I joked with a dear friend this week that I should write a book called 50 percent angel, 50 percent asshole. The truth is I’m both.

I’m struggling to hold all the parts of me in my hands, judging the parts of me that get spun up over circumstances. The “vibrations in my body” were so uncomfortable today as I managed my thinking around parenting, time, and money. I am able to separate my thoughts, identify the emotions coming from them, and then I acknowledged them, the feelings. The thoughts are so loaded and produce anger, shame, annoyance, righteousness, and I feel broadsided by these avalanches. Managing thoughts by myself is work. Then having to manage them while having a conversation with the person in the circumstance had me vibrating like crazy. How did I show up the conversation? T: I’m going to share the situation from my perspective of a parent. After trading T/F/A, T/F/A in conversation, what’s in my R line? I state my expectations of how I want to be treated and insist on my way. Specifically, I said: In X situation, I expect you to do Y because I am the one who is paying you, not my teenage daughter.

Those words are my new C.

New thought: I’m an asshole.

New feeling: remorseful.

Action: wonder if she will fire me/us as a client, if she will think I’m the cause of my daughter’s problems, that I’m not a great parent, use me as a client from hell example, or generally feel as confused and mad about the situation as I am

It’s like when two manuals collide: each person’s expectations of each other.

I guess my question is: when do I stop feeling like an asshole? what thought isn’t serving me here? how do I navigate conflict with more grace in real time when the vibrations are so strong?

Will I get better at this?