I almost skipped a meeting with the President because of this...

18 Feb

But first, some context:

A few years ago when I was living in Melbourne and working in design, my boss and I had a meeting scheduled with the President of Timor Leste to discuss a social enterprise.

I was ABSOLUTELY FAN-GIRLING about this meeting.

Indulge me while I throw a few facts out there in an effort to demonstrate why I SO DEEPLY ADMIRED this man and how much of a HUGE DEAL this meeting was:

He had:

led the struggle for independence for Timor while living in exile for almost 30 years during the Indonesian occupation of his country
a diplomat, a negotiator and a peace maker, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1996
he was shot three times during an assassination attempt in Timor, was airlifted to Australia for treatment, and returned to Timor with less security than ever (straight up bad-ass)

So you get my fan-girling, yeah?

Anyway - cut to scene.

My boss comes to me the day before and tells me our meeting is scheduled for 11am the next day.

“How do you know?” I ask, since I’ve been solely in charge of comms thus far.

“He emailed me the invite,” he tells me - at which point I demand to see it. He shows me it and I realise:

I’VE. NOT. BEEN. INVITED.

Kicked off the team.

Unceremoniously been shown the door.

However you wanna phrase it, my name was definitely not on that invite.

I waste no time in making this about me. Although there’s no reason or justification for it, I immediately blame myself for not scoring an invite.

And this, my friend, is a negative thought pattern known as ‘personalisation’, characterised by the following:

feelings of doubt and inadequacy
(in my case: “of course I’m not worthy of being in this man’s presence.“)
feeling personally targeted by someone’s behaviour
(in my case: “he has intentionally removed my name from this list of attendees.”)
feeling deliberately excluded from a group
(in my case: “he has deliberately NOT invited me and thus excluded me from the project.”)
assuming that you have control (when you don’t)
basically forgetting that external factors are a thing
(in my case, forgetting entirely that he’s a busy man who doesn’t even have the time or energy to invest in a silent offensive against me!)

People with (you guessed it!) anxiety-related disorders are some of the most affected by personalisation and friend, that’s a lot of responsibility to shoulder…

‘Cos in reality:

external circumstances do exist
we have control over very little
we almost never have control over other people’s actions

When next you find yourself in a ‘this is all about me’ spiral, try naming the story.

I call mine ‘The Whitney Houston Story,’ ‘cos she’s the ultimate, most powerful diva (and I LOVE her). Naming this particular story after her reminds me that:

I’m not the axis of the Universe upon which everything else turns
people make decisions all the time for many reasons
ALMOST NONE of ‘em have anything to do with me
If I were Whitney Houston, maybe I could justify the assumption that people make decisions all the time because of me and that I truly am the centre of the Universe BUT - I’m not Whitney Houston.

I ended up going to the meeting anyway on my boss’ orders and I got the scoop on what had actually happened...

The President had confused me with his mate’s wife ‘cos we have the same name (fun side note: his mate in question was none other than Timor Leste’s first President/the leader of the guerrilla resistance prior to independence!).

He even showed me on his ipad the email he’d sent her - which was meant for me - and we had a little chuckle together (a true WTF is life moment!).

Next time you feel responsible/at fault/targeted/excluded and there’s no evidence to support it...remember that it’s just a story you’re telling yourself.

And say ‘hi’ to Whitney for me!