If you have to work in an office, you will encounter office stress. It is best to step away from the situation before responding when stressed out. Read my story of how I benefitted from waiting to respond in anger.
I normally have pretty good luck with the Law of Attraction. But perhaps the focus on “stress reduction” this month on the blog has caused my stress level to rise a bit. One bright side to that is I have lots of situations to apply the stress relief tips that are being shared. One stress reduction strategy is to take time to respond to someone when angry.
I faced a situation with my website that initially got me incensed. I did not realize at the time I was handling the situation well until I reflected on its successful conclusion. Let me take you through what happened recently and my response.
I worked with someone who was consulting on parts of my online strategy for awhile. When the work was finished, about a month afterwards I received an email where my former consultant (and household name) was pitching a similar membership plan to the one I have for the Meditation Masters Network. I was irate!
First I felt utter betrayal. Then I felt enraged. I vented to my wife. I forwarded the email pitch to others and commented. I needed everyone to agree that I had been screwed, I was in the right, this person was a jerk.
What I didn’t realize at the time is that I was venting. I feel venting about a situation immediately is a healthy thing to do, you don’t want to keep stress bottled up inside where it could manifest itself in your body somewhere. The important part about venting is the audience you choose. Vent with trusted people that are not part of the reason you are angry in the first place.
During the venting period over the next few days, I listened to my trusted circle’s opinions. This is not so that someone else can tell me how I have to feel about the situation. But hearing different opinions brings greater perspective on the situation in angles you can’t see, especially when emotionally invested.
Next, I replayed all the events in my mind from the other person’s perspective and performed some further due diligence on the similar membership. It turned out it was not a membership concerning meditation, it just had meditation as part of its offerings. Furthermore, the people featured on this site had no overlap with the meditation experts I had gathered other than the person I was agitated with.
A wise person who was my sounding board during my deliberations asked me a pointed question that made everything come together. “What do you want from the situation?” It makes everything so clear to ask that! Because events occur in life, people observe events, then people make judgments on events, that triggers emotions, and then more events occur. I had just observed a situation and judgments were flying!
It is very powerful to decide what you want to happen rather than making constant judgments and then dealing with the emotional ramifications of the judgments you made. Making judgements and having reactions is not conscious living, it is deciding to be a victim of your environment.
I decided I wanted to know the details of this person’s involvement with the other site. And if I was satisfied the situation was benign, I wanted the person involved in the Masters Meditation Network (being a household name with a lot to offer). However, if the person that I was angry with did have some involvement with the membership site, I wanted no further business dealings with him. So I setup a conference call and put it on the table.
The end result was that I had gotten enraged without knowing all the facts. While it was fair for me to be upset over the email, there was not a big conspiracy to steal my membership idea. My anger was misdirected and I almost lost a great meditation teacher and business consultant.
I did not get everything I wanted, but I did learn I would’ve been over-reacting if I blew my top over the situation. Instead, I got to keep a household personal development teacher involved and committed to the Master Meditation Network. By following a plan of delaying my angry response, the Meditation Masters Network is stronger for it and my stress has dissolved.
Office Stress Reduction 1. Feel the anger and don’t try to diminish or rationalize it 2. Vent with those you trust 3. Listen to feedback 4. Decide what you want out of the situation 5. Go for what you want 6. Accept the outcome and move on
