Apparently, I’m having one today. I can’t seem to communicate with anyone!

• First, I screwed up a client appointment that we set just yesterday. I had the time all wrong for the second appointment in a row.
• Then some of my very southern friends were trying to be polite about dates and a trip that we are planning and I just misunderstood their meaning entirely, causing even more confusion and some hurt feelings.
• A few hours later I realized that one of my fellow collaborators had been sending me important emails that I never received.
• A potential participant in the Collaboratori wants more info than we have on the website. Huh? Such as?
• And in an effort to mitigate some potentially harsh feelings between friends on facebook, I mis-read, mis-interpreted and mis-spoke about an issue.

So my first inclination was to curl up in a little ball, shut down email, avoid the phone and cancel all my meetings for the day. How could they possibly work?  There is clearly some energy out of step here today. Best to just lay low until it clears, right?

Well, that might end up being the right action in the end, I don’t know for sure yet. But when I started shutting down, I really started shutting down. As in feeling sorry for myself that no one understands me. Feeling down on myself that I am not more professional. Feeling alone and isolated that no one could “get” why all of this misunderstanding affects me so profoundly.

When you have a communication breakdown, communication doesn’t work. So looking for a friend to vent with was probably a dead end as well.

But by the sensations showing up in my body (tension) and the subsequent emotions (sadness, loneliness and fear), I’m pretty clear that shutting down is NOT the right direction. Hence, this blog.

And me deciding to practice what I preach. So I pulled out my handy O.A.R.S.S. Process.

• Observe sensations. Tension in my gut and solar plexus. Check.
• Ask questions. What else is possible in this situation? Might it be a quirky energetic field that I am passing through and have nothing to do with me? Or conversely might my consciousness need me to see a pattern that I haven’t identified yet? What if I don’t need to know the reason. What would make me happiest at this moment? At this moment, being the operative word.
• Release. Can I let the story that “something is wrong” go yet? How about now?
• Set a new direction. Are my sensations more relaxed yet? If so, perhaps I can focus on what I would label “good” stuff now. If not, I’ll keep circling back until I can actually notice that I have relaxed in my body and opened my heart to THIS moment, THIS experience.
• Show up as if you are the energy that you want to be. Since that would be relaxed and excited, I’ll try on this idea of focusing on THIS moment, THIS experience no matter if I label it “good” or “bad” and just see what happens.

I’ll let you know if it worked as soon as communication is clicking again.