (there is simply no time to talk when I'm working, so an email was the means of communication I chose).

I thought that I would need to let the words 'breathe' for a few days before I hit the send button. But they had been quietly coming together in my mind for the past few months. So I sent off my email early yesterday morning.

The reply came shortly thereafter. We addressed the issues that I had brought up and talked. I felt back in control of that particular part of my world.

The quiet of yesterday morning provided the time and opportunity to put myself back in the driver's seat of my life. Where I was feeling powerless, I took the reins and felt powerful once again. Not in a forceful way ... but a quiet way which says, "This is my situation ... I would appreciate us finding a workable solution together."

And we did.