Blog

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash - Image by Val Marion

The previous article reminded me of one of the reasons why I started to create this website and blog...

- Background -

I’ve spent several years in a company where the recurring problems reported during meetings were never taken care of by the manager (only repressed with some « I'll think about it! » and a rather impressive selective memory). Over time, this made me confused and unhappy. I fell into depression : I ate less, drank more, and became more and more isolated in anger.

So after a long period of silence, in addition to the harassment of my colleagues (because I no longer wanted to listen to their gossips, daily complaints about life and slanders about each other), I arrived one morning to be attacked (once again) by a colleague, a leading figure in the company (more than the boss itself) and a gaslighting professional (at the origin of the problems of the company and mine within it). This time it was too much, I reached out to my manager asking for the problem to be confronted and fixed, once and for all... This is how I got fired.

During the first hours after my dismissal, I cried, but they were not tears of sorrow, they were tears of joy and relief : I would no longer have to return to this pit of mediocrity where I was asked to save the boat instead of the others.

Then I felt annoyance, marked by their still recent disparagements, I found myself alone with the conviction that I had become inoperative and useless. Beyond that, I was obsessed with future job interviews, where I would have to explain my dismissal, knowing that using negative terms to describe a former employer is frowned upon. I no longer felt fit to face anything.

A few weeks later, I woke up and the anger gave way to an immeasurable urge to improve myself and open up my perspectives. I sat down in front of my computer, and as bits of the past flashed through my head, I embraced the feelings of humiliation, rejection, and outrage. I started to write without judgment, without worrying about punctuation, letting my mind guiding me freely. After all, I had no intention of submitting this gibberish to a reader (it was just exorcism).

Through this exercise and thanks to books and outside help, I learned to rub shoulders with my emotions (good and bad) by listening to them, sometimes by fighting them, sometimes by accepting them. I let my ideas and my fingers speak freely and honestly about everything. My depression dissipated and I found a way to glimpse possibilities : I noticed an improvement in my relational exchanges, and I was able to (re)connect to my deepest values (find myself) .

Note Bene : For those who don't like to use the keyboard or write... a recorder will also do the trick.

- Crossing the lines -

Anger is a powerful thing : I channel all the pain of the past and use it as a holy fire that propels me to and into my plans. However, I am not always in control of all parts of it, and I no longer keep my opinions to myself.

We live in a world populated by precarious and jealous people. Some are closer to us than we think. Failure terrifies them, but so does our success. When we push our limits, transcend, the light of our fire is reflected in our actions and our way of being. This same light can allow them to see the outlines of their prison, their limits, but it is also for this very reason that it can scare them and motivate them to throw us under the bus at the first opportunity.

There will always be someone to give us their opinion or to evaluate our actions. If we take too much interest in them, they can hold us back. It’s up to us to weigh the ins and outs and learn the right lesson. Even if that lesson is to never consider that person's opinion again, in the future. We have to be careful not to let our defence mechanisms prevent us from learning things that could improve our professional, personal and relational angles.

But it is not the outside voices that will turn our fire/light on or off. The most important conversations are the ones we have with ourselves. We wake up with our thoughts, we carry them all day, we sleep with them and in our sleep, they continue to send signals to us. We are our own judge and executioner. But we can divert our thoughts, convince ourselves that there are other possibilities. By doing so, we can exceed our limits (real or not).

Conclusions

I finally began the process of rewriting the script of my life.

And instead of listening to the part of my brain that keeps repeating situations for which there is no longer a solution (or never had a solution), I prefer to learn from my mistakes to not repeat them, to not reproduce the cycle. I have learned to recognize the challenges and problems that are important to unravel, and to throw in the trifles what brings nothing constructive.

And no matter what setbacks and accomplishments lie ahead, I know I will continue to give my all. And when those who doubt me will tells me so, I wouldn't mind (they don't know what I'm capable of).

And if I chose to share this on Val-Project, it is because I think that these few blackened pages, the tools that I discovered through my reading and experiences can come to the aid of others.

What do you think?