Lessons in Chaos
The truth is that it is not the beloved people in our lives who teach us the most important lessons; it is our tormentors.
I learned this when I worked for a woman who could rank high in the Worse Boss List – the national one, not the small regional list. This woman was abusive, manipulative, dishonest, and prone to ugly temper tantrums. More than once I saw employees in tears after one of her abrupt tirades. More than once I wanted to smack her in the head after I felt my own confidence being reduced to a quivering little girl. Furthermore, she made bad business decisions, so there wasn’t even an undercurrent of trust in her leadership to lean on. She was the personification of the chaos my counselor told me I was attracted to and urged me to learn to deal with appropriately.
So, of course, my greatest instinct was to run, run far away, rather than turning and facing such ugliness. Within weeks of taking the job, I began frantically looking for a way out, but, as a newly single mother I could not simply quit a job that fed the family and I could not find another one.
So, grudgingly, feeling sorry for myself, I stayed. I went to work every day wondering how much longer I would have to endure this torture. I stayed in my windowless office as much as possible. I tried to move quietly and keep my head down. I lost sleep. My joints ached and I snapped at my children. And, then, I made a decision that on the surface made no sense and in reality was rather selfish and self-serving.
My religious tradition calls for the 40 days before Easter called Lent to be observed by giving something up or taking on a discipline to remind ourselves of Jesus’ sacrifice. I usually find myself taking something on, so it was on a cold February day, I decided my Lenten discipline that year would be to pray for this woman.
I told myself that every time I had a negative thought about my boss, I would ask God to send her blessings. Nothing elaborate, just send a blessing. And since it was every time I thought badly of her, in those first few weeks, she was showered with blessings.
I would love to report that there was an instant change; that I felt an abundance of love and peace wash over me and began wearing flowers in my hair. Not so much. Instead, these moments of asking for blessings were more like a petulant child saying she is sorry to her big sister through clenched teeth. It was truly a discipline.
But finally, gradually, achingly slow, the time between prayers became longer. I found I did not think so negatively about her as many times in a day and the constriction around my chest eased a bit. And one day, I looked back on the weeks before and discovered she had actually begun treating me better. Lent ended but I kept on with the offering of blessings toward my boss. As the months passed, I had to admit that our relationship was better. We were able to work more smoothly and have reasonable conversations about projects that needed doing.
After I moved on to another job and was able to look back at my experience with some distance, I could see the lessons learned. My boss didn’t really change. She was still obnoxious and abusive. But I had changed. I took control of my own internal quivering child and taught her how to react with peaceful nonviolence. I stood toe to toe with Chaos and beat it back with compassion and blessing, both to another person and to myself. And I realized that when I shifted something inside, something must have changed about me on the outside because I stopped being a target.
I could leave it at that – a happy ever after story with me as the humble heroine. But it wouldn’t be the whole truth. The truth is in this journey of blessing the Beast, I also got to see the Beast in me. It took me a while to admit there had been a change. While I marveled at the swirling cosmic forces that somehow linked my prayers with our relationship, a part of me still wanted to cling to the bad and not recognize the better. There was comfort in being the victim and I certainly didn’t want to admit that I had any part in the negative vibes. Being honest about that took a while.
So, in the end, I learned this: in the face of painful Chaos, it is better to stand still and look at it rather than run. It is better to find the blessing and use that to tame what is ugly. And then, it is important to turn and see the Chaos within and use the same blessing to reduce the Beast in ourselves.
Robin is a mother, daughter, friend, writer, and photographer. She has spent her career working as a journalist or non-profit manager while writing essays and poems on the side. Her work has appeared in Amaranth Journal, Snapdragon Journal, Amethyst Review, This I Believe radio program and in Trailway News magazine She lives in N.E. Georgia with two hoodlum cats.
