Last week I spoke of some things going on at work and I feel the need to follow up after the past few days.  When we were kids, we were often told that people are mean because they are jealous or that they like us, or that they have their own problems.  I understood it on surface level for a long time but I still took everything personally.  I couldn’t deflect a thing.  There was inherently something wrong with me if someone was mean to me.  So as I’ve been dissecting every facet of who I am and everything I could have possibly done wrong at work, my old habits resurfaced and everything was my fault.  There are certain lessons in life that take time to make sense, for us to understand the full nuggets of truth behind them.  Today was one of those days.

The universe can take a while to show us the truth of a situation, but the truth will always come out.  While working with one of the people involved in the story I shared last week, I started to notice that the story I had originally been told from this individual wasn’t entirely accurate.  True, it may have been their perspective, but it wasn’t accurate in regards to the other party’s intentions.  This individual had deliberately taken the time to skew my perception of the requirement using fear that the third party wouldn’t be satisfied with my work.  As the story unfolded today, it hit me: “This is unreal—she’s jealous and she’s scared.”  Not necessarily of me, but of her position.  She’s afraid of what’s coming just as much as the rest of us.

I share this because, yes it was incredibly frustrating and quite frankly it was debilitating for a bit there.  But seeing that her actions, while calculated and cold, they weren’t nefarious or entirely malicious:  they were fear based.  That opened up an entirely new train of thought for me.  While I won’t be rushing to confide or trust in this individual any time soon, I know that her insecurities played a large, role in her behavior.  I felt compassion.  While I’ve never tried to undercut someone (I tend to go toward needing validation rather than hurting someone), I’ve felt that insecurity as well.  I know what it feels like to be vulnerable to other people’s decisions and their views or opinions of who we are.  I know what it feels like to be told your best isn’t good enough, and she was having that experience, as humans, we all have.

The truth always shows us what we need.  Sometimes that first impression isn’t accurate.  Sometimes it isn’t the whole truth.  Sometimes people are afraid to admit what’s really going on.  But if we can be patient or if we learn to ask the right questions, perhaps there is an opportunity to see something else or to learn about someone in a new way.  Yes, what happened felt horrible and I haven’t seen behavior like that since I was a kid.  But that doesn’t mean this individual isn’t hurting as well—hurt people hurt people.  Taking the time to see that perspective and understand where they are coming from doesn’t fix it, but it helps me keep perspective.  I’m safe, I am healed (and healing), this had nothing to do with me.  I know where to keep better boundaries, but I can forgive.  And that is the key—I no longer need to hold onto that anger.  Of course I wished it went a different way, but I am grateful to know the truth and to move on from there.