A Bridge to Being Curious in Everyday Ramblings

I think this is beautiful. This is the view looking back at our river this last Saturday morning with the new non-car bridge going up in the background. We haven’t seen anything but cloud cover or rain since then. Well except for the fierce scouring winds are opening up little tiny blue patches now and again.

The Women’s Circle discussion was not quite what we expected at all. Female Aggression is such a broad topic and somehow we veered onto how we react when we get angry.

And what makes us angry and act aggressively (and without stating it out loud, how inconsequential things like talking to the cable company or erroneously priced produce at Whole Foods or customer service people who barely understand the language one is speaking or everybody on the bus in an inside seat with their stuff in the outside seat and headphones on eyes glued to their electronic device… drive us to behave in unbecoming ways.)

We didn’t come to any conclusions but I think everybody left more aware of the idea of female aggression and my topic partner and I both expressed a wish to revisit it in a more defined context next year.

We had good food and lots of choices and the room was full of caring and intellectual prowess. It was a small group, only about nine of us; which is why the discussion didn’t quite go as planned. We were going to split into two groups but it seemed silly to do that while we were all looking at each other and talking and eating.

It is interesting because working with the topic preparation over the last few weeks I have become aware of my own aggressive tendencies. And in just what kind of indirect ways I express them. And what the triggers are.

I was asked to do a draft piece of writing for work recently and this morning in a meeting a manager while not exactly criticizing the draft made it clear it wasn’t what she needed. And then proceeded to go on about how we were all numbers people and not writers…

Whoa baby… I had a whoosh of anger… And she felt it. She has no idea I write poetry or have been writing blog posts for almost 14 years. And that made me mad. Nor honestly, could she care less. She has been assigned the job of managing “my” project and she just wants it done.

But you know what? That is my problem, not hers. Clearly I have unmet needs for validation and appreciation regarding my writing. And I think that is where a lot of female aggression comes from. Unmet needs, and an unskillful handling of that like I expressed in the meeting today.

One of the things that did come up in our discussion about female aggression in the workplace at Women’s Circle is that it is often in play when there is weak or ineffective management.

This particular manager is as much a victim of that as I am. We were both dealing with the consequences of bad decisions further up the food chain and everybody has bad days and too much to do.

When we can take the emotional charge out of these things we can get curious and investigate solutions.

I should be ready for that, in this case, oh say, by… Friday. :)