When her alarm rang at 6:30, Cassey groaned and didn’t want to get up.
What in the world was going on?
After all, she wasn’t 16 anymore and wasn’t arguing with her mom about how much time she had before she had to get up and go to school.
She was 43 and hated going to work because she thought her co-workers were lazy, were jealous of her and no matter what she did, no one seemed to appreciate her efforts.
She’d even been written up by her boss because of her outbursts that had happened almost involuntarily when she thought her co-worker wasn’t doing his job.
This had happened before in a previous work environment where she had lost her job and she didn’t want that to happen again.
She knew she needed help but her constant thought was that she was being criticized unjustly–and she didn’t know what to do.
Cassey reached out to us and wanted some help figuring out how–as this bright, talented, creative, honest and hardworking employee…
She would constantly be feeling like she had to defend herself from full-on attacks from her bosses, co-workers, her family and seemingly many people in her life.
It just didn’t make any sense to her until she made some discoveries about herself and how she saw the world during a coaching conversation she had with Susie.
Here are 3 questions she considered and helped bring her clarity that can help you as well bounce back when life treats you unfairly…
1. How might I be contributing to the unfair treatment?
When you’ve felt like you’ve been treated unfairly, it’s normal to blame the other person, the institution or the situation.
If you want to bounce back with more ease, gently look at how you may be contributing to the situation.
When Cassey settled down her ratcheted-up emotions and ran a movie in her mind of the latest interactions with her co-workers, she saw that in many cases, she had anticipated their rude behavior.
She had pulled away, isolated herself from them and in some cases, her behavior could have been construed as rude.
When she watched this inner “movie” from a neutral place inside her…
What she saw opened her eyes to what her co-workers might be negatively perceiving about her.
Even though they weren’t without fault, she saw some truth to their opinions about her behavior.
2. How might I be keeping the upset alive with my thoughts?
When you dwell on how you’ve been treated unfairly, you keep that energy alive inside you and all that does is keep you in a miserable, unhappy state.
While we certainly don’t recommend painting a “happy face” on an unpleasant situation…
We do recommend not constantly rolling around what happened, trying to figure out why it happened and how unfair it was.
As we talked, Cassey realized that she had been mulling over her complaints against her co-workers each day as she drove the 30 minutes to work and back.
She saw that she went into work in a bad mood and almost looked for the slight that she knew was coming her way.
She saw that she would never have a good experience at work if she kept this up.
3. Can I see even a small benefit that could come out of the unfair treatment?
What we know for sure is that everything that happens in our lives is God, Spirit, the Universe supporting us, sometimes in ways we don’t understand.
When you’re in a situation that feels unfair, it can certainly be difficult to see beyond the moment to embrace the idea that this is for your benefit.
But often times, when you look back on situations that happened in the past that seemed unfair at the time, you realize something even better opened up for you.
When she considered this question of seeing the benefit in the unfair treatment, she was stumped.
Nothing came to her until she got very quiet and allowed her thoughts to settle.
Very slowly she began to see that the negative reactions she was getting from others could be a mirror of what she felt inside about her life.
Somewhere along the way she’d lost her passion for life and her love for herself and for others.
She decided to take a few days off, to recharge and sit with what she really wanted at this stage of her life…
And then check back in with Susie as she moved toward her new beginning.
You can bounce back when life treats you unfairly.
There is more love possible than you might realize.