Personal Insight Workshop Continues

Yesterday's "Personal Insight" workshop was interesting in some ways, not so useful in others.

A large portion was focused on recognizing potentially upsetting or stressful situations early, understanding why we might find them upsetting (eg. conflict with internalized values) and strategies for choosing one's reaction rather defaulting to anxiety/anger/depression. That particular portion was largely old stuff for me but there were a number of useful exercises on examining one's core values and enumerating fear.

My fears are much the same as everyone else's: failure, loss of employment, financial insecurity, illness, isolation, etc.. That wasn't news. This is the first workshop I've attended where we were encouraged to dig deeper.

For example, I do have a fear of failure, but going deeper, I realized that I can handle failure: it's blame for failure that I have a problem handling. Digging further, it's not even the blame: it's public humiliation and loss of face.

While this doesn't help me deal with whatever issues I might have about being humiliated (or perceiving humiliation), it does give me room to accept emotionally what I've known intellectually: failure isn't a bad thing in itself and it's frequently better to attempt & fail than never to attempt. Progress, after a fashion.

The portion on needs and values & beliefs had some similar revelations. The aspects off my office life which cause me the most anger/pain/stress all seem to be caused by one thing: a conflict with my internalized value system of etiquette.

That sounds trivial but it manifests itself in interesting ways. A few months ago, I was furious at my boss surprised me in a public meeting --he laid off two technical writers and then declared that I'd take on all in-house writing projects in addition to my regular duties without a word of warning. This violated good office management practices and was a spectacular lack of professional protocol --in my opinion-- not to mention exhibiting a disdain for an entire skilled profession and disregard for my pre-existing projects. The lack of congruence between his previously stated goals and his actions also pressed a number of buttons, but at its fundamental level, my anger arose out of being blindsided rather than the shift in assignment. Examining other such episodes on the past, I'm seeing a pattern of me reacting badly to significant breaches of protocol rather than the actual matter in question. Who knew?

There's more to write but I have to head to today's session. Yesterday lasted 8:30 AM to 7:30 PM --they at least fed us breakfast, lunch and dinner-- but today's session will run only to 4:30 PM or so. More news as it develops and as I get Internet access.

Personal Insight Workshop Continues

Yesterday's "Personal Insight" workshop was interesting in some ways, not so useful in others.

A large portion was focused on recognizing potentially upsetting or stressful situations early, understanding why we might find them upsetting (eg. conflict with internalized values) and strategies for choosing one's reaction rather defaulting to anxiety/anger/depression. That particular portion was largely old stuff for me but there were a number of useful exercises on examining one's core values and enumerating fear.

My fears are much the same as everyone else's: failure, loss of employment, financial insecurity, illness, isolation, etc.. That wasn't news. This is the first workshop I've attended where we were encouraged to dig deeper.

For example, I do have a fear of failure, but going deeper, I realized that I can handle failure: it's blame for failure that I have a problem handling. Digging further, it's not even the blame: it's public humiliation and loss of face.

While this doesn't help me deal with whatever issues I might have about being humiliated (or perceiving humiliation), it does give me room to accept emotionally what I've known intellectually: failure isn't a bad thing in itself and it's frequently better to attempt & fail than never to attempt. Progress, after a fashion.

The portion on needs and values & beliefs had some similar revelations. The aspects off my office life which cause me the most anger/pain/stress all seem to be caused by one thing: a conflict with my internalized value system of etiquette.

That sounds trivial but it manifests itself in interesting ways. A few months ago, I was furious at my boss surprised me in a public meeting --he laid off two technical writers and then declared that I'd take on all in-house writing projects in addition to my regular duties without a word of warning. This violated good office management practices and was a spectacular lack of professional protocol --in my opinion-- not to mention exhibiting a disdain for an entire skilled profession and disregard for my pre-existing projects. The lack of congruence between his previously stated goals and his actions also pressed a number of buttons, but at its fundamental level, my anger arose out of being blindsided rather than the shift in assignment. Examining other such episodes on the past, I'm seeing a pattern of me reacting badly to significant breaches of protocol rather than the actual matter in question. Who knew?

There's more to write but I have to head to today's session. Yesterday lasted 8:30 AM to 7:30 PM --they at least fed us breakfast, lunch and dinner-- but today's session will run only to 4:30 PM or so. More news as it develops and as I get Internet access.