My First Lesson Tested

Two weeks after my first surprising meeting with my boss and our dean, I walked into our follow-up meeting like a blank slate. I had no idea what to expect. I had healed my issue with love and attention and now I wasn't quite sure what the real situation was. Was I fired? Was there still a job for me? I had no idea because I was so triggered during that meeting that I couldn't objectively evaluate the situation.

The meeting was an interesting one. It started with their proposal for a new job description for me: as On Course Coordinator for the college, they still wanted me to lead the faculty and staff development in On Course, teach the new On Course class I had developed for students and teach the one-hour On Course workshops for students that I had co-created over the last two semesters. The job description included almost everything that I had been doing already. The only change was that my position would be kind of pieced together with a stipend for coordinating On Course and regular associate faculty pay for student workshops and classes instead of being a single hourly position in CAS (the Center for Academic Success). I would set my own hours and have projects to work on. It was exactly what I wanted! The second major change in my position was that I would no longer report to my current boss. In fact, she pointed out that she never wanted to be alone in a room with me.

Those are the facts of the meeting, but the more interesting part for me was how I felt: fine. I was no longer angry, upset or anything. My boss was still angry at me and wouldn't look directly at me during the meeting. Whenever she spoke to me, her anger came to the surface. I saw clearly that we had both been inadvertently triggered by the other. Because I had cleared my trigger, I wasn't upset anymore. She hadn't done the healing work on herself and she was still very triggered. I was able to remain neutral and clear-headed throughout the entire hour-long meeting. I knew that although my soon-to-be former boss and I would never be alone together, we would be working together on various college committee in the future, so I asked if my boss would be willing to resolve the original issue, whatever it was. She refused. I persisted and finally she admitted that she thought I had filled out a travel form incorrectly last June. Although she still insisted that she didn't want to resolve the issue but wanted to just move forward, I got her and our dean to agree that if we could resolve the question about the form we would. And then the hour was up and the meeting ended.

So, I left that meeting feeling the victory of the deep healing I had done the week before. (Thanks to USM and Skip for gently nudging me in that direction!) In a situation that had all the elements that had triggered me before, I had remained neutral and un-triggered. I was able to be present and aware and communicate clearly and honestly in the moment. This was a big deal for me! Plus, the proposal for my new job description validated the excellent job I do. I was experiencing the payoff for doing the emotional work on myself and it felt great.

[Note: I've had two more meetings with my boss and I remained untriggered and neutral in both while she was still very angry at me during both meetings. And this is not because I am trying to be neutral or that I am such a great person or anything like that. It's simply that the triggers that used to be there are gone and their departure appears to be permanent.]