Disappointment

Today's rambling is all about disappointment. My previous post was about my struggle in my role at work. This topic ties into that. We had a few instances yesterday at work that left me feeling completely drained and completely unmotivated. I left work feeling like I had nothing left to give. I left doubting myself and my abilities to continue doing this job well. I woke up this morning feeling the same. Originally I thought this was all due to making mistakes. I had made, what I believe to be, a big mistake that ended up making another individual extremely unhappy and rather irate. I feel in my professional life I am able to handle conflict and confrontation very well, but in this instance the communication wasn't happening and my boss had to step in. The sitation itself made me feel very small and worthless. After work I proceeded to call my mom to look for words of wisdom and comfort. She, of course, listened intently but didn't necessarily have any response other than to tell me it sounds like I handled everything to the best of my ability and that I at least owned up to my mistake. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, although I'm not sure what I was looking to hear at this point. Again, I was completely drained. Then I talked to my husband. This man is so inspired and knows me better than I know myself 90% of the time! He said to be, "Babe, you aren't upset about the fact that you made a mistake as you are more upset with the fact that you disappointed people"....That's it!!!! This is EXACTLY where my problem lies. I hate disappointing people. But disappointing people is inevitably going to happen right? Of course. But I cannot express enough how much it eats me alive! It's still eating me alive. I am dreading when this individual comes back into my place of work in a few more days. Did the situation get somewhat resolved? Yes, thanks to my boss. But my actions disappointed someone and in my opinion created a bigger situation than maybe was necessary. I have so many things to juggle and keep up with at work that I still ask myself, are you over your head?? Is this just too much?? I still haven't a clue. All I know is I am trying to do the absolute best that I can. I need to figure out a way of realizing disappointment happens. People are always going to be people. Times are especially stressful right now as this entire pandemic plays out. All I can do is try my best to move forward. Leave yesterdays stresses and worries in the past. Not allow tomorrows worries or stresses get the best of me. Take each day a day at a time. All of this is way easier said than done!

Follower Becoming Leader

I've been going through what I am sure many people in business have gone through, but I am struggling. About a year ago I was presented with a promotion at my job to become a leader. This is also known as a management position for most businesses, but we are claiming the term leader instead. I have learned over the last 6 months how inadequate I feel for this particular role. I have never been chosen for this kind of position before or even remotely recognized for my abilities in this manner. It is a true honor, but I have to tell you, it comes with a price. I had no idea the reprocussions that would ensue by taking this leadership role. I am a people-pleaser. I hate to admit it, but I am. This is definitely been the hardest lesson for me to learn in being a leader is I cannot also be a people-pleaser. The two do not work in conjunction with one another. You would think that would be something someone as myself; a masters in counseling degree, would understand. Nope. I had no idea the efforts it would take to make sure I am not doing both characteristics. My co-workers will look at my differently. I really cannot be everyone's friend, nor should I look for friendship at work. That is probably a given anyway but still a lesson I am learning. I guess the reason for this whole post is just another way of keeping me accountable to myself and as an outlet to express my growth lessons. The only person I need to care about and can really be myself with is my boss. I need to show up for work, do my job to the best of my ability, and then go home. Period. I can be kind to my co-workers, I can do my best to problem solve with them, but there is something that is separating me from them and that is on purpose. In other news, COVID is still going rampant in our country. Many schools have started back up but majority of them are doing virtual learning. It is definitely strange times. We are still wearing masks everywhere we go. I wear one at work all day long. Some people still have not returned to work due to the pandemic. It's really a hard time for many. It has created levels of stress for so many people. 2020 is definitely going to go down in history books as one of the hardest years many people have had, including me. Moreso emotionally, not necessarily financially or physically but it's just been strange. Hopefully things can begin to get better and we can all adapt to this new way of doing life, ie. mask wearing. And I pray our country finds peace and new ways of joy throughout all the crisis in the world. God, please heal our land and help us to learn whatever lesson that perhaps You want us to learn.

What is going on?!

I cannot believe I didn't write more on here throughout the COVID-19 quarantine time, but here we are the beginning of June and things are finally starting back up again. For work we were able to open on May 15th. Those first few weeks were extremely stressful for me as I had over 300 people to call to get their appointments back on the book. It was a crazy time. I still feel pretty hectic and honestly I am worn out. This was my first weekend in a long time being off for Saturday and Sunday and I really have done next to nothing but I feel completely worn out. Today especially. I also have been going through some crazy emotions here lately. I have felt very sad and just altogether out of control. My heart has felt broken which I think has been a combination of stress at work, getting back into a routine day by day, and then mix all of that with more crazy that has been going on in the world and I have just been a mess. A couple weeks ago another innocent black man was killed by an officer. This particular officer with the help of 3 other officers held this man down with his knee on the back of his neck for over 8 minutes and ultimately he lost his ability to breathe and died. This incident coupled with the many other black men's lives who have been destroyed finally came to a head in our country and perhaps all over the world. Protests and riots have been breaking out all over the place. For the most part, peaceful protests have been going on but in some cases looting and breaking people's businesses have been going on. It's actually very scary for me. I am all for sticking up for the right things and certainly racism in our country is a big issue and problem. I am not racist and have never had a problem with anyone a different color or culture than me. I have no idea how it feels to grow up black and feel scared especially of people in authority. It's crazy. And it really makes me wonder what the heck is happening to our world. It has made me sad for humanity and has created this depression within me that has left me feeling helpless. It has surfaced my questions about not being able to have a baby. Then again I think, would I really want to bring a child into this kind of world we are living in? I really don't know. I just feel heartbroken. It makes me miss being in quarantine. It makes me wish we would go back into our homes and have better connection with people this way than anything else. It's so ridiculous. And I'm an extrovert saying this! I hope by the next time I write another post we will be in a different place. I hope I am in a different place.

Getting Out of The Funk

This has been the absolute craziest/weird time I think we have ever experienced. We are still in a stay-at-home lockdown and actually today marks exactly 1 month of being away from work. A month ago today, my husband and I were headed down to FL for a week of vacation which, of course, ended early due to this Coronavirus. The last 4 days, I have found myself in funk after funk. I haven't exercised in 4 days which I am sure is contributing to my laziness, but I've also been feeling anxious and unsettled. Yesterday I found myself saying that I was glad to not be at work and I already feel a little nervous for when we do go back because I'm now accustomed to being home. I'm not really an outdoorsy type of person but I think being cooped up in my house all day everyday with nothing but tv to be my friend has started to take an effect on me. The weather lately hasn't been helping. We've had rainy days and super windy days that haven't given me much motivation to want to go outside. We do have quite a bit of yard work that needs to be done in terms of pulling weeds, mulching, etc but all I want to do is nothing which is stupid. I know this is such a rambling of events and I am sure it sounds more like whining at the moment but I am truly tired of the funk. I've been frustrated with my weight during this time too. I've been so hopeful that being home and concentrating on everything going into my body would help lose weight, wrong. I thought not being able to go out to eat, drinking out, having more of a meal routine would drop the pounds. Nope. Have I been working out everyday though and have my workouts been challenging enough? Probably not. Have I really been that great at watching what I have been eating? No. I've baked cookies, brownies, I've made tons of recipe decisions that are way too carb loaded. So now thinking about it all and putting it in perspective, I've done a horrible job. Too many carbs equals too much sugar equals no weight loss. Put on top of that, I may get on the treadmill to do my run for 30 min one day and then a couple days later I do our Crossfit WOD but I kinda skimp on it. My husband pointed out to me that I have got to do way more weight training coupled with the days I get on the treadmill AND I have to start focusing on my macros. Carbs for me are just not good. I've been eating bread, baked goods, and also drinking beer since the weather has gotten warmer which just isn't good for my system. Ok so new day, new perspective. Perhaps just typing all of this out will help kick me in my pants enough to motivate me to get up and do something! So here we go...here is to getting out of my funk.

New Virtual World

Going into this new week, my amazing leader got us all a subscription to RightNow Media. There are so many studies on this app so as a team we are doing one by John Maxwell called the 7 Day Experiment and then I personally am doing a marriage study by Les and Leslie Parrott. It has felt good to add these little blips of encouragement and inspiration to my morning routine especially during these times. I have been starting to feel frustrated in the unknown the last couple of days. Our Governor's speech this past Monday was not completely clear for when salons are going to be able to re-open. So at the moment we are still left thinking it will be at the end of this month. There is another article in place that suggests June before many other places will be open and "back to normal". I think my time being by myself and doing things around the house has started to feel comfortable to me because I have been finding myself hoping it is June before we go back. I am rather enjoying this time of everyone needing to be home left to be with just their families without a whole lot of distractions. This is going to create a new normal for a lot of people when everything is said and done. I believe people are going to really find what they truly value in life. Perhaps they are going to get their priorities straight for the first time in a while. Work for many is going to look very different as I'm sure many companies have realized how much can be done from home. I would like to think that stress levels have been able to go down for many people as well. I know that for some this has caused more stress due to finances and whether or not a business will be able to sustain when we all go back to work, but for the most part everyone is literally forced to be home. Hardly anyone is traveling, no one is going out to eat, no one is sitting on a bar stool all day, and no one wonders where everyone is because we are all in this stay-at-home order. To me, this is starting to feel rather peaceful! I just hope I can continue to use this time wisely and have more lessons and hopefully more inspiration come my way. Cheers!

Week 1 Survived

Well I am one week down from our latest state shutdown. But unfortunately this virus is still growing and at a rampant pace. We have had so many deaths and positive tests in the state of VA. Just in our nation alone we doubled in positive virus tests just yesterday. This caused our President to make an extension to his 15-day to end the spread. So He is now wanting everyone to remained quarantined and social distanced until April 30th. Today the Governor will speak in less than an hour and I foresee him making the same extensions for our state. I am most likely not going back to work until May. This is really scary for so many people in our world right now. I may even be at a place where claiming unemployment is necessary. But instead of keeping this particular post negative Nancy, I want to focus on the positive. I have obviously had plenty of time to focus on my home; reorganizing, cleaning, etc. I feel so incredibly blessed by our home. It is definitely probably more house than we really need, but I do really love it. I do wish I had a few more paintings, more pretty things, but overall we have a really beautiful place to live. I love our neighborhood and how safe I feel living here. It's funny, I feel more safe being here alone than I ever did in our townhouse. And I really loved that townhouse and if I were to scream my neighbors would hear. This place is different but I still feel very secure and have such lovely neighbors. I am thankful for a wonderful job and friends that I work with. Even though I am not there now, we are still keeping up with one another and it's been really awesome. My boss has become one of my closest friends here and I could not be more thankful for her and just everything that she has done and continues to do for all of us. She is such an amazing leader and I feel so blessed how things fell into place for me to have this job. I guess my whole point to surviving week 1 is that I did it and can still come away from it feeling grateful. I think that's the best takeaway we can all ask for during this time. Here's hoping after 2 weeks I can still feel the same!

Global Pandemic

I felt the need to document what is happening in our world right now as it is an event that no one has ever seen before. 3 weeks ago a nasty enemy named Coronavirus struck our nation. 3 weeks ago I was at work gearing up for vacation to FL. Life was for the most part normal; however, some started to act as if a snow storm were coming. People were stocking up on toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and Clorox wipes on a level where grocery stores were running out of these supplies. It became humorous and no one really knew what was happening. 2 weeks ago we still left for FL as planned thinking our vacation maybe would be affected but at least we would be together and in warmer weather. Little did we know what was about to happen. A few days before we left, our cruise planned for May was cancelled to which I was devastated. I had been looking forward to this trip for some time. But this virus was starting to effect cruise ships and current voyages rampantly. People were getting really sick and even dying. On our way down to FL (we drove, thank goodness) the interstate seemed a little bare heading south. Once we got to FL it seemed the pandemic really started to spread. Restaurants and bars were closing early and were being limited to 10 people or less. So our outings to our usual places became slim. Malls and outlets were closing their doors, so shopping was out of the question. And of course the concern of getting sick and passing that along to my older mom was a concern. Needless to say, we said good-bye to our vacation 3 days early. All plans were pretty much ruined and that vacation has now gone down as the worst we've had. Upon returning home, our governor shut down all non-essential businesses for 30 days so now I have found my "vacation" time lengthened. I just finish my second week of not working. And at the moment we are closed until the end of April. Many other states have mandated the same thing. My husband is under the impression that it could be longer than late April when I will return to work. Finding meats, cleaning supplies, and toiletries at the moment is hard. Simply finding a pick-up order time from Wal-Mart or Food Lion is a gamble. All restaurants are now only doing take-out or curbside pick-ups. No one is going inside restaurants anymore. It is truly the most bizarre time in our history. Numbers of people effective are growing everyday. As of today, over 100,000 have been diagnosed with this virus. There have been hundreds that have died from it. So many people have lost their job and have had to claim unemployment. Thankfully, we are fine. My husband has had to keep working as UPS is never closed. But I am thankful that he still is receiving a paycheck or else we would be in such a mess. I am just trying to remain sane during this time period. I don't know of any other time where I have been cooped up at home for this long and not be sick. There is no where to go, nothing to do, and social distancing has been encouraged by all governments. There is the occasional walk with a friend you can do, but overall quarantine and seclusion are what everyone is trying to do. I will most likely be blogging more during this time so as not to get into such a funk. Yesterday I already had one of those days where I think it finally hit me. Being home alone all day with not a whole lot to do is hard. Having no one to really talk to the whole day is crazy. One can clean their house but so much, do laundry but so much, or re-organize but so much. I've started a puzzle, I'm blogging, and binge watching shows like crazy. Just trying to fill my time but also wanting to be intentional about filling it with the right stuff. I am even doing my first Zoom meeting Crossfit class today. So that should be interesting. So here's to 2 weeks down of no working, 1 week down of my job being closed. Stay safe, stay healthy!