Sandy came home from work every day either in tears or furious at her boss. Sandy and her co-workers agreed that their boss was unreasonable, critical, and demanding. Sandy felt frustrated and powerless, but she also didn’t want to leave the high-paying position that made her quite a good living. She came to me to gain clarity about how to handle the situation.
We first discussed how difficult relationships are wonderful opportunities for us to grow as human beings. Difficult people force us to release childhood traumas and choose new adult responses and behaviors. It’s easy to react with fear when someone is unreasonable and critical, but Sandy wanted to stop being at the mercy of her boss’s moods and find peace within herself.
We discussed how of course we couldn’t change Sandy’s boss but we could absolutely change how Sandy responded to the situation. We used tapping to dispel her feelings of powerlessness and frustration, feelings that were already there from unresolved events in her childhood and triggered by the situation at work.
Tapping is sometimes called emotional acupuncture. By tapping on acupuncture points we were able to erase Sandy’s childhood feelings of frustration and powerlessness that had had no outlet when she was growing up. Her emotions only wanted to be felt and released. One by one she felt them, tapped, and let them go. Sandy realized that her boss had triggered buried feelings from Sandy’s childhood that prevented her from setting boundaries and being the powerful woman she was meant to be.
As we tapped on Sandy’s feelings and they began to dissipate, she realized how frustrated and unhappy her boss must be. Instead of disliking and fearing her as she had in the past, Sandy actually began to pity the woman for being such an unhappy person. In the end she was able to see that by triggering the release of her childhood emotions and thoughts, her boss had given her the gifts of clarity and peace in a difficult situation.
Sandy’s big victory came when she could hear her boss begin to rant, demand, and criticize, but Sandy didn’t feel the old feelings of frustration and powerlessness. Rather she sat at her desk watching her boss from a place of inner peace. Sandy was able to stay “in her zone” as she called it, regardless of what her boss said or did.
Not too long after Sandy found her personal peace of mind the two of us had to laugh at discovering her boss was being transferred to another department. It was as if Life were saying, okay, Sandy, you learned your lesson; you don’t need her anymore.
Look for the gift(s) in a difficult relationship. Your story may not be exactly like Sandy’s, but there will be something wonderful for you as you look inside yourself.
