Okay, to show my commitment to both blogging and to exercise, here is the latest from the Incremental Marathon. I have decided to turn off all audio cues during exercise. Instead, I am paying attention to both my breath and the blood flow through my eyes. That is, if I’m pushing myself too hard, I start to see the blood throb in my eyesight.
I have lost all motivation for blogging. I do not have the energy to share my thoughts with the few readers that frequent. My motivation always fluctuates in regards to blogging. However, since about October of last year, life has been handing me one challenge after another. These challenges have severely impacted my self-esteem and self-worth. It is only recently that I’ve begun to pull myself out of my morass. I have done some posts on the challenges, but I’ve not taken the time to write more extensively on them and how I’ve allowed them to beat me down. Suffice it to say that I’ve worked on self-compassion. So, this post – hopefully – is the first effort at getting myself back into a desire to write.
So, I’ve not been the most motivated with my exercise. I’ve also not been the most motivated in posting the results to my blog. So, hence this catch-up post.
The app messed up this map. Somehow the GPS didn’t stop registering even though the app stopped monitoring. So, that straight line is my drive to work. However, all the stats for this run appear to be correct.
Really, there’s nothing to say about this run.
This run felt pretty good. I pushed myself on heart-rate, which seemed to clear my head.
All it did was sprinkle. And then only during the last 8 minutes or so of the run. I missed the heavy rain which occurred before I hit the pavement. It wasn’t a bad run considering I took six days off. Still, I would have liked a heavier rain in which to run.
I’ve been a bit delinquant in posting my Incremental Marathon and La Tour de Rook legs. Without further todo –
And this the day after I had a colonoscopy.
Update: I forgot to mention I also ran in the rain. I love running in the rain.
Today’s run.
I did two workouts today. My first was a bike ride.
The second was a run.
An old blogging friend mentioned that it appeared I had less drama in my life. That’s not true. I just don’t blog about it here. I did say on Facebook that I lost my job. Yes, that constitutes serious drama. However, it was due to my foolishness. I lost touch with my empathy. I began to put expectations on my clients, which they never can meet – even the simplest of expectations. And I became jaded.
Mostly, though, I became exhausted. In the Age of COVID-19, the separation between selfless and self-centered has become even more pronounced. Not just with my clients, but with myself. I started to put up a wall to protect myself from the anger and frustrations of my clients. They are not the nicest of people in normal times. In these extraordinary times, they have become crueler and more vicious. And though I knew their comments, their actions, and their attitudes had nothing to do with me, it still did damage.
Then, there was the fact that attempting to deal with my emotional response to these times was leaving me exhausted. I was increasing the amount of exercise needed to deal with the emotions I was experiencing towards the leadership in this country. It only added to my exhaustion instead of dealing with my stress. As a result, I exploded in anger at one of my clients.
I was unprofessional, I was insensitive, and I was judgmental as hell. And when my anger cooled, I recognized my error. And I admitted it to my superiors. I apologized not only to the individual but to the group, making no excuses and blaming no one. And yet, after I did so, I realized I didn’t feel support from my superior, who had joined me in the group. I felt left out to hang. I realized that she did nothing to stop the role reversal that occurred. I suddenly became a client while the clients became the staff. And she encouraged it. Hell, she allowed them to counsel me.
I’ve made mistakes before, I’ve had to apologize, and I’ve had my superiors in the group with me at the time. Yet, most didn’t allow the reversal of roles. They still established the role I played as staff, with my authority intact. They helped with devising the path towards restoring trust. But they never let the clients ask personal questions of me, or to give suggestions on how to take care of myself. That was for a private meeting between them and myself.
And this is where I made my second mistake. I expected my manager to be willing to listen to me. I started to explain how I felt about the group. But she wasn’t having any of it. She quickly took my fear and renamed it defensiveness. She wasn’t willing to listen to me share my experience with the group at all. Then she became condescending and moralistic. I attempted to explain my perception of how she was coming across but got that thrown right back into my face. Her exact words were, “Your perception is wrong.”
After that, she told me to go home. I didn’t argue. And an hour later I received a voice message from Human Resources to call him back. Yup, you got it. I was fired.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I would not have been angry or upset about getting fired on the day I lost my shit. I would have fired me. But two days later, when I attempted to share with my boss how she was coming across, she got angry and fired me on the spot.
Now I’m unemployed. Such is life. I’ve been fired by better people than her. Actually, I had an inkling she wasn’t the best of bosses. She had a tendency to speak over me or raise her voice to the point of yelling when addressing me in staffings. So, I probably am better off not working there.
So there. How’s that for drama?