Continuation to coworker dynamics

Day 1
I just finished listening to a really great interview on 'taking things personally'. And what I realized in that interview is that the whole mechanism of taking things personally is just another system which promotes distrust. Distrust as in a form of separation which involves a person not fully expressing themselves with another being due to some misunderstanding which took place in the past at a given point of time. As I look back, I realize that the one part where I have failed to let go of the past and created a lot of friction between me and another girl was last March. In that incident, I had unintentionally decided to allow my ego to get the best of me into dictating an outcome which I wanted to have to benefit myself, as opposed to realizing that what was best for all, was simply to allow myself to let go of any point of friction that I had accumulated over time in relation to that one incident. There are indeed a few dimensions to that one incident to consider.

 1. The notion that I had taken some nights shifts just to help out due to my wanting to help out and perhaps that may have also entailed me trying to be a 'hero' and coming to the rescue. That point of being a hero backfired because soon, I ended up resenting the fact that it had always been me who has been helping out to provide coverage for graveyards. SO I went from feeling heroic to feeling zeroic as I felt that I was taken for granted and abused by the system.

2. There was an expectation that others behave the way I did as in also doing their share to help out with the lab because of the notion that we should all work as a team and help the lab in those hard times. This is something that I had placed and created because of the belief that life should be fair and equal and that this is the way to be. There seems to be a feeling of righteousness in that. When I did not see others stepping up, I convinced myself that they are treating me as a slave and that got me really mad at some coworkers where I lost trust in them to the point where I just didn't want to talk to them anymore and isolate myself from the rest of the crew. This expectation caused me to create a miscommunication between me and another being and I ended up taking things personally.

3. The notion that I had done my share and communicated with the bosses that there needs to be a better system in place to promote fairness in the workplace as my position always forces me to stay in the lab due to operational requirements. The fact that nothing has ever been done about it has always put me at a position where I experience both suppression and anger at the management and coworkers who refuse to participate in night's coverage.

 4. The notion that I get mad at this one person, who is a really nice and caring person, but who refuses to provide coverage due to her extreme fear of working by herself. The battle between being righteous as in she should do her share because she works in this lab versus realizing that what is best for all is not to have her work as this can compromise patient safety is always going on inside of me.

 5. The notion that the person who I ended up having the miscommunication with came across just by asserting herself and she had her own reasons to answer the way she did. It it just not the way I would have communicated because I have always been taught to never be too blunt and direct as that can hurt someone else's feelings. This notion has always stuck to me and that is a point that I have had a really hard time letting go when I relocated countries. I failed to realize that I can't control what another being takes from a situation. I can only control me. If someone chooses to take things personally when one is asserting themselves, then it is their problem.

6. The fear that I will be not appreciated and not liked. Throughout my life as I looked back, I have always been praised for being the kid who is really nice and I had gotten used to that concept. It seems that as I grew up, being nice was what I had identified myself to become and therefore all I did was acts that promoted being liked and appreciated. What I failed to realize is that this was just another way of promoting my ego because wanting to be liked and appreciated by others just means that I don't like myself enough and therefore seek the approval of others to feed that gap.

7. Fear of being gossiped about. Fear of being gossiped about ties into the notion that my reputation will be compromised to such an extend that I will not be liked again.

 8. Failure to let go of that one memory which has lead me to create distrust and friction between me and that other coworker. It came to the point where I was experiencing anxiety at the thought of having to see her or work with her and currently I am playing the avoidance game so that I don't have to deal with her anymore. That one memory has also created resentment in me to the point where I just wish I did not have to go to work anymore and face consequences. I also noticed my relationship with another mutual coworker started to fade as in I had lost trust in that being as well because of her close relationship with the other being who I had the issue with.

Some realizations that I came to understand regarding this whole situation.

1. I am still dwelling on the past in the sense that I am still allowing that memory to ruin me. If I were to take a look at how things are currently with both coworkers, we are able to communicate and talk about general things. We do not argue much any more and whenever we converse, I listen to the other person's viewpoints from and objective starting point. I do not always agree with them and sometimes they tend to act a bit extreme when they start calling other people names. However, it does not affect me anymore because I am starting to realize that this is their nature and their nature has nothing to do with me. I have noticed also that the conversations we used to have in the past where one of them talked about ethnicity do not happen any longer. It seems that the person came to the realization that they needed to really revise their words and statements before expressing them. I can see that change in them because at the time all this was going on, I had reacted in anger and started to not talk to them anymore and since that episode I noticed that they began to change and not talk about races.

2. The taking it personally character came instantaneously whenever I read that email as if it was already programmed in me. I realize therefore that I am participating in a system that has taken me up. And that system is what is causing a lot of distrust in me and my relationship with others. I have allowed myself to not accept myself for who I am because of my acceptance in placing what other people perceive of me first.

 3. The placement of expectations as in if you do something nice, then you expect the other person/people to reciprocate that act. The funny thing is that all religions tell you to give without expecting. Yet, in real life, that concept seems really hard to live by because we all want a fair an even exchange. What I now realize is that in the case of accepting to do graveyards, the only means of exchange was labor for money and nothing else. The idea that I believe that we should all do our share is just a wish and it is not based on the concept of what is best for all but rather what is best for me as in me demanding that all of us participate. What I now realize is that what is best for all also entails who is the person/people best suited to perform night duties to ensure patient safety. That is something that I thought about constantly as an attempt to balance out the negative charges that I had accumulated through feeling angry that some of us were not participating. Yet, it never occurred to me that some people are just not suited to do nights because they have their own fears and they have young kids to fend for.

4. I so badly want to make things right again between me and the other coworker where I deliberately force myself to try to make conversations with her to attempt to regain her trust. That also ties with me not accepting myself for who I am as I so badly want to retrieve my status of wanting to be liked.