The Voices in my Head

This post will be more of a way of me getting thoughts and concerns out of my head and giving a voice how I feel about certain questions that the voices in my head keep asking me or telling me.

1. “You are a failure.” So, let me just say this right off the bat. I know I am not a failure. What this pertains to is that at my workplace, I did not do a respectable job, I failed at showing the staff of life without me. I work at a small business customer service retail business. In November of this year, it would be 22 years since I first started. Since then, I have come to learn how to do things on my own through dumb luck, perseverance, frustration, and eventual gratification. Although the one thing that I am not exceptionally good at is teaching what I’ve learned. I can show it to you. But I cannot explain it in a way that makes sense. Over the years, good co-workers would be able to move on in their lives and I would stay behind to carry the banner of the store. One person, the manager, would be diagnosed with brain cancer and within a year, would pass away from it. Now, the managerial parts started to be passed off to me. Before anyone says anything about the owner, just let me say that there is much more to the story that does not need to be in a public forum. But I became comfortable where I was because it was a job. Which leads me to my second question/thought.
2. “No wonder business is down! You keep turning business away because you have zero confidence in yourself!” Confidence was never my strong suit. I can remember being in elementary school and being bullied constantly. One day I saw a flyer about trying out for the wrestling team. And I gave it thought. But the kids around me said I would never be any good and never gave me a shot. And I never tried out for the team to see if I could hang with it. Same with baseball. I had not been playing organized ball since the day I came out of the womb like some kids. I did not start until I was in sixth grade. And again, between other kids and even a coach, I never had any confidence instilled in me. So, why am I saying this now at 54 years old? At work, I can only do so much. As I had mentioned, people come and go, and they did things I could not do. And I never was able to properly learn how to do those things to keep it going in the day-to-day business. When so many of these things fell on me, I eventually had to turn them away because I either did not know how to do those things or I did not have enough staff to have as back up. I still have flashbacks to certain customer exchanges where I had to turn business away. I hated doing it, but I just did not have a choice. People don’t understand what it is like to be in MY head. They might not understand what is going on behind the scenes and that is something that I have to deal with. It is not the customer’s fault. Which leads me to my next thought.
3. “I enjoy helping people but it is getting to be too many.” I have had many days where I feel like Jesus’ Disciples feeding the 5000 but without the blessing of Jesus. And they still have the few loaves of bread and fish. Maybe I make too much out of it but if you are wired like I am and you don’t have the proper ability to teach others what you’ve learned, you become a control freak for the most part and you take on too many things by yourself. With that also came with a brain that was firing on far too many cylinders that eventually turns into stress, anxiety, and probably a number of other things. I’ve had many people just say “breathe”. That is all well and good but as soon as I’m done with that deep breath, the mountain I feel that I am trying to climb to be caught up is still there and it doesn’t make it any easier to move forward in. Add in that a simple door bell that goes off when our front door opens is like a PTSD type trigger for me that was getting worse and worse because our store sees a lot of foot traffic. But again, I don’t want to go into the practices of the store and its ownership. This is me we’re talking about and trying to understand who I am.

So, there’s a few of the things. There is more. And I will tackle them as I am able.