I'm what they call a “highly sensitive person.” I always have been, probably partly from having an artistic temperment and partly from growing up in an angry/violent household. Whatever the reason, a recent interaction made me realize that have wasted a lot of time in my life being miserable due to my propensity for sensitivity. I want to start getting a handle on this issue.
Last month I interviewed for a professional caregiving agency. It seemed to go really well, but then didn't hear from her for over 3 weeks. After a few days I was getting uneasy, and with each passing day I became more and more panicked. In fact, I actually paid to check my own background because I thought maybe there was someone out there committing crimes in my name! Haha! (thankfully, my squeaky clean record remains pristine!)
I finally heard from the lady who interviewed me last week, and it turned out she had gone out of town after our interview. She had a cold that had hung around for a month. I met my new client yesterday and I start work with him this week. So it all worked out in the end.
Here's what I learned:
-I thought I gave it to God, but then at some point I took it back without realizing it. (The proof was in the fact that I was miserable!) When you really give a problem to God, there's no need to be miserable or take things personally because it's in His hands and He knows best.
-Just because someone owns their own business and seems to have it together, it doesn't mean that they do. The gal who hired me is doing it all onher own, and she's overwhelmed. These days, it seems, we are ALL overwhelmed. I want to remember that and be gentler with myself and others.
-Those good old-fashioned niceties go a long way...
When I got no response from her by text or voicemail, I sent an old fashioned thank you note to say I enjoyed meeting her and looked forward to hearing from her. It served to put me back onto her radar screen. She contacted me a few days later with a job just a half a mile away from my home!
-Assumptions and expectations seem to be my downfall. Now that I've noticed, I want to start paying attention to the times when I am engaging in these behaviors. To stop them, I need only to think about this experience and remember that everything always happens in perfect timing.