Letting Go Of Angst

I received a text from a friend telling me she was passed up for a promotion and it was given to a coworker that she felt didn’t have good work ethic. I could tell by her text she was upset about it. I didn’t know how to respond other than “bummer.”  Not experiencing it first hand or knowing her co-worker, It was hard to understand why it was worth getting upset over.

At the dinner table over Christmas, a family member announced he was going to get cosmetic surgery. I could see the irritation and disgust it caused another family member. This person couldn’t understand why the family member was going under the knife and doing such a major procedure. He couldn’t hide his disapproval of the surgery.  I sat and listened to the plans for cosmetic surgery and thought this person is an adult and he’s making his own decisions. It’s not worth getting upset over.As an observer of these situations, I didn’t understand why these things caused so much angst in my friend and family member. The news they were faced with upset them and it wasn’t anything they could change.

Listening to these experiences I was thinking to myself, let that shit go, it doesn’t matter.  This was a judgment I was placing on others about how they “should” react. I knew I needed to redirect my attention to examine my own behavior and what negative thoughts or emotions I was experiencing that I could let go of.

During the Christmas break, I received a voicemail from a client asking me for my assistance with a project. This client didn’t know I was off of work but I instantly felt irritated as I listened to my voicemail. I am not doing that work for that client. If I get called back into work to do this project because it’s a large client I’m going to be pissed. I want my time and space away from the job so I can think about my next career move. The angst was building. I had to stop and reflect. Is this worth getting upset up? Am I misinterpreting the situation? Can I tell the client I will be back in the office next week and can assist with the project then?

I emailed the client telling them I was out of the office, but I was happy to assist when I was back in the office next week which the client was fine with.  It turned out the client mistakenly thought he had a deadline of the end of the year to complete the project so there was an unnecessary feeling of urgency. I had to take a step back and make the decision this was not going to cause me to be upset and if it did upset me, it’s an opportunity to examine why it was a trigger and change my attitude about it. I felt a duty to report to work and serve this client and resentment towards them for asking me to work. This was an expectation I placed upon myself. When I told the client I was out of the office, they were fine with holding off on the project until I was back in the office. The upset I felt, was self-inflicted. I had a perception of the event that made me feel I “had to” do something but when I said no, all was okay. Setting those boundaries for myself allowed me to preserve my time off and get back to enjoying vacation time.

Negative feelings can offer insight into our triggers and our attitude towards perceived negative events. They offer us an opportunity to learn more about ourselves. Maybe there’s another way of view it. Maybe we can choose a different reaction. Sometimes the poison of negative emotions is how long we hold onto them. We can acknowledge how we’re feeling, learn from it, and find a way to let it go so it doesn’t continue to fester and build inside of us.