RantWoman is about to OD on conflicts and conflict resolution workshops for the merry month of March.
To wit:
1. RantWoman has 4 Monday night sessions scheduled of conflict resolution class in her housing community. This involves a vivid assortment of vexatious circumstances. Here is a good further summary of some of the circumstances:
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2010/03/conflict-and-irritation-without.html
2. Adult Religious Education class at Meeting features Conflict Resolution as part of the Peace Testimony. Has RantWoman already mentioned that, yes indeed, among Dear Friend's many talents is that he TEACHES CONFLICT RESOLUTION? Let us just say, this fact is adding yet another wrinkle to the problem of just sitting with many forms of complexity.
Furthermore, Dear Friend is clerk of the Adult Religious Education committee and he is leading the discussions! Can anyone guess why this might not be the most comfortable situation in the world? Can anyone guess that there might be simmering conflicts, cognitive dissonance, and numerous other stress symptoms all over the place?
RantWoman has been conscious for several months of monthly cycles of getting flipped out for a few days every month about things to do with the Compost melodrama. This might include reading and responding to drafts of minutes, extra phone calls, late nights pounding out emails draft emails, draft blog posts and lots of extra frequently detectable steam around RantWoman's ears at odd moments for no reason apparent to anyone else. Monthly cycles have mostly been manageable with detectable if idiosyncratic evidence of progress in numerous dimensions.
Weekly cycles are really darn well another thing on the stress-o-meter. RantWoman did not exactly volunteer to be restimulated so regularly. No, she just volunteered the entire staff of the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing to attend the events in her community. The entire staff did not of course sign up, but given RantWoman's role in signing anyone up, not showing up really is not an option.
RantWoman very fast gave herself the option of just skipping Adult Ed but opted not to for two reasons. First, if she wants her body to stay wired to get up in a timely way, she does not want to undo its current training for a month hiatus. Second, for the most part discussions and exchanges among other Friends have been very meaningful, important, and illuminating as far as diverse views and perspectives; in fact, others' comments most assuredly confirm things RantWoman herself tried for months to convey to Dear Friend. The "for the most part" is definitely both to Dear Friend's credit and further ferocious reminder of all that there is to be present with. IN any case, RantWoman has found the discussions more than worthwhile enough to overcome SOME of her jitters.
RantWoman once or twice detected signs of Dear Friend getting overstimulated. RantWoman detects this; RantWoman again has ferocious reflexes of the "sorry, you are not the only person in pain in this conversation" sort. RantWoman does not even feel in any darn kind of hurry about tending to this.
To make matters worse, RantWoman has recently reread a couple emails from the very beginning of the Compost melodrama. In those emails, RantWoman was speaking to some critical work-related deadlines which Dear Friend was exhibiting no respect whatsoever for and instead demanding conversation in a form RantWoman was clear, very clear was not something she felt comfortable about.
RantWoman is very clear about a leading, due partly to her experience around people at the Friendly Neighborhood Center... to go all Testimony on Equality on the situation. "Okay, so you have problems. Get in line. So do others. Your problems are not a big fat chicken-clucking get out of jail free card. Take a number. Be glad I don't just sit you down and make you read Job or somehting."
But back to conflict resolution class. RantWoman appreciates both that the content of the two class streams has been different enough for RantWoman to value both and that at least one week of Adult Ed involved enough of the same lingo as the other class to underscore RantWoman's surprisingly stern leading about further conversation from the following basket of concepts:
Avoid Accommodate Compromise Compete Collaborate
RantWoman is quite clear about leadings and boundaries; RantWoman remains unclear even about with whom to talk further even though RantWoman most assuredly needs help with further seasoning.
RantWoman and Dear Friend currently have a Friend from Oversight helping with adult supervision in email. RantWoman admits this is probably a good idea though numerous rough edges are probably still coming through. RantWoman looked Adult Supervision Friend up on a certain social networking site and expect he may or may not be charmed to be a party to passing on more of RantWoman's peeves about Powerpoint; RantWoman supposes need of a certain level of thick skin comes with Adult Supervision Friend's job title.
RantWoman is also in passing meditating on use of work-related email for decidedly not work-related uses. RantWoman knows some firms may just consider that a perk; others have policies explicitly proscribing it. RantWoman has also had jobs where work-related email is public record. So perhaps when RantWoman is not passing along more than Adult Supervision Friend may think he wants to know of other topics, RantWoman will broach the topic.
RantWoman has also been conscious of including in the mail forwards pointed reference to topics that are important to the life and fabric of many Quaker meetings but that do not trip casually off the tongue in some social contexts. RantWoman has previously posted about one such topic and finally spelled out that thinking to Adult Supervision Friend with an invitation to ask more if he wanted. So far he has not and RantWoman is just filing the observation for now.
RantWoman is meditating about her own ambivalence about further conversations: on one hand, RantWoman desparately needs the right conversations. On the other hand, RantWoman really has no stomach for excess conversation of the chattery and restimulating sort. RantWoman is quite grateful actually for Adult Supervision Friend's comparative reticence, though more of the right conversation is definitely still needed.
As far as the right conversations, RantWoman's mental health practitioner asked her a question that has caused RantWoman to want to have conversations with her siblings. These exact conversations have not happened and RantWoman now suspects that the theme will need to season quite a while longer.
For awhile, RantWoman has also kind of wanted someone to say "Dear Friend reminds you of your father? Really? Why? Oh you poor dear!" and then to move on to the elements of the problem that are just laughable. RantWoman thanks one person for really, really good giggles on this score and does not even apologize that some of the content is way too much even for RantWoman's standards of telling way too much of the truth in her blog. RantWoman supposes she should also be grateful to be deterred from overdoing this line of giggle opportunity by this person's other tiresome issues, but sometimes one takes one's giggles when they come.
RantWoman is writing this in the midst of doing some of her homework for the class in her building. RantWoman grossly oversimplifies with the following vocabulary from the class.
Think
Listen
Collaborate
Okay, so RantWoman got stuck on the Think part: like all good geeks, RantWoman was led to mental data collection. Oh boy did RantWoman do data collection. RantWoman did the sort of data collection which, immediately upon sending it off to someone for help with, RantWoman realized it should in no way get sent any further. RantWoman does not even apologize for leaving it up to her readers' febrile imaginations to divine the content of such data collection. RantWoman is pretty sure most of her readers can just substitute their own darn issues! Meanwhile, this text will join a growing collection of draft emails and draft blog posts RantWoman is glad to have penned and unclear what if anything to do with next.
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