Last week I wrote about giving ourselves space before we react to something.The space to figure out if that ‘thing’ we may be reacting to is even ours and even needs to be addressed. I want to take it a bit further here with one more thing…
In addition to my intuitive work, I write for a few clients. Mostly SEO keyword advertising/marketing copy. It’s fun and challenging and keeps my left brain in balance with my right.
So the other day I received comments from an editor about a few paragraphs in a piece I had written for him. The comments included things like, ‘no attention was paid to what I asked,’ ‘very unprofessional,’ ‘disappointing,’ etc. Clearly, this guy was VERY unhappy with those paragraphs. And it wasn’t the first time this particular editor ripped through some of my stuff.
I’ve been doing a pretty good job of giving myself that space I talked about before reacting. And I’m pretty proud to say that when I read his comments, my initial reaction was, ‘Huh.’ Just that. In other words, I didn’t jump on my keyboard and defend myself and call him out for being a jerk or mean or anything. In fact, I didn’t even respond until the next morning. And then I just explained what my process was and apologized for not understanding what I was supposed to do.
Did I make a mistake? I did. So I apologized and made it right. But…and here’s the point of this…I also learned from the experience and that space I gave myself before responding.
I’ll be honest, not too long ago I would have been all reactive about this. But with that space, I was able to look at it in another way. This guy has reacted this way to me before. This seems to be the way he communicates. I have no idea what’s going on in his life to make him talk to people like this. In other words, I realized this wasn’t mine. I mean obviously the mistake part was mine, so I corrected that. But the way he treated me wasn’t. (I mean come on, it was a few paragraphs, I didn’t commit a crime, right?! LOL!)
When I gave myself space before reacting, not only did I realize I didn’t need to react, I also felt some compassion for this guy. And I don’t mean, ‘Lord love his heart for having a bad day’ compassion (Here in the South? ‘Lord Love your heart’ is like the ultimate in sarcastic patronizing…) I mean real compassion for him.
Just one more thing we can find in that space…
Live and learn with love…