The opportunity I found in resentment

Are you someone’s employee? I am. As a matter of fact I was, I think, the second hire ever at the health center where I’ve worked for almost 20 years. We opened June 29, 2006 and I had the privilege of seeing our first two patients ever on that day, a baby and a four year old from an awesome immigrant family who are now thriving in college and grad school.

You might be able to hear how lucky I am in my work. Being the family doctor for so many people from so many places – our patients come from over 100 countries and speak more than 60 languages – I learn from these folks every day.

But in that many years of working at the same place, I have to tell you – it’s changed, often. And like anyone who counts on their work for their family’s safety and wellbeing and not just for personal satisfaction, I have been… bothered by a lot of those changes. Every new office manager, policy, location, staffing, schedule change has somehow caught me by surprise. And that surprise quickly turns – as you know if you’ve been around for these emails – to fear of loss, to distrust, to discomfort. And it’s easy to start to resent the change.

Does any of this sound familiar?

But with hundreds of work changes for practice, I’ve finally identified a moment. A moment when my loss and distrust and discomfort push me to start a story to myself about how THIS change isn’t fair or reasonable or necessary. Which, I’ve noticed, is when I start feeling resentful. Resentful of the decision maker or the communication or the burden I’m going to experience from it.

What’s the hack for this?

Turn my statement into a question.

Instead of starting a story of “This is dumb, (or time consuming or unnecessary or whatever)” I try “Is this dumb?”

Just flipping my internal narrative into a question causes me to learn more, think about it from other perspectives and reserve judgment – at least for a full minute. And it turns my resentment into resilience.

Your turn – got anything you’re feeling resentful about? What could you ask?

All my best,

Dr. G