Being sick, combined with the worsening situation with QB at work brought me to my knees. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that kind of anxiety. I dumped about it to one of my musician friends & with a beaming smile, she said “Congratulations.”

Was she serious? Yes.

“You’re changing your life,” she laughed, “and doing one helluva job, too.”

Light bulb moment!

The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that the worst that could happen was really pretty good. It was a revelation that opened a world of choices…

“You know, you can close the door on that crap anytime,” she said, “even if it is just a rolling shower door,” a light-hearted reference to my cubicle door.

I felt instantly lifted, and for the next few days, whenever I felt the anxiety creeping back in, I’d picture myself closing that rolling shower door on “them” & it made me happy…

Within a few days, I’d regained my footing & was seeing this “war” from a whole new angle. I decided to play my own game. Where they expected me to wilt, I’d stand. Where they expected me to react, I’d think.

They had spent the past few weeks painting me as some kind of hysteric, so I decided to release my anxiety through my music & bring calm confidence into my project’s peer review.

In spite of an attack from one of the old boys who came in with his own agenda, I was unshaken. The effect was dramatic. Rather than escalating my conflict with QB & her drone, it soothed things out. Instead of feeling uneasy, they felt good. So rather than fighting me, they began supporting me, taking my side against the old boy, even answering questions for me.

The middle managers all said, “Good review. You’re ready to take this one forward.” After it was over, “they” each came to me and told me, “You look great. You must be feeling a LOT better.” I was.

I spent most of the afternoon in my cube with my rolling shower door closed. A few people came by, knocked & poked their head in to say hi and then rolled the door shut behind them. I ventured out to talk with quite a few others, just to reassert myself & make sure my team knew that I was still paying attention.

At one point, I caught myself staring proudly at my shower door. Ok, so it’s just plastic… But in the cubicle wasteland, any barrier that people can’t see over or through is a FORTRESS…

I felt a rush of power. Not the kind of power that comes from tinkering with the fates of other people, but the kind that comes from remembering that a person can change their whole world just by changing themselves…

:)