Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The week that was

What a week it has been...I has quite a full on week, filled with ups and downs. Basically the week was taken up by work (4 days), attending various cession related meetings, running a million errands, house sitting & catching up with Julia and enjoying some great music at the Jazz & Blues Festival @ Mission Bay. For the most part it was a good week.

Spending the weekend with Julia was great. I hadn't seen her in a while and it was nice to catch up and just hang out. We went to the Jazz & Blues Festival on Saturday nite and I had a blast. The music was awesome. I can't wait til next year!

chow meetings were good. They are always good as we talk about how chow is going and what next steps do we take to move forward in this wonderful ministry.

Sunday, however, was probably the low point of the week. When things go according to plan most weeks, there is never any out of the drama and the atmosphere in the kitchen is generally very calm, collected and relaxed. But guess what?! This week wasn't one of them! Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong and to make matters even more interesting, I was on roster. And when the equation goes something like Jean(high stressed) + every possible thing go wrong this normally equates to Jean becoming more stressed, highly fragile & pissed off. That was exactly what happened, too.

Even though the nite was crap, the good thing was that I came away from the nite having learnt some lessons that needed to be learnt (personally and as a leader). So what did I learn?

Well.....
  • Patience plays a big role in high stressed situations like Sunday nite. I had to be as nice and patient as I possibly could with others, especially those on team. I'm not one to beat round the bush when wanting to get my point across and can often come across as really rude and in your face. And when I am stressed and pissed off, I not only get straight to the point but I can be really short even if I don't mean to. So, not taking my anger out on the people around me is something that I have to be very conscious about.
  • Confronting people is something I hate with such passion that I will avoid it at all cost even if it means having a crap week or being more stressed. But lovely Melissa made sure that before the nite was up I had a talk to the person I needed to talk to to try and get to the bottom of what was going on that nite. I hated having to talk to that person and still do but I did get answers that I needed, even if I didn't like them. This will be a big issue that I will continue to struggle with but I do know that taking on a position of leadership comes with its ups and downs. Unfortunately, this is a BIG down for me. And Melissa, as much as I hate what you get me to do I know that it's good for me and I will try and learn to love them... :)
  • I am loved and people do care about me. I know that it shouldn't surprise me that I am surrounded by such amazing people and I can call them friends, true friends. However, I have had many bad experiences with people that I thought were friends. In these relationships I was left very hurt and scarred. As a result, I can be very cynical about people when I first meet them and get to know them. I also am very cautious about how open I am with people about me for the fear of being hurt yet again. But on Sunday, God opened my eyes and affirmed the friendships I have within cessioncommunity. I find it hard to open up to others when something isn't right and I tend to bottle stuff up. This will drag right through the week with me feeling down but, as much as I felt uncomfortable opening up, my friends made me sit down and talk to them. And I'm glad they did what they did. I do feel better. Thanx to Sarah, Liz, Melissa, Brett & Julia. I really appreciate the fact that you are so willing to hear me out and let me vent my frustrations. But you don't just listen, you offer wisdom, encouragement and love in return.

So what does this week hold for me...more meetings, work and checking out the girls that I may possibly coach this year. It looks like another busy week but I'm not complaining. I'd much rather be busy than bored. So I'm off.

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